SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – DECEMBER 02: SEVENTEEN attends the Asia Artist Awards 2021 at KBS Arena Hall on … [+]
On IFPI’s (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) recently-shared list of the bestselling albums all around the world in 2021, comeback releases by Adele and ABBA beat everyone else to the top, while pop favorites like Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber deliver once again. Two musical acts manage to fill more than one space on the 10-spot ranking, and while one has been dominating music charts everywhere for more than a decade, another name might not be as familiar to audiences in the west…and that’s what makes their incredible success that much more exciting and eye-opening.
South Korean boy band Seventeen fills two spaces on the list of the 10 bestselling albums in the world in 2021, proving themselves to be one of the bestselling and most popular musical acts on the planet. They are joined in this feat by Taylor Swift, who also occupies two rungs on the tally, though even she doesn’t perform as well as the all-male vocal troupe.
Seventeen’s highest-ranking placement comes in at No. 3, where their massive seller Attacca sits. A little further down on the short chart is Your Choice, which lands at No. 8. Just one of those appearances would have been cause for the group and their fan base to celebrate, but two is nearly unheard of.
Swift also claims two of the top 10 bestselling albums in the world in 2021, but her headline-grabbing efforts didn’t sell quite as well globally as Seventeen’s. In fact, the Grammy winner doesn’t appear in the upper half of the tally at all, unlike the K-pop boy band. Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) comes in at No. 7, while Fearless (Taylor’s Version) sits at No. 10, narrowly breaking onto the ranking at all.
Seventeen’s performance on the bestselling list is not a huge shock to their fans, as they are the ones who rushed out to stores to pick up a copy of Attacca and Your Choice, but it might come as a surprise to Western music industry watchers. In America, the largest music market in the world, neither of those efforts managed to break into the top 10 on the Billboard 200, which ranks the most-consumed titles in the nation, though they only missed the mark by a few spots. On the more appropriate Top Album Sales chart, both releases went right to No. 1.
The fact that Seventeen dominates the year-end ranking as they do without having dominated in some of the largest markets in the world (mostly in Western countries) suggests that they overperformed in South Korea. The group has no issue rising to the top spot on their homegrown albums chart, and they now regularly rack up historically-massive certifications for selling millions of copies. While they have recently started to invade nations like America with their music, it’s clear that their fan base in the Asian country is so huge, they need nothing else to prove they’re among the biggest and best in the world.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2022/03/03/k-pop-boy-band-seventeens-sales-success-helps-them-outrank-taylor-swift-justin-bieber-and-bts/