From Blabbermouth.net
- Although the SoundScan numbers are generally indicative of the bands' overall popularity, they are misleading in the sense that many of the veteran death metal groups' early efforts were issued prior to the start of the SoundScan era (May 25, 1991).
The following are the total sales figures for several of the genre's forerunners, according to Nielsen SoundScan (all numbers include any DVD and VHS releases, where applicable):
CANNIBAL CORPSE: 558,929
DEICIDE: 481,131
MORBID ANGEL: 445,147
SIX FEET UNDER: 370,660
OBITUARY: 368,616
DEATH: 368,184
NAPALM DEATH: 367,654
CARCASS: 220,734
ENTOMBED: 198,764
The top-selling death metal albums of the SoundScan era are as follows:
MORBID ANGEL - "Covenant" (1993): 127,154
DEICIDE - "Deicide" (1990): 110,719*
DEICIDE - "Legion" (1992): 103,544
OBITUARY - "The End Complete" (1992): 103,378
CANNIBAL CORPSE - "The Bleeding" (1994): 98,319
No big shocks, although Soundscan is probably not the best way to measure the sales of these bands. Most death metal albums don't get sold through large chain stores, so many of sales won't show up on the Soundscan charts. Plus, it only takes into account American sales. I know for a fact that both Cannibal Corpse and Napalm Death have worldwide sales of over a million each. I've also been told that Morbid Angel's Covenant and Domination albums have sold about 250,000 copies a piece. Also, I've often heard that Obituary's The End Complete is the top selling death metal album of all time, but I'm not sure if that was supposed to be worldwide or strictly in America. Still, considering that these bands don't exatcly play the most, uh, commercial music, their sales are pretty impressive.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - iacob
Hi
I have and idea of strange selling, I live in Romania, Province Transilvania near Dracula`s (Real Name Vlad Tepes) castle in Bran, and grave, Let`s sell earth in little parcels , purses, (in gram`s 300-400), from his grave, or from near his castle like a souvenir or a strange gift...:-)))))))
Name: Iacob Emil
Adrees: Barbu Delavrancea nr 8
City: Deva
Province: hunedoara
Country: Romania
Zip: 2700
2 - BRICKLAYER
Hi Iacob,
Please sign me up for 2 parcels. May I please have them personalized and gift wrapped for my parents? Dig deep, as I want the good stuff!
3 - ivan
iiiiivvvvaaannnnssss aaa cccaaaaaaannibbbbaaaallll
4 - TDavid
Great Ivan, you have demonstrated that you can break the formatting of the site by having one long, uninteruptible string of letters.
Eric/Phillip -- the PHP function to deal with this is wordwrap()
5 - Eric Olsen
Thanks TD, we will whip this site into Precise Modern Lovers shape eventually!
6 - lordul
yeas i can` send you ....earth:-)))
7 - Eric Olsen
and mix it with Faygo to make ... mud!
8 - mat
I can't believe Six Feet Under are up there, I thought they were very ordinary and just rolling on Barnes' name. NOt impressed by any of their albums, more like Obituary already been there done that.
9 - Chris Puzak
I find their popularity inexplicable as well. I think they had one halfway decent album (Maximimum Violence, and then a lot of material that was either mediocre or just plain awful.
10 - victor
wat bout the melodic death metal bands like inflames and children of bodom?????????
11 - ryan
they are all go death metal bands and six feet under does just have one good ablum of of them are good just as good as cannibal corpse and deicide they are all good bands.
12 - ryan
they are all go death metal bands and six feet under doesn't just have one good ablum all of them are good just as good as cannibal corpse and deicide they are all good bands.
13 - Magic
It is a shame that Death sold less then any of these "top" bands... No metal bands can compare their music to masterpieces Chuck Shuldiner created...How you can even compare Cannibal Corpse boring and repeated style to melodic and technical Death?
14 - Mark Metal
I can't say I'm surprised by any of these bands, even Six Feet Under. I wonder what the numbers would look like now - but I suspect the longest lasting bands are still top in terms of sales.
15 - Lauren
Death should be at the top of this list. Morbid Angel and Obituary are also really awesome, but Death is just completely amazing, best death metal band. R.I.P. Chuck Schuldiner.
16 - John
I completely agree with you Lauren (#15).
17 - Joshua M. Dierickx
I thought that Death would be at least 2 or 3, but not at 6. What happened? No matter. Death is the technical death band on this list. I thought they would count Human? That is a very good album. Rest in Peace, Chuck!
18 - Josh
I love death. Especially Symbolic, Spiritual Healing, Human, and Individual Thought Patterns!
19 - Josh
I agree with Lauren too, especially since she's my girlfriend and Death is both our favorite death metal band of all-time. They deserve to be up at the top, because they are the best.
20 - Findlay
I rate Morbid Angel as top amongst those bands listed.
I don't understand sub-genres though, there is a fine line between these metal sub-genres, I'm more of a thrash fan at heart, but still love my death metal.
All due respect to all the others on this list.
m/ m/
21 - SCAVENGER OF HUMAN SORROW
DEATH sold 2 millions worldwide
22 - Bill
Deicide is the greatest album ever made
23 - Hello
Everything is metal. No more technical melodic progressive bullshit, please. Death deserves to be at the top. RIP CHUCK SCHULDINER.
24 - Chirag
Six Feet Under is recognized just because of Barnes' presence.
nothing special about their music.
25 - Dan
@Hello
You're retarded. In Flames, Sepultura, Morbid Ange, Rainbow, Sleep, Anata, and Gorguts aren't all the same genre. Theres a reason there are sub-genres.