Ghost has just acquired their fourth gold-certified single with "Mary On A Cross" in the United States. For those unaware, Gold status in RIAA certifications means the single has sold over 500,000 copies, or acquired the streaming equivalent of 500,000 copies. "Mary On A Cross" is the fourth Ghost single to go Gold this year following "Cirice" from Meliora, "Dance Macabre" from Prequelle, and "Square Hammer" from Popestar.
The popularity of "Mary On A Cross" was mostly thanks to a recent TikTok viral moment that Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge didn't even know about until his daughter told him. "I think it was my daughter who spotted it first. She said, 'I heard Mary On A Cross on TikTok,'" said Forge. 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."
"Mary On A Cross" is from the Ghost 7" Seven Inches Of Satanic Panic released in September 2019, which featured the aforementioned hit and "Kiss The Go-Goat." The 7" was exhumed from Ghost's "1969 archives" and were two songs recorded by Papa Nihil's band prior to Ghost, according to the lore.
