What was the first heavy metal song to sell one million copies?
Historically, heavy metal hasn’t had much luck with the charts.
The reasons speak for themselves. When you have something built so heavily on formulaic structures and progressions, something that some people consider ‘niche’, like heavy metal, doesn’t immediately fit those paradigms, even less so when the singer or band doesn’t look the part, either.
That’s why, when an artist within that category smashes into mainstream spaces, it’s a majorly impressive feat, and many across history have made the jump from low-key metal acts to mainstream rock legends, including Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Slipknot, and more, but even those mega-acts struggle from time to time when it comes to commercial success and charting position.
It’s mainly because pop music is so dominant that songs from other genres have to fight twice as hard to reap the same rewards, because after all, there have only been a handful of heavy metal songs to reach the number one spot, and they are Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’, Iron Maiden’s ‘Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter’, and Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s Out’, and interestingly, two out of three of those came as an opposing force to mainstream tropes and people channelling their energy into challenging the status quo.
And the third one followed a similar pattern, rebelling against exhausted norms to shake up the system with something authentic. However, successful rock and heavy metal don’t always come as a response to cultural events. In fact, those who have surpassed the million sales mark often did so based on organic reasons, proving that when the music is good, people will almost always seek it out for themselves.
What was the first heavy metal song to sell one million copies?
For reasons that we’re all familiar with, Black Sabbath released what is now considered to be the first real heavy metal album in 1970. Many of the songs in the tracklist have made their way onto to greatest-ever heavy metal songs of all time, including the title track, which is also considered to be one of the first-ever doom metal songs in history.
However, one of the major moments was with Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’, which sold more than 9million copies in the US alone and was considered by some to be even more significant in the realm of metal achievements. It might have sparked a hefty amount of backlash among loyal fans of the band who, as expected, started calling them sellouts, but it ultimately revolutionised the game for hard rock while pulling mainstream audiences into more traditional rock styles.
Although the band were met with their share of criticism, most people praised them for introducing metal tropes to mainstream spaces, even if metal fans would consider the song more pop-leaning than anything that resembled the band’s earlier thrash sound. What is perhaps more impressive is that this wasn’t a single occurrence for the band, who also went on to enjoy similar achievements with a series of other hits, cementing their position as rock legends who transcend the rules of mainstream success.
It also changed the game with expected themes and messages in mainstream music, tapping into the one thing that most people can relate to: childhood nightmares. The sense of foreboding we all recognise comes from the riff and the careful, slow build of the melody into the chorus, creating a uniquely comforting world that keeps you coming back.
