Swedish heavy metal band Ghost is pulling off the biggest surprise so far of 2022 with their latest album, Impera, hitting No. 1 this week on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart and becoming the fastest-selling album in the U.S. of any musical genre.
Ghost fans have purchased more than 62,500 physical copies of Impera as of today (March 22), which surpassed the 37,000 copies of The Weekend’s Dawn FM sold earlier this year, making Impera the greatest-selling album of any traditional record so far in 2022.
And sales of those 62,500+ copies make it the biggest-selling hard rock vinyl release since Pearl Jam’s Vitaology sold 33,500 copies on vinyl — released two weeks before it came out on CD — all the way back in December 1994.
Now, that’s really saying something.
Impera hitting No. 1 also is good news for rock and metal fans who have been dealing with naysayers for the last couple of years claiming that rock is dead and so on and so forth.
Not to mention, it was a bit of a gut-punch to the genres when it became obvious last December that no new rock or metal albums would crack the Billboard Top 200 Year-End Chart in 2021.
The last rock album – and you be the judge of the term rock in this instance – to chart so high was John Mayer’s Sob Rock, coming in at No. 2 in July 2021.
Prior to that entry, the last rock artist to top the charts was AC/DC in 2020 with Power Up, which was a new album, yes, but nothing new from the Australian rockers.
But as Ozzy famously sang, “You can’t kill rock’n’roll … It’s here to stay.”
So, rock on all you Gormandizers, and watch on YouTube the official music video for Ghost’s “Call Me Little Sunshine” off of Impera:
