okay so I need everyone to sit down because Stray Kids just did something that literally no artist in the 70-year history of the Billboard 200 has ever done, and if you’re not a K-pop girlie you probably scrolled right past it. Stray Kids’ new album “THIS & THAT” sold 3.28 million copies in its first week, and it’s projected to make them the first act EVER to debut nine consecutive albums at #1 on the Billboard 200. Nine. In a row. Let that Stray Kids Billboard 200 record sink in for a sec, because for context, that’s more consecutive #1 debuts than any American pop star has ever pulled off, including the ones your mom listens to.
I know, I know, “another K-pop group breaking records” sounds like a headline you’ve seen a hundred times. But this one is actually different, and I’m going to explain why in terms that make sense even if the only Korean group you can name is BTS (no shade, we love them too).
Wait, who even are Stray Kids?
Stray Kids (“SKZ” if you want to sound like you know things) are an 8-member boy group under JYP Entertainment, the same label that gave us TWICE and ITZY. What sets them apart from a lot of K-pop acts is that the members — Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N — write and produce a huge chunk of their own music through a sub-unit literally called “3RACHA.” So when people say they’re not just “idols,” they mean it: these are guys who are in the studio at 3am arguing about a bassline, not just showing up to record vocals someone else wrote.
3.28 million albums in one week — what that number actually means
To put this in a language American brains understand: album sales like this basically do not exist anymore in the US market, where even the biggest pop stars are lucky to move a few hundred thousand units in a first week, and that’s usually inflated with merch bundles and vinyl variants. According to the Korea Herald, “THIS & THAT” sold approximately 3.28 million copies in its first week, and per Soompi, that makes it the group’s fourth album ever to cross the 3-million mark in a single week — and only the second album in all of 2026 to do it, after BTS’s “ARIRANG.” On the first day alone, Hanteo (basically Korea’s version of a real-time sales tracker) recorded 1.83 million copies sold.
This is the part where I have to explain the “album culture” thing to my American friends every single time: K-pop fans don’t just stream a song, they buy physical albums — sometimes multiple copies of the same album because each one comes with a random photocard of their favorite member and yes, we are all feral about photocards, don’t ask.
The Billboard record nobody has ever touched
Here’s the part that should honestly be bigger news in the US. Every single one of Stray Kids’ Korean-language albums since signing with Republic Records in 2022 — “Oddinary,” “Maxident,” “5-Star,” “Rock-Star,” “ATE,” “HOP,” “KARMA,” and “DO IT” — debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. That’s eight for eight, a feat no act in Billboard 200 history had ever achieved. Now “THIS & THAT” is projected to land around 362,000 first-week units, which would not only extend the streak to nine but also be the biggest chart debut of the group’s entire career.
For comparison, artists like Taylor Swift and Drake — people who are basically synonymous with “chart domination” in the US — have never opened at #1 nine times in a row. It’s not that they’re less popular, it’s that no one has actually built a streak like this before, K-pop group or otherwise.
Why this isn’t “just a K-pop thing”
I think the instinct for a lot of foreign fans is to file this under “oh that’s a K-pop fan thing, doesn’t really count,” but that’s kind of the point I want to push back on. Billboard doesn’t have a separate, easier chart for K-pop acts — “THIS & THAT” is competing against every English-language album released that week, on the same chart Adele and Beyoncé chart on. The fact that a Korean group with music that’s mostly in Korean is out-charting English-language pop acts, repeatedly, for going on four years now, says a lot about how global the audience for this stuff has actually become. It’s not a niche anymore, it’s just… music people everywhere are listening to.
my honest take
Okay so as someone who did NOT grow up on K-pop and got into this whole world kind of late, the thing that gets me isn’t even the sales number, it’s that these guys write so much of their own stuff. Like, I was today years old when I found out “3RACHA” isn’t just a cute nickname, it’s an actual production credit on half these tracks. If Billboard confirms the official #1 debut this week like everyone’s expecting, it’s genuinely going to be one of those “tell your grandkids you were here for it” chart moments. Anyway I’m off to go explain photocards to my roommate for the fourth time this month, wish me luck.
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Sources:
- The Korea Herald — Stray Kids’ latest EP clocks up 3.28m first-week sales
- Soompi — Stray Kids’ “THIS & THAT” Becomes 4th Album To Sell 3 Million Copies In 1st Week
- Ratings Game Music — Stray Kids’ “THIS & THAT” Projected to Debut at No. 1
- The Korea Herald — Stray Kids become first to top Billboard 200 for 8th consecutive time