Unsurprisingly, K-pop supergroup BTS scored yet another No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart with their reunion album, Arirang. This marks the seventh time the group has taken the top sport on the chart.
The seven-member outfit returned for their first album in nearly four years last week, following a group hiatus to complete mandatory military enlistment in their home country of South Korea. Fans of the group, known collectively as ARMY, have been anxiously awaiting the group’s return since then. Arirang finished week one with 641,000 equivalent album units earned, according to Billboard, which marks the largest debut for an album this year and the best opening by a group since the chart began measuring by units in 2014.
In terms of traditional album sales, BTS had the biggest debut week for a group in over a decade with 532,000. They came close to dethroning One Direction, who debuted their 2013 album Midnight Memories with 547,000 in pure sales, according to Billboard.
Arirang’s debut was BTS’ biggest sales week yet on the chart. It was also the group’s biggest streaming week yet, per Billboard. Arirang marks the biggest week for an album in both units and pure sales since Taylor Swift dominated the charts with The Life Of A Showgirl last year.
A historic trailblazer in the globalization of K-pop, BTS celebrated their return last week with a Netflix live stream comeback performance in front of Gwanghwamun, the main gate and historic entryway to Seoul’s Gyeongbokgung Palace. That venue choice was no coincidence, as the new album is in many ways a meditation on the group’s cultural identity.
The album’s name, Arirang, pays tribute to a treasured Korean folk ballad of the same name, which was famously the country’s first song, sung by Korean men, ever recorded (it was preserved for posterity by American ethnologist Alice Fletcher in 1896). Motifs from the original “Arirang” feature prominently in the closing minutes of the new album’s opening track, “Body to Body.” One of the most striking tracks on the album is “No. 29,” a song made up only of the sound of a bell being tolled once, with the resonant ringing lasting a minute and 38 seconds. The bell used for the recording is Korea’s original, 1,255-year-old Divine Bell of King Seongdeok. The song’s title is a reference to the historic object’s official designation as “South Korea’s National Treasure No. 29.”
On Friday, the group released a documentary on Netflix, which chronicled the group’s balancing act during the making of Arirang as the band looked to honor its roots in Korea even as their audience has expanded to encompass the entire world.
BTS made their return to U.S. late night television last week, appearing on two nights of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. The first night found the group as the guest and musical host, staging a performance of their single “Swim” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.The second episode eatured a performance of the group’s song “2.0,” also filmed at the museum.
BTS is currently preparing to embark on their first full-scale, all-group tour in years. The tour, spanning 2026 and 2027, will hit Asia, North America, Europe, Latin America and Australia, making it one of the most expansive tours of the group’s career.
The tour will kick off with three nights in Goyang, South Korea, before heading to Tokyo for two nights. BTS is set to then head to the U.S. for a stop in Tampa. The group then zigzags around the world with U.S. stops sprinkled throughout. The group is anticipated to make 82 stops.
