BTS’ Arirang stays at No. 1
BTS’s album Arirang held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for a third consecutive week, a run the Pop Shop Podcast compared to Mumford & Sons’ Babel holding similar endurance in 2012–13. (youtube.com) The podcast used that historical comparison to highlight how rare multi‑week group dominance on the chart has become in the streaming era. (youtube.com)
BTS has kept *Arirang* at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a third straight week, extending the group’s longest run atop the United States albums chart. (billboard.com) Billboard said the album led the chart dated April 18, 2026, with 124,000 equivalent album units in the United States for the week ending April 9, according to Luminate. Of that total, 71,000 came from album sales, 50,000 from streaming-equivalent units, and 3,000 from track-equivalent units. (billboard.com) *Arirang* debuted at No. 1 on the April 4 chart with 641,000 equivalent album units, including 532,000 in pure sales, then held the top spot on the April 11 chart with 187,000 units. Billboard said the opening week was the biggest for an album by a group since the chart began measuring by units in December 2014. (billboard.com; billboard.com) The Billboard 200 is the magazine’s main United States albums ranking, and it combines sales, song downloads, and streams into one weekly total. That method has made long No. 1 runs harder for albums that rely on a big first week and then fade quickly. (billboard.com; forbes.com) Billboard said no album by a group had spent its first three weeks at No. 1 since Mumford & Sons’ *Babel* did so in October 2012, later adding two more weeks at the top in March 2013. The chart report called *Arirang* the group album with the most weeks at No. 1 in more than a decade. (billboard.com) The run also extends BTS’s comeback after a group hiatus that Billboard said began in 2022 while members completed South Korea’s mandatory military service. *Arirang* is the group’s first new BTS album since 2020, and Billboard tied its release to a comeback show at Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square that streamed globally on Netflix. (billboard.com) In the April 18 top 10, Morgan Wallen’s *I’m the Problem* rose to No. 2 with 80,000 units and Ye’s *Bully* fell to No. 3 with 69,000, leaving BTS ahead in a relatively quiet release week. Billboard said the chart had no new top-10 debuts for the first time in three months. (billboard.com) For BTS, the third week at No. 1 turns a reunion album into a sustained chart run. For the Billboard 200, it puts a group back in a spot that Billboard says had not been held this long since *Babel* more than 13 years ago. (billboard.com)
