With a little under 19,000 copies sold, the Encanto soundtrack stands as the bestselling album in America this week. The title reaches the summit on the Top Album Sales chart for the first time, and further down on the ranking of the albums and EPs that actually sold the most copies in the U.S., the most successful musical act to ever emerge from South Korea finds yet another reason to celebrate.
BTS’s Map of the Soul: 7 is still going strong on the Top Album Sales chart, which is very impressive, considering how long it’s been present on the list. This time around, the globally-adored pop band’s set improves from No. 45 to No. 39, returning to the top 40. With one more turn on the tally, the project reaches a very special milestone—one that remains out of reach for all other musical acts from their home country.
Map of the Soul: 7 has now spent an incredible 100 weeks on the Top Album Sales chart, which means it has ranked as one of the bestselling titles in the largest music market in the world for nearly two years. The title is the fourth release from BTS to make it to triple digit frames on the ranking, just another sign that they’re able to sell CDs and digital albums like few left in the music industry. The South Korean outfit’s previous efforts Map of the Soul: Persona (125 weeks), Love Yourself: Tear (109 weeks) and Love Yourself: Answer (107 weeks) have all made it to the notable threshold as well, and the septet will surely manage to do so again. In fact, Love Yourself: Her only needs fewer than 10 more weeks on the Top Album Sales list before it becomes the group’s fifth effort to hit 100 frames.
Released in February 2020, Map of the Soul: 7 was an immediate bestseller. The set opened at No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Album Sales charts, easily conquering both tallies. The project arrived with 422,000 equivalent units shifted, which helped it become the seven-member boy band’s fourth chart-topper on the all-encompassing roster of the most-consumed albums in the U.S. Of that sum, 347,000 were pure purchases, a huge figure in today’s streaming-dominated music business.
Map of the Soul: 7 produced the singles “Black Swan” and “On,” with the latter bringing the band to a new high on the Hot 100, at least at the time. The first taste only rose to No. 57, while “On” peaked at No. 4. Fan-favorite album cuts “My Time” and “Filter” also broke onto the list of the most popular tunes in the U.S., stalling at Nos. 84 and 87, respectively. At the time, a non-single from a K-pop act making it to the Hot 100 was nearly unheard of, and it underlined just how successful BTS had become.
Thus far, BTS is the only musical act from South Korea to see one of their releases spend at least 100 weeks on the Top Album Sales chart, and they will likely hold onto this bit of history for some time. In fact, only a handful of names from the Asian nation have kept a title on the list for half as long, as Blackpink and NCT 127 have watched as fans in America continued to purchase their releases in large enough quantities over a long enough period of time to have them live on the ranking for 50 frames or more.
