BTS has once again claimed the top spot on the Billboard 200 with their album 'Arirang'. The group continues to showcase their immense popularity by setting various records on the Billboard charts.
According to a chart preview article published on Billboard's official website on the 30th, BTS's fifth studio album 'Arirang' has debuted at number one on the main album chart, Billboard 200, for the week of April 4th. The publication reported, "'Arirang' entered the chart with 641,000 album units, marking the best weekly performance for a group album since the introduction of unit tracking in December 2014." It further explained, "Of these, 532,000 were pure album sales (physical and digital purchases), setting the highest weekly sales for a group album in over a decade. The SEA units (sales converted from streaming) reached 95,000, achieving the highest weekly streaming performance among their works."
The first-week sales of 'Arirang' were driven by physical album sales, which amounted to 516,000 copies. Among these, vinyl sales reached 208,000, setting a new weekly sales record for the group. This is the highest weekly vinyl sales for a group since Luminate began tracking in 1991. Additionally, 'Arirang' debuted at number one on both the 'Top Album Sales' and 'Top Streaming Albums' charts.
With this achievement, BTS has now secured their seventh number one on the Billboard 200. They first topped the chart in 2018 with 'LOVE YOURSELF 轉 'Tear'', becoming the first Korean artist to do so, and have since reached the summit with 'LOVE YOURSELF 結 'Answer'' (2018), 'MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA' (2019), 'MAP OF THE SOUL: 7' (2020), 'BE' (2020), and 'Proof' (2022).
Released on March 20th, 'Arirang' is making waves globally. It dominated Japan's Oricon charts, including the 'Combined Album Ranking', 'Album Ranking', 'Digital Album Ranking', and 'Western Music Album Ranking' for the week of March 30th. It also debuted at number one on the UK's Official Albums Chart 'Official Album Top 100' for the week of March 27th to April 3rd. In France, it topped the SNEP 'Top Albums' chart for the week of March 20th to 26th, and in Australia, it led the ARIA 'Top 50 Albums' and 'Vinyl Chart'. In Germany's Official Music Charts (Offizielle Deutsche Charts) for March 27th, BTS became the first group to simultaneously top both the album and singles charts.
The title track 'SWIM' maintained its number one position on Spotify's 'Daily Top Song Global' for nine consecutive days (March 20th to 28th). It also reached number two on the UK's 'Official Singles Top 100', marking the group's highest ranking on the chart. In South Korea, without any broadcast appearances, they swept first place on music shows including MBC M's 'Show! Champion', Mnet's 'M Countdown', KBS2's 'Music Bank', and SBS's 'Inkigayo', achieving a music show grand slam.
Produced by Bang Si-hyuk, 'Arirang' encapsulates BTS's identity and the universal emotions they face. 'SWIM' conveys the message of persevering through life's waves. RM took charge of the lyrics, expressing the stories they wish to tell now.
Kim Ji-won, Ten Asia Reporter one@tenasia.co.kr