According to Spotify, Sleep Token's Take Me Back To Eden was the most streamed metal album of 2023.
In fact, the number of streams collected by the streaming service for the anonymous London band's third album even out-weighed the amount of times Metallica's newly-released 72 Seasons was streamed, which is quite the feat, if you consider the thrash metal legend's popularity and longevity.
When looking back on Sleep Token's year however, it's perhaps really not all that surprising. Back in January 2023, the anonymous London band sent a wave through the metal scene with the release of several surprise new singles, shoving them further into the spotlight as countless new fans began to watch on excitedly, or erm, rather hornily.
After being crowned as metal's sexiest new band and continuing to go viral online (the Sleep Token farting video, anyone?), the genre-bending collective of riff-pushers marched on, further turning heads and hitting headlines in May with the official arrival of Take Me Back To Eden.
Not only were fans enamoured with its towering riffs and heart-clutching vocal melodies, but so were musicians, with Corey Taylor even going so far as to compare them to early Slipknot.
The hype continued further into the year, as they quickly sold out their largest headline show to date at Wembley Arena and later graced the cover of Metal Hammer. Those issues flew off the shelves, so it came to no surprise that when we asked out readers to vote for their favourite album of 2023, they awarded Sleep Token with the honour of taking the number one spot.
Throughout all the success however, gatekeepers and Internet trolls have remained sour-faced, seemingly disgruntled that there was a band evolving metal into something sonically far more diverse and boundary-defying.
But if last year's highlights weren't enough to prove to the haters that Sleep Token are worthy of the excitement, then these new stats should to prove it once and for all.
Per month, Take Me Back To Eden saw 3,131,019 monthly listeners on Spotify, totalling at 357,324,681 streams. In comparison, Metallica's monthly listenership of 24,708,038 streamed 72 Seasons 227,202,107 times - that's a 130,122,574 stream difference. Not bad, right?
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