Billboard.com have compiled Nielsen Music‘s tracking data to establish lists of the various top selling rock albums and singles of the year. Using data captured during December 30th, 2016 through to June 29th, 2017, they found that Metallica‘s latest album “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct” is the most popular rock album in the United States in 2017, shifting 540,000 units, of which 487,000 were traditional album sales.
The album is also the top selling rock album of 2017 thus far with sales bolstered significantly by a ticket promotion that saw copies of the album included with tickets purchased for their summer North American tour. If you’re unaware, units refers to streaming with 1500 song streams considered being equivalent to one album sale for tracking/charting purposes.
According to Billboard, the top 10 rock albums of the year thus far (based on album equivalent unit sales) include:
01. Metallica – “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct” (540,000)
02. Twenty One Pilots – “Blurryface” (451,000)
03. Various Artists – “Guardians Of The Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2” (353,000)
04. Imagine Dragons – “Evolve” (345,000)
05. Various Artists – “Suicide Squad: The Album” (303,000)
06. Panic! At The Disco – “Death of a Bachelor” (281,000)
07. Gorillaz – “Humanz” (274,000)
08. John Mayer – “The Search For Everything” (259,000)
09. The Beatles – “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (233,000)
10. Twenty One Pilots – “Vessel” (216,000)
The top selling rock albums of the year (based on traditional album sales) include:
01. Metallica – “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct” (487,000)
02. Various Artists – “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2: Awesome Mix, Vol. 2” (351,000)
03. Gorillaz – “Humanz” (184,000)
04. Twenty One Pilots – “Blurryface” (177,000)
05. John Mayer – “The Search For Everything” (169,000)
06. Linkin Park – “One More Light” (130,000)
07. Panic! At The Disco – “Death Of A Bachelor” (113,000)
08. Imagine Dragons – “Evolve” (109,000)
09. Various Artists – “Suicide Squad: The Album” (101,000)
10. The Rolling Stones – “Blue & Lonesome” (92,000)
Other notable inclusions upon the charts were Linkin Park‘s collaboration with Kiiara, “Heavy“, landing at #2 on the top 10 selling digital rock songs of the year with 361,000 sold. Disturbed‘s cover of Simon And Garfunkel‘s “The Sound Of Silence” landed at #7 on that chart with 211,000 sold.
Disturbed‘s take on that track also landed at #9 in the top 10 on-demand rock song streams, which combines both audio and video streams. Their cover notched up a staggering 67,132,000 total streams, with the video for it landing at #9 in the top ten on-demand rock video streams with 36,544,000 streams. You can dig into the rest of the charts over at Billboard.com. Additional charting data for the year thus far with a focus on metal and hard rock can be found here.
