Stray Kids, US ‘Billboard 200’ 1st place for 6 consecutive times since debut
Stray Kids, 6 consecutive no. 1s on US Billboard 200 since debut
Group Stray Kids has made a new history on Billboard, the home of pop and the world‘s largest music industry market.
According to a preview article released by Billboard on the 22nd (local time), Stray Kids’ album SKZHOP HIPTAPE ‘合 (HOP)’ (합 (합)), released on December 13, sold approximately 187,000 copies in the US in its first week of release, topping the ‘Billboard 200’ for the week of December 28, their sixth consecutive no. 1 on the chart.
An artist who has had six consecutive no. 1 albums since debuting at No. 1 on the ‘Billboard 200’ This is the first time for Stray Kids in approximately 69 years since the chart began in March 1956. With this record, Stray Kids became the group with the most number one hits on the ‘Billboard 200’ chart in the 2000s, tying with BTS, Linkin Park, and Dave Matthews Band.
Stray Kids took their first No. 1 spot on the chart in 2022 with their mini album ‘ODDINARY’. This is the third time for a K-pop artist, following BTS and SuperM, and the second time for a single artist. Since then, with the mini-album ‘MAXIDENT’ (Maxident) in the same year, the third regular album ‘★★★★★ (5-STAR)’ (Five Star) and mini-album ‘樂-STAR’ (Rockstar) in 2023, and the mini-album ‘ATE’ (Eight) in 2024, they reached No. 1 for the fifth time, becoming the first group in Billboard history and the first global artist to do so after famous American rapper DMX.
In December 2024, six years after their debut and two years after their debut on the ‘Billboard 200’ chart, Stray Kids achieved the feat of ‘6 consecutive no. 1s on the chart’with their new album ‘合 (HOP)’. Beyond K-pop, they have engraved their name in world music history as ‘the first global artist’. In particular, all of these records were written as ‘self-produced’ albums directly created by the members, led by the group‘s producing team 3RACHA, giving them more valuable meaning.
SKZHOP HIPTAPE, which contains Stray Kids’ new attempts, is an album that presents ‘SKZ‘s own new genre’ in an officially undefined new genre. The first of these, ‘合 (HOP)’, which is the 6th consecutive #1 on the ‘Billboard 200’, carries an ambiguous meaning by taking the combination of the eight members of Stray Kids and the English name of the hip-hop genre, ‘HOP’.
The album topped the Worldwide iTunes Album Chart on the 13th, 14th, and 16th, the day of its release, and also ranked #1 on the iTunes Top Album Charts in 28 regions overseas, including Japan and Brazil, as of the morning of the 16th. The title song ‘Walkin On Water’ (Wokin On Water) topped the iTunes Top Song charts in 25 overseas regions, including Mexico and Chile, based on the same cumulative standard, and the music video ranked #1 on YouTube’s Music Video Trending Worldwide for five days until the morning of the 17th, and was included in the YouTube trending video rankings in 43 regions around the world, including the US, the UK, and Canada.
Stray Kids, who have repeatedly made history in the global music market and stood tall as ‘Global Top Artists’, have recently achieved several favorable results on Billboard, proving their powerful influence once again. At the ‘2024 Billboard Music Awards’ held on the 12th, they won the Top Global K-Pop Artist category, becoming the winner and performer of the ‘Billboard Music Awards’, one of the three major American pop music award ceremonies, for the second consecutive year. Also, on the Billboard Year-End chart released on the 13th, ‘樂-STAR’ ranked 4th, the highest among domestic artists, in the Top Album Sales category, ‘ATE’ 9th, as well as 1st and 2nd in World Albums, 1st in World Album Artist, and 2nd in Top Album Sales Artist.
Meanwhile, Stray Kids is successfully carrying out its ‘largest’ world tour ‘Stray Kids World Tour
Jeong Hee-yeon, Donga.com Reporter shine2562@donga.com
