Megadeth notches its second No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Top Rock Albums charts and its fourth on Top Hard Rock Albums, as The Sick, The Dying… And the Dead! launches atop the Sept. 17-dated rankings.
The LP opens with 48,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Sept. 8, according to Luminate. Of that sum, 45,000 units are from album sales.
Megadeth first debuted atop and led Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Top Rock Albums in 2016 with Dystopia. On Top Hard Rock Albums, those titles likewise began at No. 1, with the band having also ruled with 2011’s Th1rt3en and 2009’s Endgame.
Concurrently, as previously reported, the new album begins at No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200, marking Megadeth’s eighth top 10. The group first reached the tier with 1992’s No. 2-peaking Countdown to Extinction, the Dave Mustaine-led band’s highest charting entry on the chart. (The rock genre album surveys did not begin until the mid-2000s.)
Dead also commands Top Album Sales, becoming Megadeth’s first leader on the list, outperforming the No. 2 peaks of Countdown and Dystopia.
The title track from Dead debuts at No. 21 on Billboard‘s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart, driven by 771,000 official U.S. streams. Another song from the album has made the tally: “We’ll Be Back,” which spent a week at No. 14 in July.
The album’s lead single, “Soldier On!,” hit No. 31 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay list dated Sept. 10, having become the band’s 23rd entry on the chart, dating to its first in 1992.
