The projections from earlier this week proved to be pretty accurate: Metallica moved 490,000 copies of their new album, Death Magnetic, making it the number one album in the country. It’s Metallica’s fifth chart-topper, bringing them into a tie for second with Van Halen for most number one albums from a hard rock group. Led Zeppelin tower over the competition however— they’ve had seven albums hold the top spot. It’s hard to imagine Metallica have two albums left in them.  

The most surprising bit of that information is that Van Halen are considered by Billboard as a hard rock band. Is this hard rock? [Billboard]