‘Kings of K-pop’ Stray Kids have made new history on Billboard.

According to Billboard‘s chart preview article on the 23rd (Korean time), Stray Kids’ new album ‘Hop’ (合·HOP), released on the 13th, debuted at No. 1 on the latest issue (December 28th) of the ‘Billboard 200’ mail album chart. With this, Stray Kids has set a record of having six albums in a row top the chart since ‘Ordinary’ in 2022, following ‘Maxident’, ‘Five Star’, ‘Rock Star’, ‘Eight’, and ‘Hop’.

Stray Kids is the first group in Billboard‘s 69-year history to have ranked #1 on the Billboard 200 for six consecutive years. They have now tied the record for ‘Most No. 1s by a K-pop group’ (6 times) held by global group BTS, and are now eyeing the top spot for K-pop.

The chart ranks physical album sales, SEA (converting streaming counts into album sales), and TEA (converting digital music downloads) combined. Stray Kids’ ‘Hap’ ranked first by selling a total of 187,000 copies during the aggregation period: 176,000 physical albums, 10,000 SEA copies, and 1,000 TEA copies.

Billboard made a big deal about Stray Kids‘ new record-breaking news that day, explaining that “this is the fourth time this year that an album written mostly in Korean and not in English has taken first place.”

Stray Kids said through their agency JYP Entertainment, “We’re so grateful to our fans for helping us achieve this historic record, and we‘re so happy. We’re honored to receive so much love from fans all over the world.”

For this album, they presented a new format called ‘Skis Hop Hip Tape’, a portmanteau of the team name ‘Skis’ and the word hip-hop. Through this, they also revealed their ambition to create an album that presents a new genre of their own.

In addition, by maintaining a strong presence on the music charts where the influence of the fandom is absolute, they have had the opportunity to prove with their own eyes the size of their fandom in the United States, known as the ‘Global Pop Mecca’.

On the 23rd, popular music critic Jeong Min-jae evaluated, “This record means that Stray Kids‘ songs based on hip-hop have steadily secured a loyal fandom in the United States.”.

Based on the power of their strong global fandom, Stray Kids will be holding a ‘Stadium Tour’ in 20 regions including North America, Latin America, and Europe starting in March next year. Performances such as the 70,000-seat SoFi Stadium in the United States have already been sold out.


Reporter Yoo Ji-hye yjh0304@donga.com