TikTok Rockets Ghost to Their First Platinum Single in the States

They may be one of the more divisive acts among metal fans, but there’s no denying that Ghost are here to stay. And nothing could highlight that fact more than the continued popularity of “Mary On A Cross” on social media apps like TikTok actually fueling the band to its first platinum award in the U.S.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the track has reached at least one million sales and streaming equivalents since its release four years ago. It was only a few months ago that it reached gold status, so this is a Originally featured on the band’s Seven Inches of Satanic Panic EP, the track features a fictional version of the group from the late 60s.

What makes this whole situation crazy is the fact that the song gained a widespread audience through its use in various TikTok videos. Metalheads, goth girlies, even soccer moms eventually started using the track in their clips, ultimately spreading the song to a whole new audience. As a result, the song went absolutely nuclear last year.

So many people have listened to it, tjat eventually becoming the band’s most popular song on Spotify with nearly 421 million listens. The next closest song in terms of Spotify streams isn’t even close, with “Square Hammer” currently sitting close to 159 million listens.

Honestly, it’s pretty fucking funny to me that a song that was so easy to ignore back in 2019 has now become this juggernaut among normies and younger metal fans. Not even frontman Tobias Forge was aware at how popular the song had become, who allegedly had to rely on information from his daughter who uses TikTok.

“I think it was my daughter who spotted it first. She said, ‘I heard Mary On A Cross on TikTok. She’s done that before with other songs. Then I was summoned to a label meeting and they were like, ‘Are you aware of what’s going on?’, and they started presenting stats.”