Metallicas black album is in fifth place on Nielsen SoundScan's top-selling album list. Cumulative sales is 48,867,000 in the United States since the scanning service set up in 1991. They'll probably hit the 50 million mark early 2009.

The black album from 1991 is the No. 2 top-selling album of the SoundScan era. The LP shifted 258,000 units in the U.S. in 2007 to bring total sales to 15,077,000 (as of the close of 2007) and closing the gap to the No. 1 album on the list, Shania Twain's "Come on Over", by 372,000 units. If these percentages keep up, "Metallica" will overtake the top spot during 2009.

Nielsen SoundScan is an information system that tracks sales of music in the United States and Canada. Sales data is collected from over 14,000 retail, mass merchant and non-traditional outlets. Nielsen SoundScan is the sales source for the Billboard music charts.