Ghost Debut at #3 on Billboard Chart, Sell 66,000 Albums First Week

Are Ghost set to become the next big metal band? Recent numbers certainly don’t hurt the cause for that assertion, with their new album Prequelle having shifted 66,000 copies in its first week of release (61,000 of them traditional album sales, i.e. no streaming equivalent numbers included). That’s good enough for the #3 spot on the vaunted Billboard Top 200 chart.

That number no doubt experienced a boost due to the inclusion of a downloadable copy of the album with every ticket sold on the band’s recent tour. Everyone who purchased a ticket received an email the week of release (often several weeks or month after the initial ticket purchase) containing a link to download the album, and while an actual, confirmed download needed to occur to be counted towards album sales figures, that scheme no doubt helped boost Prequelle‘s numbers quite a bit. Ghost certainly aren’t the first band to have employed such a tactic, with the strategy having become a popular one to boost first week numbers in 2017.

Ghost’s previous album, Meliora, debuted with a first week number of 29,000 units shifted.

Congrats to Ghost! It’s well deserved.

The band just announced a massive run of North American dates this coming fall; get the full list here.

[via Loudwire]