The No. 1 album within the nation belongs to the Ok-pop group Stray Children and its new album Karma.
iMBC/ImaZins through Getty Photos/ImaZinS Editorial
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iMBC/ImaZins through Getty Photos/ImaZinS Editorial
A Ok-pop blockbuster lands atop this week’s Billboard albums chart, but it surely’s not the one you could be anticipating: It is Karma, the brand new album by Stray Children, which turns into the group’s seventh consecutive chart-topper within the span of simply three and a half years. It is certainly one of many prime 10 debuts this week — Laufey! Deftones! BigXthaPlug! — whereas the Scorching 100 singles chart is trying quieter, albeit nonetheless filled with demon-hunting Ok-poppers.
TOP ALBUMS
Final week, the soundtrack to KPop Demon Hunters appeared primed to overhaul the album that is dominated the Billboard 200 all summer season: Morgan Wallen‘s I am the Drawback, which sat at No. 1 for a twelfth nonconsecutive week. This time round, KPop Demon Hunters certainly surpasses I am the Drawback in the end — however a distinct Ok-pop juggernaut swoops in to grab the chart’s prime spot.
With I am the Drawback dropping to No. 3 and KPop Demon Hunters holding at No. 2 for a sixth nonconsecutive week, the No. 1 album within the nation belongs to the Ok-pop group Stray Children and its new album Karma. It wasn’t shut, both, as Karma racked up gross sales of an astounding 296,000 copies — the second-highest gross sales whole of any album launched this yr (behind The Weeknd‘s Hurry Up Tomorrow).
Stray Children’ first seven charting albums and EPs have all debuted at No. 1, which extends the group’s all-time report (courting again to the Billboard 200’s creation in 1956). It is also damaged a four-way tie with BTS, Linkin Park and Dave Matthews Band for probably the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 this century. However there’s an asterisk price contemplating, as effectively: All six of Stray Children’ earlier chart-toppers — which, thoughts you, solely date again to the spring of 2022 — have spent exactly one week at No. 1. And, on condition that gross sales account for practically 95% of Karma‘s week-one numbers (it is No. 34 on the High Streaming Albums chart), it is extremely unlikely to prime subsequent week’s Billboard 200, particularly with Sabrina Carpenter‘s Man’s Greatest Buddy slated to enter the chat.
Nonetheless, give Stray Children credit score: Seven No. 1 albums within the span of three and a half years is a exceptional feat. And in 2025, not many acts can promote practically 300,000 copies of an album in a single week.
Three different artists debut on this week’s prime 10, with one other re-entering the chart after an extended absence. After her breakthrough album Bewitched peaked at No. 18 — and gained a Grammy someplace alongside the way in which — the Icelandic singer-songwriter Laufey scores her first-ever prime 10 album with A Matter of Time, which debuts at No. 4. The veteran hard-rock band Deftones debuts at No. 5 with its new album Non-public Music. The rapper BigXthaPlug lands the highest-charting album of his profession along with his album of nation duets, I Hope You are Glad, which enters the chart at No. 7. And a Tenth-anniversary reissue of Tyler, The Creator‘s Cherry Bomb sends that album again to No. 6, albeit briefly. (Actually 98% of its numbers are derived from gross sales.)
Lastly, a busy week of recent album releases means there are three different debuts price noting: Mariah the Scientist‘s Hearts Bought Individually, Sombr‘s I Barely Know Her and Offset‘s Kiari all land solidly within the prime 20.
TOP SONGS
This week, the lion’s share of the chart motion is going down on the Billboard 200 albums chart. By comparability, the Scorching 100 singles chart appears to be like an terrible lot like final week’s.
That is nice information for KPop Demon Hunters — which, in the event you’ll recall, simply turned the primary soundtrack in Billboard chart historical past to land 4 songs within the prime 10 concurrently. This week, it pulls off that precise feat a second time, led by HUNTR/X’s “Golden” at No. 1. (Saja Boys’ “Your Idol” and “Soda Pop,” plus HUNTR/X’s “How It is Completed,” additionally assist fill out the highest 10, whereas three different songs from the soundtrack reside within the prime 25.)
Elsewhere, there is not a lot motion — one way or the other, Teddy Swims‘ “Lose Management” remains to be sitting within the prime 10 for a record-smashing, mind-numbing 76th week — although Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” does decisively re-enter the highest 10 within the run-up to the discharge of Man’s Greatest Buddy. Search for that album’s arrival, and the discharge of the saucy “Tears” as a single, to shake up subsequent week’s Scorching 100.
WORTH NOTING
Although pedants will remind us that the summer season of 2025 does not finish for a number of extra weeks, Billboard‘s limited-run Songs of the Summer time chart operates on extra of a “Memorial Day to Labor Day” system. Which implies that we have simply gotten the ultimate, definitive summer season chart for the yr — and it tells us what we have identified for months now. Your official, Billboard-approved Track of the Summer time is… Alex Warren‘s “Peculiar.”
Billboard operates the Songs of the Summer time chart for 14 weeks every year, and in 2025, “Peculiar” sat at No. 1 for all 14 of them. Now, eagle-eyed chart-watchers will word that “Peculiar” did not prime the Billboard Scorching 100 for all 14 of these weeks — and, in actual fact, doesn’t at the moment sit atop the Scorching 100. However Songs of the Summer time operates cumulatively, and thus enormously penalizes late-breaking entries within the song-of-the-summer sweepstakes.
Some years, that system works nice — for instance, in years when the most important contenders had been already charting previous to summertime. However this yr, it massively skews the chart in favor of stuff that was topping the charts in Might. Which is to say: “Peculiar” and scads of Morgan Wallen songs. Wallen’s “What I Need (feat. Tate McRae),” “Simply in Case” and “I am the Drawback” sit at Nos. 2 by way of 4, in that order, whereas Kendrick Lamar‘s “Luther (feat. SZA)” lands at No. 5 after a future atop the Scorching 100 early within the yr.
As a result of it got here out simply in time to overlook final yr’s Songs of the Summer time chart, Girl Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ “Die With a Smile” lands at No. 6, whereas one other historical tune — Chappell Roan‘s “Pink Pony Membership” — turns up at No. 8. And the remainder of the highest 10 consists of songs that might rank greater had they damaged by way of sooner: “Golden” at No. 7, “Manchild” at No. 9 and Ravyn Lenae‘s “Love Me Not” at No. 10.
If this method appears imperfect, it is price remembering that figuring out one thing as summary as “the tune of the summer season” is all the time going to be extra artwork than science. In any case, the “nothing beats a Jet2 vacation” meme did not even crack the Scorching 100.
