AC/DC And Metallica Still Racking Up Impressive Album Sales

According to Nielsen SoundScan catalogue charts AC/DC and Metallica had the top-selling albums last year among albums that are more than two years old.

AC/DC sold 440,000 copies of it’s Back In Black album last year. That’s pretty impressive for an album that was released in 1980 – about 27 years ago!

Metallica, on the other hand, sold an impressive 275, copies of their self-titled album during the same period. Those are numbers that could probably be envied by an artist who was releasing a brand-new album.

Classic rock stays strong and I believe a big part of it is due to the quality of the music we have been hearing from contemporary bands for a while now.

I just don’t hear much music today that I — as a rock fan — consider worth listening to.

I’ve been a fan of the David Letterman show since the 1980’s and watch pretty regularly. He often has contemporary rock groups on his program and I’d have to say that 9 out of 10 of them that I have seen just plain suck.

For example, a few nights ago he had a group called White Rabbits on. I don’t think I listened to more than 10 seconds of that group before turning it off. Sorry White Rabbits fans, but to me it was just noise — like so many other contemporary acts.

Classic rock groups like Led Zeppelin, Rush, Yes, Kansas and others make most of today’s groups look like amateurs. Those old dudes could — and in many cases — still can, play!

I don’t know what the hell has happened but these days there is too little emphasis on musicianship and originality. Maybe there is some hope for the future knowing there are young guys like MindWalk out there who are up-and-coming.