The Sickness is the debut studio album by the American heavy metal band Disturbed. The album was recorded in 1999 and released on March 7, 2000. The album peaked at number 29 on the Billboard 200 chart and it has spent a total of 103 weeks on that chart, as of June 2010. The Sickness has been certified 4x Platinum by the RIAA, with around 4,248,000 copies sold in the United States alone as of 2011, making it the band's most successful album. It is one of three Disturbed albums to have the Parental Advisory label and contain high amounts of profanity and the explicit content of the song "Down with the Sickness". Unlike Disturbed's later albums, which are mixed in style, The Sickness consists primarily of heavier songs. In addition, The Sickness includes much more profanity, darker lyrical themes, and more electronic elements than later Disturbed albums. It was the only studio album by Disturbed to exclude a title track (although it does include a track called "Down with the Sickness").