Not many people can remove Taylor Swift from the top of any charts – given she has millions of die-hard fans worldwide that would seriously consider taking a bullet for her. But, Tool have done the unthinkable, and booted the pop megastar from the #1 spot on the Billboard 200.
Swift only spent one week at the top spot, having released Lover on August 23rd. Now, Tool’s Fear Inoculum, some 13 years in the making, has knocked Lover from the top after selling 270,000 equivalent album units – 248,000 were pure album sales – after dropping on August 30th.
This marks the third US #1 album for the band, and the first rock album to hit the top spot in over a year. Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell!, which also dropped on August 30th, takes the #3 spot with Lover holding on to #2.
Billboard has made note of how Tool scored the #1 spot without any sort of merch or tour bundle – which is apparently the norm for most major artists who score the top spot.
The publication said that Tool did it “without the assistance of a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer, any sort of album pre-order/pre-sale access code promotion, or a single merchandise/album bundle — all of which have become the norm for most major albums in recent years as artists struggle to sell albums through more old-fashioned or traditional methods.”
Watch the video for Tool’s title track for Fear Inoculum below.
