BTS’s RM Misses Very Important Charts With His New Single

BTS superstar RM is back on the Billboard charts as a soloist with a special collaboration. This week, as the group that brought him to international superstardom remains on hiatus, the singer and rapper joins fellow South Korean talent Tablo on the track “Stop the Rain,” a hip-hop tune that American fans of both artists were quick to embrace.

While the cut opens high on a pair of tallies, it doesn’t manage to perform well outside of one consumption metric. This speaks to both how it was promoted and the dedication of followers of both RM and Tablo.

RM’s New No. 1 Song

“Stop the Rain” launches inside the top five on two charts in the United States. It opens at No. 1 on the Rap Digital Song Sales list and comes in at No. 4 on the all-genre Digital Song Sales tally. Luminate reports that in the first seven-day tracking period during which “Stop the Rain” was available to American consumers, it sold a little more than 3,500 copies.

RM and Tablo Miss Some Important Charts

The track earns an impressive showing on both the Digital Song Sales and Rap Digital Song Sales charts — but that’s it. It doesn’t appear on any other U.S.-based rankings this week. It completely misses the Radio Songs and Streaming Songs charts, and most importantly, the Hot 100.

The fact that “Stop the Rain” opens at No. 1 on the Rap Digital Song Sales list but fails to chart on other rap-focused rankings – such as the Rap Streaming Songs or Hot Rap Songs tallies — suggests that its performance on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music was lackluster, especially when compared to its strong sales.

“Stop the Rain” also received little to no radio attention in the U.S., but it likely wasn’t promoted for serious airplay, so that result isn’t entirely surprising.

RM Fails to Crack the Top Half of Billboard’s Global Charts

The RM/Tablo tune also misses the upper half of both of Billboard’s worldwide rankings. It launches at No. 116 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. and No. 178 on the Billboard Global 200. With what must be a few thousand additional purchases outside of only the United States, it seems that streaming activity didn’t significantly add to those figures.