Ongoing History Daily: Was this the biggest album release day of all time?
Today, the 24th of September is an important 30th anniversary for album releases. On this one day in 1991, three massively important albums came out at the same time.
Soundgarden’s third album, Badmotorfinger, was released which ended up being their big breakthrough and was eventually nominated for a Grammy for Best Performance.
Also on September 24, 1991, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released Blood Sugar Sex Magick, which went on to become a serious part of the alt-rock explosion of the 90s, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide.
But the biggest release on that day was Nirvana’s Nevermind. Just over 45,000 records were shipped to stores. Within weeks, it was selling 300,000 copies a week.
Has there ever been a bigger album release day than September 24, 1991? I’m guessing no.
I cannot seem to find any evidence that BadMotorFinger was release on Sept 24, 1991. Every reference I see indicates October 8, 1991 as the release day. Even the Soundgarden Wiki clearly states 10/8/91
https://soundgarden.fandom.com/wiki/Badmotorfinger
And this Exclaim article mentions some production issues that pushed the album down from 9/24/91 to 10/8/91
https://exclaim.ca/music/article/september_24_1991_greatest_album_release_day_nirvana_nevermind_red_hot_chili_peppers
Cheers!
There’s much confusion around this. The first release date planned for the album was September 24. It’s now thought that the record actually came out on October 8. It was bumped back by the record label at the last minute.