Blackpink Makes History As The First K-Pop Girl Group To Chart A No. 1 Album In The U.S.

Blackpink makes history this week once again as their latest full-length Born Pink debuts atop the Billboard 200. As the title opens in first place, the quartet become the first South Korean female act of any kind to make it to the top spot on the all-encompassing ranking of the most-consumed albums in the U.S.

Born Pink launches at No. 1 on this week’s Billboard 200 with 102,000 equivalent units, according to the chart company itself. That’s enough for the title to snag the throne from Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, which competed for the uppermost rung once again. Of Born Pink’s opening sum, a little more than 75,000 are pure purchases. Impressively, more than 50% of those buys were on CD. That bucks the trend that the music industry has been reckoning with for some time, as millions of music lovers have pivoted from purchasing music (especially on CD) to streaming it in the past decade or so.

Blackpink’s second full-length not only brings the band to the Billboard 200’s summit for the first time, it also instantly becomes their highest-charting effort, but only by one space. In October 2020, their first complete album, the appropriately-named The Album, started at No. 2.

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Born Pink was preceded by just one single, “Pink Venom,” which was released about a month before the album arrived in full. That track debuted and peaked at No. 22 on the Hot 100, giving the band their fourth top 40 on the important songs list.

As Born Pink opens at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the title helps Blackpink become the first K-pop girl group (or female act of any kind) to rule over the ranking. Only a very small number of South Korean music groups have reached the summit on the weekly tally, and before this week, the others were all composed entirely of male musicians. No South Korean soloists have conquered the Billboard 200, at least not yet.

BTS became the first K-pop act to rise to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, which they managed back in June of 2018. Since then, the septet has returned to the summit five more times. Two other male vocal groups based in South Korea–SuperM and Stray Kids–have also joined BTS in this feat, charting their sole No. 1 albums in 2019 and 2022, respectively.

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