Stray Kids tie BTS for K-pop act with the most Billboard 200 chart-toppers

Stray Kids have tied with BTS as the K-pop acts with the most Number One albums on the Billboard 200 chart with their latest album, ‘HOP’.

On December 22, Billboard announced that Stray Kids’ latest release, ‘HOP’, had debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at Number One. This feat has made the album the band’s sixth consecutive release to do so, following previous albums ‘Oddinary’, ‘Maxident’, ‘5-Star’, ‘Rock Star’ and ‘ATE’.

According to Billboard, which cited data from Luminate, ‘HOP’ recorded a total of 187,000 equivalent album units during the week ending December 19, of which 176,000 units came from traditional album sales. ‘HOP’ also recorded 10,000 streaming equivalent album units, which is equivalent to 14.83million on-demand audio streams over the same period.

‘HOP”s Number One debut makes Stray Kids the first-ever musician in the Billboard 200’s history, since its inception in 1956, to have their first six entries on the chart all debut in the top spot.

With this, Stray Kids have also tied with K-pop juggernauts BTS for the most Number One albums on the Billboard 200 chart, with six albums each. They are also tied with bands Linkin Park and Dave Matthews Band for the most Number One albums by a group.

The JYP Entertainment boyband also previously appeared alongside BTS on Spotify’s list of the most-streamed K-pop acts of 2024, as part of the streaming platform’s Wrapped 2024 initiative. The eight-piece came in at Number Three on the list, just behind BTS and Jungkook. 

Stray Kids are currently on their ongoing ‘dominATE’ world tour, having most recently completed their Jakarta show. The band are due to wrap up its Asian leg in Hong Kong with two shows on January 18 to 19, 2025, before they set off for Latin America, North America and Europe for the remainder of the tour in 2025.

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