Thursday, April 16, 2009

Napalm Death's Platinum Disc 1,000,000 sales


Question: Is the Mortal Kombat motion picture soundtrack(which features Napalm Death) the only gold disc that Earache have? and have any other bands come close to selling that amount?? From: the_suttonator@hotmail.com

Answer: Yeah its true..but its a Platinum disc dude,not a measly gold!.It's not one of their own albums though, it was a popular movie soundtrack CD. It was awarded to the band on November 1st 1996 for their contribution to selling 1 Million copies in America of the soundtrack CD to Mortal Kombat movie.All the bands included in the movie received the award.Mortal Kombat mania was everywhere in mid-90's.The Cd was the soundtrack to the movie of the highly popular 90's video game.The recently defunct TVT records was the label that released it, and the band did well off the ensuing royalties for a long time afterwards.

YOu ask if other bands have gone Platinum- nah mate, its rare as hell, no one on Earache has even come close.I reckon right now Napalm death must easily be the only extreme metal band on the planet with a Platinum disc under their belts, apart from Slayer who also have received many Gold and PLatinum awards, for their own albums.

Its quite an acheivement because it seems that only about 2 or 3 movie soundtracks go platinum per year, and awards for new emerging artists are even fewer.During the 90's I can only remember Roadrunners Type 0 Negative and maybe Sepultura selling a million.Roadrunner also delivered the goods with Slipknot.
Many of the nu metal acts whuch sprang up at the turn of the millenium also went platinum, Korn Limp Bizkit etc.

The latest in the wider rock world to go platinum is Paramore, and the hugely popular Fueled By Ramen/Victory Records emo-style acts like Fall Out Boy and Hawthorne heights etc are the bands which sell the most copies, and hence lead the rock world these days.Of the modern day heavier bands, Nightwish must be the closest I guess.

You can check bands gold (500,000) and Platinum (1,000,000) disc tally and hence sales on the RIAA website.

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