Foo Fighters’ seventh album has become its first to hit #1 in the band’s native U.S., selling 235,000 in the week since its April 12 release via Roswell/RCA–more than double the week’s #2 seller (Adele) and more than the combined sales of the three other Top 5 debuts (Alison Krauss, Paul Simon, Mana).
Wasting Light debuts at #1 in eleven other countries–including the UK where it ends Adele’s 11-week run atop the albums chart, and Australia and New Zealand where it has had the biggest first week digital album sales in both country’s chart histories.
Wasting Light’s twelve #1 chart entries double the six international #1s scored by its predecessor Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace in 2007. In addition to becoming Foo Fighters’ first #1 album in their native U.S., Wasting Light has debuted at #1 in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Singapore.
In addition to the stellar sales story, Wasting Light has generated some of the most positive critical notices of Foo Fighters’ 16- year career. In a four star Rolling Stone lead review, David Fricke called Wasting Light “the best Foos album since the first two,” while Us Weekly hailed the album as proof that “rock is not dead,” while People’s four star lead review lauded the Foos’ “undiminished intensity,” and Entertainment Weekly awarded it an A- summing up “Here’s the miracle, though: Foo Fighters never feel like a backward-looking band. Light is a muscular rock & roll throwdown, featuring the Foos delivering exactly the kind of catchy, pummeling anthems they’re known for, with total disregard for the whims of the masses.”
Foo Fighters are currently in the midst of a whirlwind tour that has seen the theatrical and televised premiere of their documentary, Foo Fighters: Back and Forth, and that will take them from the garages of contest-winning fans to the headline slots of virtually every major summer music festival the world over–and will include a sold out 130,000 capacity July 2-3 headline engagement at Milton Keynes Bowl as well as a string of midwestern U.S. arena headlining gigs.