Testament Record Sales

[one man]

LOL, then what is reliable in their eyes? Direct info from Nielsen SoundScan? But how does one substantiate he got it from there?

I hope at least the band interviews and official chart websites (plus the label website) are found reliable on Wikipedia. After all they did include some of the chart positions there (not without mistakes, though).

 

[Necroshine95]

They erased what I put about Practice what you Preach and The Ritual

 

[one man]

Damn, they must be the jealous Anthrax or Exodus fans. Too bad, such info should be out there. But it's not the first time I see censorship on there.

 

[one man]

http://answerparty.com/question/answer/How-many-of-Testament's-The-Formation-Of-Damnation-albums-sell here's an information that TFOD has sold over a million copies worldwide. The website doesn't look credible to me, but may be a starting point for further search. Same "data"'s here: http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-of-testament's-the-formation-of-damnation-albums-sell. I wonder where they took that from. A million copies is not totally impossible, but does seem way exaggerated. Eric mentioned 300 k copies worldwide in 2011. It couldn't have tripled within less than 2 years, and I doubt Eric's info was less accurate than the info on the aforementioned sites.

As for the whole wikipedia thing - I'm wondering - do they consider Blabbermouth info reliable? 'Cause BBM used to copy the SludgeScans info back when the SludgeScans were still being updated.

 

[Sole Reaper]

I don't think anyone considers blabbermouth reliable. The site is good for some info, but half of it is bullcrap, and the other half is still questionable

 

[Necroshine95]

I don't think anyone considers blabbermouth reliable. The site is good for some info, but half of it is bullcrap, and the other half is still questionable

Well for some reason they consider it reliable! But Sludgescan isn't lol they're wierd

 

[Necroshine95]

http://answerparty.com/question/answer/How-many-of-Testament's-The-Formation-Of-Damnation-albums-sell here's an information that TFOD has sold over a million copies worldwide. The website doesn't look credible to me, but may be a starting point for further search. Same "data"'s here: http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-of-testament's-the-formation-of-damnation-albums-sell. I wonder where they took that from. A million copies is not totally impossible, but does seem way exaggerated. Eric mentioned 300 k copies worldwide in 2011. It couldn't have tripled within less than 2 years, and I doubt Eric's info was less accurate than the info on the aforementioned sites.

As for the whole wikipedia thing - I'm wondering - do they consider Blabbermouth info reliable? 'Cause BBM used to copy the SludgeScans info back when the SludgeScans were still being updated.

I've heard that one before about 300K and whataya mean when they were updated? Did they stop posting soundscans??

 

[one man]

They stopped posting SludgeScans. SoundScan is still going strong.

 

[Necroshine95]

Why'd they stop?!

 

[Necroshine95]

Also if anybody finds sales numbers on pre-soundscan Thrash classics like Bonded by Blood, Years of Decay, The New Order etc. lemmie know please

 

[one man]

I don't know why they stopped. I've sent an email to SludgeScan@metal-sludge.com but got no reply. They continue to update the rest of the site. So maybe if you send your request to their main email address (Info @ TuffCds . com) they'll post some new scans or at least explain why they stopped doing that (when sending the request try to be specific and give all the necessary album details, e.g. "TESTAMENT - The Ritual (1992), Atlantic Records").

As for the pre-soundscan numbers - those will be hard to find. I'm guessing the only source of official data would be the RIAA. I don't know if you could convince them to share it with you.

 

[Necroshine95]

I tried to send a request to them but it said "send failed" and I'll try RIAA

 

[Necroshine95]

Also does anyone know the current sales of The Electric Age and Dark Roots of Earth? I know the first week sales (6,500 and 20,720) but how bout as of 2013?

 

[one man]

Unfortunately, BBM has stopped posting updates on sales exceeding the first week (in the case of Formation of Damnation they were giving new info until it reached 50k). I'm assuming that once DROE will have reached 100k copies sold we'll get an update on that (that's what they did with the last Anthrax effort). It probably won't be the same with Electric Age, as it will take years until it sells that many copies.

Hopefully, the ongoing Testament-Overkill tour will help both bands increase the sales.

 

[one man]

BTW, have you tried to contact the guys at:

http://www.metalinsider.net/category/metal-by-numbers and http://www.metalsucks.net/category/neilstein-soundscam/?

