AC/DC lead rock's physical revival.

Columbia ships 4.7m units for AC/DC album Black Ice... with Guns N' Roses album to follow

By Stuart Clarke

Columbia has delivered en masse for one of 2008's biggest albums, clocking up a phenomenal worldwide ship of 4,706,201 physical albums for AC/DC's first album in eight years, Black Ice.

Stateside the group's first album for Sony BMG had scanned almost 500,000 copies come Friday and was projected to nearly double that by end of play, taking it to the number one spot. In the UK, midweek sales of 82,000 copies looked set to echo the group's US chart placing and similar results were expected in other markets around the world.

That this has been achieved without digital sales - the group remaining true to their word that they do not want their songs sold individually - is testament to the pulling power of the Aussie band, whose catalogue continues to enjoy a permanent presence on the charts around the world. In 2008 alone, the group's catalogue has racked up physical sales of nearly 5m copies.

Columbia managing director Mike Smith says the result speaks volumes about the career path of the band. "You can get into an argument about the relevance of iTunes but the reason this has worked so well is because you have the greatest rock band in the world, delivering one of the greatest albums since Back In Black," he says.

The lead single from the album, Rock & Roll Train, was released in a limited physical form in the UK but Smith says Columbia made a conscious decision to avoid going for a full chart-eligible release because of the impact the band's invisibility on digital release platforms would have had on the chart result.