The group Stray Kids topped the Billboard 200, the main U.S. Billboard album chart, for the first time since their debut with their sixth mini album "Odinary." This is the first achievement in four years since his official debut in 2018. Through Stray Kids, his agency JYP Entertainment (hereinafter referred to as JYP) also resolved its desire to enter the U.S.
Billboard said on its official website on the 29th, "Stray Kids' 'Audience' entered the Billboard 200, the main Billboard album chart, this week (April 2nd)." The Billboard 200 ranks traditional album sales, including real albums, the number of streaming times converted into album sales, and the number of digital downloads converted into album sales. It is the third time that a K-pop artist has topped the Billboard 200 after BTS and SuperM. Considering that SuperM is a project group with several group members, it is the second achievement as a single group.
According to MRC data cited by Billboard, 103,000 copies of Stray Kids' "Odinary" album were sold in the United States for a week after its release. This is the highest number of albums sold in the U.S. this year. In particular, most of the album sales were found to be CDs. Digital albums sold only 2,500 copies. This means that there was no trick of "bundle" of inserting "albums" into various products. This is where Stray Kids' precision technique shines even more.
Stray Kids' move is just like BTS, which gives a sense of the birth of 'Post BTS'. Earlier, BTS received the top of the Billboard 200 chart five times with the power of a fandom established in the U.S., and later achieved a milestone of nine hot 100 titles with "Butter" by continuously performing on the Billboard's main single chart, Hot 100. This was possible because BTS consistently presented music containing their stories, actively communicated through performances and SNS activities, and narrowed their distance from fans.
Stray Kids also strengthened its position in the United States by steadily carrying out activities, starting with a showcase tour in three U.S. cities in 2019. In addition, the fact that 3RACHA (3RACHA, Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han), a producing group in the team, is doing self-produced music, and that SNS communication is active is another factor that makes Stray Kids "Post BTS." In particular, Stray Kids deserve to be evaluated as one step ahead of the competition group, which was attracting attention as a "post BTS" in the U.S. music market before the COVID-19 pandemic, in that it predicted a second million seller with its new album "Audience."
JYP is also in a festive mood. This is because Stray Kids quickly blew the embarrassing history of trying to advance to the U.S. ambitiously with the Wonder Girls in 2009. In addition, with the success of Stray Kids, it provided an opportunity to proudly rise from a "girl group master family" to an "entertainment master family.
Until now, JYP has succeeded in every debuting girl group such as Wonder Girls, Miss A, TWICE, ITZY, and NMIX and won the title of "Girl Group Master." On the other hand, the boy group lineup has shrunk relatively. With the performance of Stray Kids, it is expected that the success story of JYP Boy Group, which surpasses the existing 2PM and GOT7, will be newly used. Boy groups launching in the future are also expected to continue this upward trend.
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