What was the first-week US sales figure for Metallica's 1991 album Metallica?

Metallica's 1991 album Metallica sold 598,000 copies in its first week in the United States.

That opening figure placed the album at number one on the Billboard 200 and established a new commercial peak for the band. It was the first Metallica album to top the chart, following the strong but lower chart performance of ...And Justice for All.

The number is sometimes confused with later sales totals because the album continued selling for decades. It eventually became the best-selling album of the Nielsen SoundScan era in the United States and surpassed 16 million US copies by the mid-2010s.

Its opening week was especially notable because the album was still rooted in heavy metal while using a more streamlined, accessible production style. The result connected Metallica with both established metal fans and a much wider mainstream audience.