AC/DC and Wal-Mart Make Black Magic

It sure looks like hardcore rock fans shook off any squeamishness about picking up the new AC/DC album at their local Wal-Mart.

“Black Ice,” the band’s first new album in eight years, not only topped the American Billboard charts with 784,000 copies sold, it was also the top seller in 29 countries. The album, which was made available exclusively at Wal-Mart or for download from the band’s Web site, is also the No. 2 album debut for all of 2008.

(AC/DC fans should also take heart that their heavy metal heroes stomped the tweeny pop offering “High School Musical 3” soundtrack, which was No. 2 with 297,000 copies sold.)

It continues a string of exclusive releases for Wal-Mart and the bands it’s partnered with. The Eagles, who performed at the 2007 Wal-Mart shareholders convention, have sold more than 3 million copies of “Long Road Out of Eden” in the last year.

While AC/DC fans may have felt Wal-Mart is the kind of empire the band would have rebelled against in an earlier time, AC/DC obviously finds the record industry establishment more onerous.

The Eagles, Journey, AC/DC and Garth Brooks have all given Wal-Mart exclusive deals in exchange for a greater percentage of sales; AC/DC remains one of the last holdouts to refuse to make its songs available for individual sale on iTunes.

Catalog sales have been a big part of the Wal-Mart package as well. AC/DC’s 1980 release, “Back in Black,” sold 21,000 copies during the debut week of “Black Ice.” AC/DC sold 92,000 catalog titles overall according to Billboard, which ranked “Back in Black” No. 13 on its comprehensive chart.