Skillet's 2006 release, Comatose has been certified Gold by the RIAA.
Their latest effort, Awake, debuted on the Billboard Top 200 at No. 2 and has surpassed 200,000 units in just 12 weeks. The album remains a top-ten charting Christian project, best-selling CD overall on Billboard's Top 200, a top 30 best-seller on iTunes Rock album chart, and boasts the No. 2 and No. 8 top Christian digital singles with "Monster" and "Hero" respectively.
Phew. And that's not all.
The video for "Monster" is on MTV2's ELITE 8 and the band recently hosted the network's Rock the Deuce show. The video is also on Fuse's Number One Rock Countdown show and Viewers Choice.
Along with NBC's use of "Hero" for Sunday Night Football and NFL Weekend Kickoff promos, an exclusive video performance of "Monster" opened each week's ACC College Football games with Raycom Sports, and WWE used the song for NBC's nationally televised 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania special and WWE's new "Smackdown vs. Raw 2010" video. FOX recently picked up "Hero" to open the third game of the World Series. In addition, the popular soap opera "One Life To Live" has been using "Awake & Alive" in promos for the month of November.
Skillet's merch will be on sale in Hot Topic stores across the country, and they'll be hitting the road in January with Shinedown and Puddle of Mudd.
For more about Skillet, visit their website.
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I'm happy for Skillet, they all seem to be a good group of folks. I was lucky enough to talk to John backstage at Six Flags in Arlington last summer, and he couldn't have been nicer (even tho I went all "Chris Farley Show" on him.) I've been a fan since the early trio days, but this album disappointed me. (Alien Youth has been my favorite, with their Live Worship a close 2nd.)
It seems the goal was to be more "radio-friendly" and therby gain a wider audience, but by doing that, I think they lost what made them great in the first place (being BETTER than other bands, having a distinct sound, raising the bar with every release.) Every track on Awake is in the 3:15-4 minute range, and frankly they start to run together...which is what radio stations want. So, from the standpoint of growing their audience and getting the messge to more people, I think they're succeeding. However, I think they (John) is capable of more, musically.
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