Century Child

Century Child - Nightwish
  • Album Info
  • 2002
  • Spinefarm

Century Child is the fourth studio album by the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, released in 2002 through Spinefarm Records. It is the first album which features current bassist and male vocalist Marco Hietala.

Spinefarm Records released a 2-CD special edition version of the album in 2002. It includes the CD, liner art with the band members’ signatures, and a Video CD containing the music video for their cover of Gary Moore’s “Over the Hills and Far Away”. In addition, the booklet contains an ID code that allows the owner to download the entire album and three extra tracks from the Internet for a limited time. The bonus tracks are “Nightwish”, “The Forever Moments” and “Etiäinen”, all from the band’s first demo of 1996.

Success 

Nightwish quickly gained momentum when they started recording Century Child. The single, “Ever Dream” came out in early May 2002 and earned them a Finnish Gold Record in two days. After three weeks, Century Child does even better, selling Gold in just two hours. In Germany, the album rises to number five on the official charts.

The album was certified double platinum in Finland with more than 60,000 sold copies, the second best selling Finnish album in Finland in year 2002. Century Child has sold more than 80,000 copies in Finland alone. It sold more than 350,000 copies worldwide between 2002 and 2003.