BTS breaks Billboard run
BTS’s album ARIRANG has now spent a third week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making it the longest-running No. 1 by a group in recent chart history. (x.com) The run is being noted against recent group chart performances, with social coverage flagging the milestone and fan reaction across platforms. (x.com)
BTS stayed at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a third straight week with *ARIRANG*, extending the longest recent chart run by a group. (billboard.com) Billboard’s April 18, 2026-dated chart shows *ARIRANG* earning 124,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending April 9, according to Luminate. The album debuted at No. 1 on the April 4 chart and held the top spot on April 11 and April 18. (billboard.com) Of this week’s 124,000 units, Billboard reported 71,000 in album sales, 50,000 in streaming equivalent albums, and 3,000 in track equivalent albums. Billboard said the streaming figure matched 52.44 million on-demand official streams of the album’s songs. (billboard.com) Billboard said the last album by a group to spend at least three weeks at No. 1 was Mumford & Sons’ *Babel* in 2012 and 2013. Billboard also said *Babel* was the last group album to open with its first three weeks at No. 1. (billboard.com) That makes *ARIRANG* BTS’s longest-running No. 1 album on the chart. When the album logged a second week at No. 1, Billboard noted that BTS’s previous six chart-topping albums had each spent one week at the summit. (billboard.com) The Billboard 200 measures the most popular albums in the United States using a combined total of sales, song purchases, and streams. Billboard said one unit equals one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or a set number of on-demand streams. (billboard.com) The run started with a much larger opening frame. Billboard reported that *ARIRANG* earned 187,000 units in week two, down 71% from its 641,000-unit debut, which Billboard called the biggest opening week of 2026 at that point. (billboard.com) Competition eased in the third week. Billboard said there were no new debuts in the top 10 on the April 18 chart, the first time that had happened in three months, while Morgan Wallen, Ye, Don Toliver, and Olivia Dean filled the next four spots behind BTS. (billboard.com) Luminate, the data company that supplies Billboard’s chart numbers, said Billboard reviews submissions and removes data it considers suspicious or unverifiable before publishing final rankings. That leaves BTS with three straight weeks at the top and the clearest chart benchmark for any group album in the current cycle. (billboard.com)
