2025 has been yet another landmark year for Ghost, and they're finishing it with another piece of major news: their biggest song has just officially gone Platinum in the UK. Mary On A Cross, first released in 2019 on Ghost's Seven Inches Of Satanic Panic EP, has shifted over 600,000 units in this country as of Friday (December 21), granting it Platinum status. This follows the news that the track was certified Double Platinum in the US in November for sailing past two million units. So all in all, it's been a box office 12 months for Tobias Forge and co.
While immediately a fan favourite upon its release, Mary On A Cross' popularity was rocket-boosted in 2022 after a remixed version of the song went viral on TikTok. By the end of the year, it had become Ghost's biggest song ever; as this article goes live, the track has amassed over 860,000 streams on Spotify and looks set to hit the billion mark at some point next year.
Speaking about the song's incredible spike in popularity, Tobias Forge revealed that it was his daughter who first notified him that Mary On A Cross was gaining serious traction with a whole new audience.
"She said, 'I heard Mary On A Cross on TikTok!'" he told Metal Hammer in 2022. "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."
The cult of Ghost shows no signs of dwindling; this year, they released another critically acclaimed new album, Skeletá, named the album of 2025 by Metal Hammer, and played packed-out arenas in North America and Europe.
"My impression of a record is also connected with its campaign and the tour, and this is definitely the best we've ever been," Forge told Metal Hammer this month. "I think that this tour is the best we've ever done."
Forge is amongst the many huge metal names interviewed in the new issue of Metal Hammer, a 2025 end of year special, that's out now. Order your copy here.
