The South Korean group Stray Kids never impacted the Billboard 200 album chart in any position before, but the K-pop crew passed go and came in with a bang, landing at No. 1 with “Oddinary.”
The vast majority of interest in the band came in the form of full albums sold, not streaming, which allowed “Oddinary” to stake a claim for the biggest week of 2022 so far in the sales department. The overall total in album-equivalent units was 110,000, which is not a record for the year… but the fact that 103,000 of those units came via pure album sales did set a benchmark that hasn’t been reached by anyone else in ’22.
Interestingly, Billboard reports that more than 100,000 of those 103,000 album sales were in CD form, with no vinyl edition available and not that much action on the digital download front — the seven different collectible packages providing an irresistible physical lure for fans, as is often the case with other K-pop groups like BTS.
Stray Kids have been around for a few years, but just not with any effort to impact the US market till now. The group, a product of a 2017 reality show in South Korea, did have two previous releases that did well on the world music chart. Billboard notes that “Oddinary” is just the 13th album sung primarily not in English to go No. 1 in the US
The only other debuting album in the top 10 is Charli XCX’s “Crash” — and surprisingly, given her outsized public profile, it’s her first top 10 album ever. It debuted at No. 7 with 31,500 album-equivalent units, per the data firm Luminate, formerly MRC Data. That’s a good but not great number for an artist with an active fan base coming off a recent high-profile appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”
Holdover albums include last week’s chart topper, Lil Durk’s “7220,” slipping to No. 2 with a still-healthy 88,000 units, followed by another former No. 1, the “Encanto” soundtrack, at No. 3 with 59,000. That one is likely to see a boost next week out of its big look on the Oscars Sunday. Morgan Wallen, Jice WRLD and the Weeknd’s hits collection are next up at Nos. 4-6. Rounding out the top 10 in the last three slots are Drake, Gunna and Doja Cat.
For anyone doubting Morgan Wallen’s chart supremacy, “Dangerous: the Double Album” just set a record for the most weeks spent at No. 1 on the country albums chart, Billboard points out — the current week is its 51st in that top spot. The previous record was a tie for 50 weeks between Luke Combs’ “This One’s for You” and Shania Twain’s “Come on Over.”
On the Billboard Hot 100, Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” is the No. 1 song for a fourth straight week. It racked up 66.7 million radio audience impressions and 15.1 million US streams, essentially close to even with what the tune garnered the previous week.
No new songs debuted in the Hot 100’s top 10. A slight shift in chart positions resulted in Justin Bieber having two songs in the top 5, “Stay” with the Kid Laroi at No. 2 and the solo track “Ghosts” at No. 5. Other artists hanging in include Kodak Black, whose “Gremlins” remains at No. 3, followed by Gayle’s “Abcdefu” also holding onto its No. 4 position. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” slips a spot to No. 6 — again, expect an Oscar-related bump on the next chart — and Imagine Dragons/JID, Lil Nas X and Olivia Rodrigo stand at Nos. 8-10.
variety.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism