‘Metallica’ & The 9 Other Best-Selling Albums During the SoundScan Era

Metallica released their self-titled fifth studio album on August 12, 1991. Affectionately known as "The Black Album," the LP became a game-changer for the band. It also had a massive impact on the music industry at large thanks to the game-changing technology then known as SoundScan, which premiered on March 1, 1991.

Per a feature piece from Billboard, "SoundScan, which is now known as MRC Data, measured album sales as they happened — stores scanned bar codes at the checkout register — and over the next few months [after its launch] it upended the conventional music business wisdom about what sold, as well as when and how. It revealed the popularity of several genres — alternative rock, country, hip-hop, harder metal — that had been seen as commercially marginal compared to bread-and-butter pop-rock bands."

Basically, SoundScan provided real-time data of what was actually selling at record stores and other retailers, and it has provided proof of Metallica's popularity.

Of course, not everyone is a fan of "The Black Album." Metallica appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September 2021 and read 1-star Amazon reviews of the LP. Fortunately, they were good sports about the whole thing. Then again, when you make Metallica money, it takes more than a bizarre review to truly ruin your day.

So, which was the best 1-star review of "The Black Album"? One review that stood out read, "I bought this when it came out. I was horrified when I listened to it. I threw it off a bridge and watched a truck smash it."

That being said, just how popular are the metal icons? "The Black Album" is the biggest-selling record in the United States since the launch of SoundScan.

Metallica, however, has some very unique company on the list of the biggest-selling albums of the SoundScan era. Scroll through the gallery below to see which titles join them in the top ten.