Stray Kids tops Billboard 200 with 3rd LP ‘5-STAR’

Stray Kids (JYP Entertainment)

Stray Kids’ third studio album, “5-STAR,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart dated June 17, Billboard said Monday.

This is the K-pop act’s third time topping the chart following the success of albums “MAXIDENT” and “ODDINARY” released last year.

The eight-piece act, which debuted in January 2018, became the second Korean artist to have reached such a milestone after BTS.

The 12-song set earned 249,500 equivalent album units in the US during the week ending on June 8, according to Luminate.

“We were surprised by this news. We are so happy. Thanks to our fans, STAY, we were able to make such a special and impressive accomplishment. We hope that many people at home and abroad can feel fresh excitement and joy in our music,” said Stray Kids in a press release on Monday.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the best-performing albums and EPs in the US based on multimetric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEAs) and streaming equivalent albums (SEAs).

Stray Kid’s 249,500 equivalent album units comprised 235,000 album sales, 14,000 SEA units, and 500 TEA units. Of the 235,000 albums sold, 98 percent were CD sales while 2 percent were digital album sales.

This is the largest number of sales in a week scored by an album this year, and also since Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” debuted at No. 1 on the same chart last year with 1.14 million copies sold.

“It is the 19th mostly non-English language album to hit No. 1, and the third of 2023, following Karol G’s 'Manana Sera Bonito' and TXT’s 'The Name Chapter: Temptation,'” said Billboard.

With its third LP, Stray Kids also wrote themselves into K-pop history, logging 5.13 million preorders-- the highest number of preorders ever observed in the industry.

By Hong Yoo(yoohong@heraldcorp.com)