Ghost Floats Hard Rock Back to Top of Billboard 200 for First Time in 4 Years

When Ghost’s new studio album Skeletá debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart (dated May 10), it not only secured the band its first No. 1, but also marked the first hard rock set to reach No. 1 in over four years. The last hard rock title at No. 1 was AC/DC’s Power Up – which debuted at No. 1 on the Nov. 28, 2020-dated list and spent a week at No. 1. In fact, Power Up and Skeletá are the only two hard rock albums to reach No. 1 in the last five years – or any point in the 2020s.

Going even further, in the last 10 years, from May 2015 to the present, of the 297 albums that have been No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart – just eight of them were hard rock titles, including Skeletá. Scroll down to see what those eight titles are. (Hard rock albums are defined as those that are eligible for, or have charted on, Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums chart.)

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. The new May 10-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on May 6.

All told, Skeletá scores Ghost its ninth charting effort on the Billboard 200, and its fifth set to the reach the top 10. The band had previously gone as high as No. 2 with 2022’s Impera – the act’s last full-length studio effort.

Let’s take a look some of the major milestones that Ghost achieves with its No. 1 debut, along with the hard rock albums at No. 1 over the past 10 years: