Finally, 2 New K-Pop Albums Have Made It Onto The Billboard World Albums Chart

They’re only the second and third K-Pop albums to make it onto the chart this year!

While new K-Pop songs often appear each week on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart, such as the 5 new ones that debuted on the chart this week, it’s not as common for new K-Pop music to make it onto the Billboard World Albums chart.

Example of K-Pop albums on the Billboard World Albums chart

In fact, only 3 K-Pop albums have made their first debut onto the list so far this year, compared to 22 K-Pop songs that have been newly added to the World Digital Song Sales chart in 2021.

ENHYPEN’s Border: Day One album, the only other K-Pop album to rank on the chart in 2021 so far

Similar to the World Digital Song Sales chart, the World Albums chart is a weekly chart that ranks the best-selling international albums in the United States as of that week.

When BLACKPINK’s The Album peaked on the chart at #1 in October 2020

Unlike the singles chart, however, the albums chart also changes less drastically in general, so having not one but two new K-Pop albums debut on the chart in a single week is not very common!

TXT’s Soobin

The highest-charting new album by a K-Pop artist is actually TXT‘s latest Japanese album, Still Dreaming! It’s even less common for Japanese albums by K-Pop artists to make high sales in the U.S., so this is even more impressive than it already would be. It’s ranked at #4 for its debut week on the chart, which is really high on the list of 15 albums!

TXT has had 5 albums rank on the chart overall, with both their debut album, The Dream Chapter: Star, and their latest Korean-language album, Minisode1: Blue Hour, both peaking at #1.

The second new K-Pop album to debut this week is Chungha‘s first full-length studio album, Querencia. While the album’s release was sadly delayed because of the soloist contracting COVID-19, it was well worth the wait, and clearly well-received since it ended up on this chart!

It’s ranked at #10 for its debut, and is Chungha’s third album to make it onto this list, with Offset reaching a peak of #13 in 2018 and Flourishing reaching a peak of #7 in 2019.

Along with these two albums, 11 of the other albums ranked on the chart this week are in the K-Pop genre, making a total of 13 out of the 15 albums on the list.

BTS, as is often the case, reigns supreme with 7 total albums on the chart: BE at #1 (with 13 weeks on the chart); Map of the Soul: 7 at #2 (with 52 weeks on the chart); Love Yourself: Answer at #5 (130 weeks on the chart); Love Yourself: Tear at #6 (131 weeks); Map of the Soul: Persona at #8 (96 weeks); Skool Luv Affair at #11 (19 weeks); and Love Yourself: Her at #14 (115 weeks).

The four other K-Pop albums ranked on the chart this week are BLACKPINK‘s The Album at #3 (with 20 weeks on the chart); NCT‘s Resonance Pt. 1 at #7 (19 weeks on the chart); NCT 127‘s Neo Zone at #12 (46 weeks); and SuperM‘s Super One at #13 (21 weeks).

Congratulations to all the artists who made it onto the Billboard World Albums chart this week!