BTS Earns First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart With ‘Love Yourself: Tear’

It’s the first K-pop album to top the chart.

Korean boy band BTS debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with its latest effort, Love Yourself: Tear. It’s the first No. 1 for the seven-member group, and the first K-pop album to lead the tally. The set, which was released through BitHit Entertainment on May 18, launches with 135,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending May 24, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 100,000 were in traditional album sales.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new June 2-dated chart (where BTS bows at No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard‘s websites on Wednesday, May 30 (one day later than normal, owed to the May 29 Memorial Day holiday in the U.S.).

Love Yourself: Tear’s first-week sum is a bit bigger than expected. On May 21, some industry forecasters predicted the album would bow with over 100,000 units. By May 24, that forecast grew to over 120,000.

[Quoted from Billboard]