
Metallica’s 1991 self-titled fifth LP, aka “The Black Album,” just spent its 750th week on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming only the fourth album in history to achieve that milestone.
Billboard reports that “The Black Album” only trails Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (990 weeks), Bob Marley’s best-of compilation Legend (843 weeks), and Journey’s Greatest Hits (813 weeks) as far as the most non-consecutive weeks spent on the all-genre album chart.
“The Black Album” also remains the best-selling album of the SoundScan era (which began in 1991) with more than 17 million copies sold in the United States alone. The LP features the Metallica classics “Enter Sandman,” “The Unforgiven,” “Sad but True,” “Wherever I May Roam,” and “Nothing Else Matters,” among other songs.
On the latest Billboard 200, “The Black Album” sits at No. 168. For reference, that’s way higher than pop star Justin Timberlake’s new LP, Everything I Thought It Was, which dropped off the chart entirely after four weeks of release.
More than 30 years after the release of “The Black Album,” and more than 40 years since the band formed, Metallica are still going strong. The metal legends are in the midst of their massive two-year “M72 World Tour,” playing two shows in each city. A new North American leg of the outing launches August 2nd and 4th in Foxborough, Massachusetts, with tickets available here.
In another milestone, the music video for “Enter Sandman” has reached the very metal number of 666 million views on YouTube as of this posting. Watch the classic clip below.