BTS scores biggest sales week for a group in four years with ‘Map of the Soul: 7’

Big Hit Entertainment

Map of the Soul: 7, the latest album from K-pop superstars BTS, has topped the Billboard 200 album chart, giving them their fourth number one album.  It’s also set several chart records.

First, Map of the Soul: 7 scored the biggest sales week for any album so far this year, with sales of 422,000 units.  The last album to sell more in one week was Harry Styles‘ Fine Line, which moved 478,000 units back in December.

What’s more, that’s the biggest sales week for a group in four years.  The last group to sell more copies of an album in a week was One Direction, who sold 459,000 units back in December of 2015.

Map of the Soul: 7 has so far sold the most in its debut week of any previous album by BTS.  Their first number one, Love Yourself: Tear, debuted back in June of 2018 with 131,000 units, and each album has subsequently sold more and more copies in its first week.

Most impressively, BTS has scored four albums in just a year and nine months.  The last group to score four chart-topping albums more quickly?  The Beatles, who did it in a year and five months back in 1968. 

BTS publicized the new album heavily, with multiple appearances on The Late Late Show with James Corden, and a spot on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

And finally, of note, Map of the Soul: 7 is only the 10th album performed mostly in another language to reach number one in the history of the Billboard album chart. 

Four of those 10 are, naturally, by BTS. The others are SuperM’s The First Mini Album EP, Andrea Bocelli’SiIl Divo’Ancora, Josh Groban’s CloserSelena’s Dreaming Of You and The Singing Nun’s self-titled album.

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