After a nearly 40-year wait, Megadeth achieves its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart. The metal band’s new self-titled set, which also marks its expected final studio album, debuts atop the list dated Feb. 7. Megadeth made its Billboard 200 chart debut in 1986 and has placed 23 albums on the ranking through its career. Until this week, the band had gone as high as No. 2, with 1992’s Countdown to Extinction.
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The new self-titled album earned 73,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending Jan. 29, according to Luminate — marking the act’s best week, by units earned, since the chart began ranking by units in December 2014. The bulk of that sum was driven by pure album sales (purchases of physical and digital copies of the album), totaling 69,000. That’s the biggest sales week for any Megadeth album since 1999, when Risk opened with 74,000 sold.
The new album was released on Jan. 23, a day after the documentary Megadeth: Behind the Mask was released in movie theaters. The band’s farewell tour kicks off on Feb. 15 in Victoria, British Columbia.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 2,500 ad-supported or 1,000 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Feb. 7, 2026-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Feb. 3. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X and Instagram.
Of Megadeth’s 73,000 equivalent album units earned in the latest tracking week, album sales comprise 69,000 (it debuts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 4,000 (equaling 4.23 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. Sales of the album got a boost from its availability across more than a dozen vinyl variants, a Target-exclusive CD with a bonus track, and the mid-week release of deluxe digital download version of the album with another bonus track.
Of the album’s 69,000 sales, physical purchases of CD, vinyl and cassette tapes totaled 56,000, with 22,000 of that sum on vinyl. That marks Megadeth’s best week on vinyl in the modern era (since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991).
Megadeth’s debut of 73,000 units marks the lowest sum at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since last May, when SZA’s SOS returned to No. 1 on the May 3-dated chart with 52,000 units.
Megadeth made its Billboard 200 chart debut on the Oct. 25, 1986-dated list with Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?, at No. 118. It would later peak at No. 76. The band scored its first top 40 set with its next entry, 1988’s No. 28-peaking So Far, So Good… So What! In 1992, the band landed its first top 10 with the No. 2-peaking Countdown to Extinction — the first of nine top 10s for the act.
Dating to Megadeth’s debut on the Billboard 200, the band’s 39-year, three-month and one-week wait for its first No. 1 is the longest any act has waited for a first No. 1 since 2016. That January, David Bowie hit No. 1 for the first time with Blackstar (released two days before he died). Blackstar debuted at No. 1 on the Jan. 30-dated chart, nearly 43 years and 10 months after Bowie charted his first album in April 1972 with Hunky Dory.
Before Bowie, the last longer wait for a first No. 1 was when James Taylor hit No. 1 in July 2015 with Before This World – 45 years and nearly four months after he made his chart debut with Sweet Baby James in March of 1970. The last group or band to wait as long as Megadeth for its first No. 1 was Black Sabbath. The latter hit No. 1 for the first time in June of 2013 with 13 — 42 years and 10 months after the band made its chart debut with its self-titled set in 1970.
Megadeth also brings hard rock back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for the first time since last May, when Sleep Token’s Even in Arcadia opened atop the May 24, 2025-dated chart. (Hard rock albums are defined as those that are eligible for, or have charted on, Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums chart.)
Morgan Wallen’s former No. 1 I’m the Problem climbs 4-2 on the latest Billboard 200 with 69,000 equivalent album units earned (though down 7%). Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving bumps 7-3 (51,000, down 9%), Zach Bryan’s chart-topping With Heaven on Top moves 5-4 (49,000, down 30%) and A$AP Rocky’s Don’t Be Dumb falls to No. 5 (46,000, down 63%) after debuting at No. 1 last week.
Taylor Swift’s former No. 1 The Life of a Showgirl steps 8-6 (45,000 equivalent album units earned, down 15%) and YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s Slime Cry slips 6-7 in its second week (41,000, down 42%). Three former No. 1s round out the rest of the top 10: the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack is up a spot to No. 8 (40,000, down 14%), Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS dips 3-9 (36,000, down 70%) and SZA’s SOS rises 11-10 (35,000, down 6%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
