Metallica debuts at Number Two on the Billboard 200 albums chart with their 11th studio set, 72 Seasons. The album is the band's first studio album since 1988's …And Justice For All not to top the charts. 72 Seasons, which is the band's first in seven years, marks not only their 12th Top 10 album — but their eighth to have reached the Top Two.
Billboard reported, "(72 Seasons) debuts with 146,000 units earned — achieving the largest week, by units, for any rock or hard rock album in over three-and-a-half years."
Across the globe, 72 Seasons has hit Number One on the UK, Australian, Belgian, Dutch, Finnish, German, Irish, New Zealand, Scottish, Swedish, and Swiss album charts.
Kirk Hammett told us not long ago that Metallica has to be in better than average shape to play its music live: ["There's a physicality to our music that we cannot ignore, so we just kind of have to keep ourselves in a certain sort of physical sort of state where that, y'know, we can't let ourselves get to a point where we can't play these songs, y'know? That's just not allowed. Y'know, when we write this music, we have to make sure that we can play it and play it, y'know, when we need to play it."] SOUNDCUE (:22 OC: . . . to play it)
Metallica kicks off their upcoming tour on April 27th and 29th at Amsterdam's Johan Cruijff Arena.
