BLACK ICE CAMPAIGN

HitsDailyDouble have a great run down of the campaign put together by band manager Alvin Handwerker along with Columbia Chairman Steve Barnett and exclusive partner Walmart, which made AC/DC's first album since 2000 such a world-wide success.

Black Ice debuted at #1 in a staggering 29 countries, with a total of 4.8m units shipped worldwide, part of the 10.2m units of the band’s entire catalog sold thus far this year. These sales were racked up without iTunes or any digital version of the album, as the band insisted on not breaking up the record.

Read the rest here

Edit: I was in the middle of another post about Guns N Roses and had a complete meltdown with the title of this post, but its fixed now, phew!

BLACK ICE WORLDWIDE NUMBERS!

I mentioned in my intial post on the AC/DC sales frenzy that I wanted to see the worldwide first week numbers. Here they are courtesy of Hits.

AC/DC’s Black Ice is more than a stateside phenomenon. The album is exploding at retail all over the world, with an initial shipment of more than 2.1 milllion. The biggest territories are Germany (550k), Canada (344k), the U.K. (227k), France (209k) and the band’s native Australia (202k). What’s more, the European and North American legs of the “Black Ice World Tour” reportedly sold out in a matter of minutes, while worldwide catalog sales on the year are a split hair short of 5 million units

202K in Australia is enormous. Tre plat first week! Whoa.

CAN AC/DC TOP WEEZY?

I doubt they can hit Lil Wayne's US first week of 1 mil but they're approaching. From Hits Daily Double:

AC/DC hit Wal-Mart stores yesterday and are reportedly blowing the doors off of the retail giant. We are told that sales for the exclusive Black Ice release are out-pacing the Eagles' first week, which was also a Wal-Mart exclusive. Estimates for first week are currently ranging north of 800k, which would make it the biggest Sony BMG release in the past two years, besting Alicia Keys' 742k mark set last November. It would also make it the largest rock release from any label over the last two years, beating the 721k sold by Coldplay last June.

Black Ice is scoring huge sales figures around the world. In Germany, the album is trending #1, with a shot at 250k. In the U.K., they are on track for 120-140k and headed for #1. They are also scoring record numbers, and will go #1 in Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Norway and Portugal.

I'd love to see a first week worldwide total, it'd have to be around 3 million. Aussie rock wins.