Metallica’s Black Album Marks Sales Milestone

I remember being at the midnight release of Metallica's self titled album (aka The Black Album) and it has now hit a pretty impressive sales milestone. 

According to figures released by Nielsen Sound Scan, sales of Metallica's self-titled album, often referred to as The Black Album has surpassed 16 million units sold; making it the first album to pass the 16 million mark since they started keeping tabs on stuff like that.

Billboard says that the milestone makes the album the best selling album of the Nielsen Sound Scan era.

The album sold another three thousand copies just last week pushing it up 11 spots to number 144 on the Billboard Top 200 and keeping it on the charts for the 307th week. In case you're not that great with math, that's five years and nine months.

I remember being at the midnight release of this album at Sam Goody. I felt like a dork because I was with my sister and my mom, but I didn't care. I remember her CD was in the big long cardboard package that isn't used anymore. My sister took the CD out of the cardboard, opened the case with all the plastic on it and promptly dropped the case and busted it on the way out to the car. We all stopped and stared at it for a moment before she picked it up. The CD was fine, but that was close. I had to buy the cassette tape because I wasn't cool enough to have a CD player.

I remember the opening notes of Enter Sandman and I immediately knew I had to learn how to play guitar, and you know what? I did and just a couple of years ago, I put on a mini concert in the basement of my house and that song was the first one we played. Still hurts my wrist like a mofo, but it's a fun (and easy) song to play.