Stray Kids have once again reached the top of the U.S. Billboard main album chart. This is a remarkable record of six consecutive albums. With this achievement, Stray Kids made history as the first in 69 years of Billboard chart history.
According to U.S. Billboard on the 23rd, Stray Kids' new album 'Hop' (合) topped the 'Billboard 200' album chart. It surpassed prominent pop stars Kendrick Lamar's 'GNX' and Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department.'
With this No. 1, Stray Kids made new history on Billboard. Billboard stated that Stray Kids is the first in the 69-year history of the chart to have all six albums, including the debut on the 'Billboard 200' chart, reach No. 1.
The 'Billboard 200' chart, where Stray Kids reached No. 1, tallies the number of physical albums sold in the U.S. It calculates album units by adding traditional album sales, streaming counts converted to album sales (SEA), and digital song download counts converted to album sales (TEA).
According to Billboard, 'Hop' recorded album units equivalent to 187,000 copies during this chart's counting period. Physical album sales, including CD sales, reached 176,000 copies (CD sales 171,000 copies, digital download albums 5,000 copies). These figures also ranked No. 1 on this week's 'Top Album Sales' chart. SEA was calculated at 10,000 copies and TEA at 1,000 copies respectively.
Since Stray Kids first topped this chart with 'Oddinary' in 2022, they have achieved the remarkable record of six consecutive albums, continuing with 'Maxident,' 'Five Star,' 'Rockstar,' 'Eight,' and now 'Hop.' This matches the record of the global K-pop star BTS.
Stray Kids' latest album is a non-English album composed in Korean. They attempted a transformation with the new genre 'SKZHOP HIPTAPE,' which combines their abbreviation 'SKZ' with hip hop. It presents a new, officially undefined genre unique to Stray Kids.
Billboard stated that 'Hop' is the 27th instance, and the fourth in 2024, of an album mostly in a non-English language topping the chart. Among the 27 albums that have ranked first, 18 were by K-pop artists, mostly in Korean.
It further explained that 23 of these 27 No. 1 albums came after K-pop superstar BTS first topped the chart in 2018, and the remaining three non-English chart-topping albums this year were ATEEZ's ‘Golden Hour: Part 2’, Stray Kids' ‘Eight’, and TWICE's ‘With YOU-th’.
To date, the K-pop artists who have achieved No. 1 on the 'Billboard 200' include BTS and Stray Kids, leading with six No. 1 titles each, followed by ATEEZ with two, and SuperM, BLACKPINK, Tomorrow X Together (TXT), NewJeans, and TWICE.