Ghost Earns First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 With ‘Skeletá'

Ghost grabs the No. 1 slot on the Billboard 200 albums chart for the first time, as the Swedish hard rock band's new studio effort Skeletá debuts atop the tally (dated May 10) with 86,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending May 1, according to Luminate. Of the album's starting sum, 89% was driven by traditional album sales — buoyed by a big vinyl sales figure.
Skeletá launches with Ghost's best week ever by both equivalent album units and traditional album sales.
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Skeletá marks the ninth charted effort for the group on the Billboard 200. The band first visited the list in 2013 with its second album, Infestissumam, which also marked the act's first top 40-charting set, reaching No. 28. Skeletá scores Ghost its eighth top 40 set, and fifth to reach the top 10. The band had previously gone as high as No. 2 with its last full-length studio album, 2022's Impera.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new May 10, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard's website on May 6. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of Skeletá's 86,000 first-week equivalent album units, album sales comprise 77,000 (it debuts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 9,000 (equaling 12.45 million on-demand official streams of the set's songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. The set's first-week sales were bolstered by its availability across more than 15 vinyl variants, three CD variants and four cassette variants (all containing the same tracklist, but in collectible packaging).
With Skeletá scoring 9,000 in SEA units (12.45 million on-demand official streams of the album's songs), the group logs its biggest streaming week ever for an album. It surpasses the opening-week of Impera (7,000 SEA; 9.11 million streams for its songs).
The new album was led by the radio-promoted single 'Satanized,' which became the act's 10th top 10-charting hit on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart in April. It's one of a trio of hits that the album yielded on the Hot Hard Rock Songs chart prior to the album's release. 'Satanized' hit No. 3 (March 22 chart), followed by 'Lachryma' (No. 3, April 26) and 'Peacefield' (No. 13, May 3). (Skeletá is also the first full-length project from the band since the act garnered its first hit on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, when its viral hit 'Mary on a Cross' reached No. 90 on the tally in 2022.)
With the No. 1 arrival on the Billboard 200, Skeletá lands a number of milestone achievements for Ghost. Here's a recap:
Skeletá yields Ghost's best week ever by both equivalent album units and traditional album sales. The act's previous high in both metrics came in the debut week of Impera (March 26, 2022), which earned 70,000 units (of which nearly 63,000 were album sales). As noted earlier, Skeletá also garners the largest streaming week for a Ghost album.
Ghost lands the biggest week of 2025, by either equivalent album units or traditional album sales, for any rock, hard rock or alternative album.
Of Skeletá's first-week album sales, vinyl purchases comprised just over 44,000 copies. That's not just the largest sales week on vinyl for Ghost, but the biggest week for a hard rock album on vinyl in the modern era (since Luminate began tracking data in 1991). It's also the third-largest sales week on vinyl in the modern era for any rock album, trailing only the opening weeks of blink-182's One More Time… (49,000; 2023) and boygenius' The Record (45,000; 2023).
Skeletá is the first hard rock album to lead the Billboard 200 in over four years, and the only rock, hard rock or alternative album to be No. 1 in 2025. The last hard rock album at No. 1 was AC/DC's Power Up, which premiered at No. 1 on the Nov. 28, 2020, chart and spent one week at No. 1. The last rock, or alternative, album to lead the tally was Coldplay's Moon Music, when it debuted at No. 1 on the Oct. 19, 2024, chart (spending one week at No. 1).
Rock, alternative and hard rock albums are defined as those that are eligible for, or have charted on, Billboard's Top Rock Albums, Top Alternative Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums charts, respectively.
Not only is Skeletá the group's first No. 1, but it's the first chart-topper for its label Loma Vista Recordings and the first leader for Concord Label Group in nearly a decade — since James Taylor's Before This World (on Concord Records) debuted at No. 1 on the July 4, 2015-dated chart. Loma Vista had previously gone as high as No. 2 with Ghost's last full-length studio album, Impera, in 2022.
Skeletá is the lone debut in the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200 chart. The titles at Nos. 2-7 are all former No. 1s. SZA's SOS slips to No. 2 (52,000 equivalent album units earned; down 1%), Kendrick Lamar's GNX falls 2-3 (48,000; down 5%), Morgan Wallen's One Thing at a Time is down 3-4 (46,000; down 4%), Sabrina Carpenter's Short n' Sweet descends 4-5 (44,000; down 8%), PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake's $ome $exy $ongs 4 U falls 5-6 (43,000; down 6%) and Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos is down 6-7 (38,000; down 3%).
Shaboozey's Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going gallops 45-8 with 35,000 equivalent album units earned (up 110%) after a deluxe reissue on April 25 that added six additional songs, bringing its total song count to 18. The set debuted and peaked at No. 5 on the June 15, 2024-dated list. (He also played the Stagecoach Festival on April 26.)
Playboi Carti's chart-topping MUSIC (7-9; 34,000 equivalent album units, down 11%) and Morgan Wallen's former leader Dangerous: The Double Album (9-10; 33,000, down 3%) round out the Billboard 200's top 10.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
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