Taylor Momsen’s Band The Pretty Reckless Just Achieved Massive Milestone

Taylor Momsen’s rock band, The Pretty Reckless, just achieved a massive milestone on the music charts. The band released their new album — Death by Rock and Roll — on February 12 and per Billboard’s data, it has landed at number 1 on the Top Album Sales chart, a first for the band. Additionally, Death by Rock and Roll also landed at number 1 on a few other charts: the Current Rock Albums chart, the Record Label Independent Albums chart, and the Internet Albums chart.

Over the course of the band’s career, they have released four full-length studio albums, with their 2014 album, Going to Hell, landing at the number five spot on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Death by Rock and Roll landed at number 28 on the chart this past week. The album is The Pretty Reckless’ first for Fearless Records, their new record label after leaving Razor & Tie, where they released their first three albums. So far, The Pretty Reckless has dropped two singles from Death by Rock and Roll: the albums title’s track — which landed at number one on Billboard’s US Mainstream Rock chart — and the song “And So It Went,” which features Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello.

After already enjoying a successful acting career, Momsen formed The Pretty Reckless in 2009, which began when she was a child. In the film and TV industry, Momsen is maybe most well-known for playing Cindy Lou Who in the 2000 adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey. She would later join the cast of Gossip Girl as Jenny Humphrey, the younger sister of Penn Badgley’s Dan Humphrey. She was nominated for multiple awards for both roles.

As the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of The Pretty Reckless, Momsen has traveled the world and been able to work with some of her biggest idols, though it has occasionally ended in tragic loss. Recently, she spoke with Loudwire about opening for Soundgarden on their spring 2017 tour, which ended when singer Chris Cornell died after a concert in Detriot, Michigan. After explaining that Soundgarden was one of the primary influences that led to The Pretty Reckless formation, Momsen revealed that it was devastating for her to have just spoken with and hugged Cornell the night of his death only to wake up and learn the tragic news.

“I think that music has such a power to it that even if you don’t know someone extraordinarily well, personally, when you’ve related to their music and you’ve listened to those records throughout your whole life ad nauseam, it feels like a part of you,” Momsen explained. “So I feel like losing someone like that… you feel like you’re losing a piece of yourself, in a way.”