They have permanent access to SoundScan data and are posting updates on new releases, but maybe when requested they'd be willing to look up the Testament and Overkill discography in the files.

 

[one man]

Here's some interesting info for you. If you write the following in Google:

ritual "232,000 copies"

the first result will be a link to an article in "Chicago Tribune", which is entitled "The Sad State of Heavy Metal". Unfortunately, the page won't open, but you can see a part of it that says:

Testament's 1992 "Ritual" sold 232,000 copies, but its 1995 "Live at the Fillmore" is only at 20,000. For the ardent fan, heavy metal continues to ...

The article is from March, 1996. That sheds some light on the Ritual's sales. If that source is accurate (and I've no reasons to believe it isn't), it sold almost a quarter million copies in less than 4 years following its release. Obviously, the majority of sales come within the first year, but I'm pretty sure it must have sold a lot of copies during the last almost 17 years too.

EDIT: found a way to access the whole article. Here it is: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-03-05/features/9603050004_1_heavy-metal-metal-bands-roadrunner-records.

There are some Chuck quotes there and Testament is viewed as one of the bands which may help metal get out of the hole it fell into during that time. Well, it is clear now that that diagnosis proved to be right.

 

[one man]

As I wrote in the other thread, I found precise DROE info. As of January 16th, 2013 the album has sold 53.673 copies, which isn't bad at all. It sold 845 copies in the week preceding that date, which was a 15% drop in sales as compared to the previous week when it sold 997 copies.

The Excel file with the info can be downloaded here:
http://vakseen.com/site/nielsen-soundscan-sales-11613/. Once you open the file go to the "Indie Albums" sheet.

I guess that's a relevant source for Wikipedia. I couldn't find the OverKill album there.

 

[Necroshine95]

In the U.S? That ain't bad at all. Thanks, and knowing Overkill Electric Age probably sold like mabye 20,000-25,000 max. I know Ironbound sold over 15,000 in its first month

 

[one man]

I see 4 million posted everywhere with that and it may not be as impossible as you think. I Hear Black sold 1.3 million WW and Feel the Fire has sold over 1 million WW as of 15 years ago. Plus they say Overkill has sold 16-23 million WW. As for them selling more than Testament in the U.S, I'm not too sure about that one Overkills top known sales in the States is Horrorscope with over 120,000 and The Ritual has sold nearly Gold. Also Electric Age sold 6,500 in its first week while Dark Roots of Earth sold 20,000. In the States Testament tops them and do u have a link to the Overkill forum and Megadeth forum? I also greatly appreciate your assistance by the way

I'm sorry, I somehow overlooked that post. Please let me reply below:

1. No, I wasn't implying Overkill sells more in the US than Testament. I only said that a bigger part of their album is sold in the US than elsewhere, unlike Testament which sells a lot outside of the US too. This doesn't mean that Overkill outsells Testament in the US. I only referred to proportions not total numbers. For example if Overkill sells 100.000 copies of an album worldwide, 60.000 of which is in the US that doesn't mean that they outsell Testament which sells 400.000 albums worldwide, 160.000 of which is in the US. It does, however, mean that a bigger percentage of Overkill's albums is sold within the US (60%) than Testament's (40%). Obviously I've just made these numbers up as an example.

2. I've never seen those numbers anywhere. Do you have any links to sites where such amounts are mentioned. They seem completely out of place in my eyes. Why didn't they get any gold albums in any country if they sold 20 million albums worldwide. Besides, we all agree that Testament sells much more than Overkill, and Eric mentioned last year they only sold over 4 million albums (I don't know how accurate that is but it gives you a perspective). There's no way Overkill sold 5 times more than that (They would have been in line with Slayer and Megadeth and ahead of Anthrax in terms of popularity, which unfortunately is not true).

3. Here's the link to the OverKill forum: http://wreckingcrew.com/yabb2/YaBB.pl.

As for the Megadeth board - I've never been there. It was Sole Reaper that mentioned it (http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/testament/334366-has-nuclear-blast-ever-had-band-sell-gold-record.html#post6520561). I guess he could help you with the link.

Should you get any interesting info on any of these, please feel free to share it here.

 

[Sole Reaper]

Now that the tour started hopefully sales go up.