Fear Inoculum by Tool was the highest selling Rock album of 2019

The stats are in, and it looks like 2019’s Fear Inoculum by Tool was in fact the highest-selling rock album of all of 2019. Those are some pretty impressive stats for the band, but are we really surprised?

Tool, as it was expected, pretty much dominated every corner of the music industry when they dropped their long-awaited project Fear Inoculum in August. To this day, the album is still making moves all across the charts, breaking records and topping lists unflinchingly. As per BuzzAngle Music‘s year-end report of U.S. music industry consumption, it was the highest-selling rock album of 2019.

Maths aside, that is simply huge news for the band.

The report breaks down several areas of music consumption, and separates top albums by total consumption, actual album sales, top vinyl sales, top soundtrack albums by sales and topped streamed albums. Fear Inoculum had the eighth-highest album sales of 2019 — with 344,285 total — but was the top sold rock album. Contemporary Top 40 artists Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Jonas Brothers, Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, BTS and Post Malone took the leading seven spots.

In all fairness, Tool sold out of their limited edition sets, so that number could have been even higher. These things are always tricky to properly calculate, but one thing is certain – Tool had a rather impressive year in 2019.

Additionally, Tool claimed the No. 6 spot in the report’s top artists category based on album sales, as they sold 603,716 albums total. This is hardly surprising, considering all of their previous albums crashed into the Top 20 of the Billboard 200 at the beginning of August when they uploaded their discography onto digital platforms.

Tool share that same top artist’s category in the report with Metallica, Queen, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac and Bruce Springsteen, so it’s safe to say rock fans are devout album buyers.

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