Hard Rock Album Tops Billboard 200 for First Time in 4 Years

A hard rock album is No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for the first time in over four years — Ghost's Skeleta.

Skeleta came out on April 25 and is the Swedish rockers' sixth full-length studio album. It debuted at the very top of the Billboard 200 after pushing 86,000 units in its first week [via Billboard]. Of this amount, 89 percent were pure album sales, a large portion of which were vinyl sales.

The last time a hard rock album topped the chart was AC/DC's Power Up, which was released in November of 2020.

But not only did Skeleta accomplish something for hard rock, it was also a huge accomplishment for Ghost as it's their first-ever No. 1 album in the United States. It's their fourth full-length release to land in the Top 10, following 2015's Meliora (No. 8), 2018's Prequelle (No. 3) and 2022's Impera (No. 2).

Billboard broke down Ghost's first-week sales even further, noting that they sold 77,000 copies of Skeleta, which also resulted in the record debuting atop the Top Album Sales chart. There were 15 vinyl variants available for purchase, and thus vinyl purchases accounted for around 44,000 of their total album sales.

Currently, Skeleta is the only debut album in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. It's joined by SZA's SOS, Kendrick Lamar's GNX, Morgan Wallen's One Thing at a Time, Sabrina Carpenter's Short 'n Sweet, Lady Gaga's Mayhem and a few others.

“I felt super-proud and pleased with Impera,” Ghost frontman Tobias Forge told Metal Hammer of the differences between Skeleta and the band's previous release.

“But it was quite heavy on external political influence, critique of social structure. There’s really nothing new to say about that. Fine. So what do I do? Well, instead of shining a light onto other things, I want to make more of an introspective, ‘basic core feelings’ record. That seems interesting! Writing a song that embodies hope, sorrow, regret, hate, love.”

Ghost are currently on the road in support of Skeleta. Their next show is on Wednesday (May 7) in Berlin, Germany, and the North American leg of the tour kicks off in July. Tickets for the tour are available on the band's website.