K-pop rules the charts — and it’s not just ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ either

A K-pop blockbuster lands atop this week’s Billboard albums chart, but it’s not the one you might be expecting: It’s Karma, the new album by Stray Kids, which becomes the group’s seventh consecutive chart-topper in the span of just three and a half years. It’s one of many top 10 debuts this week — Laufey! Deftones! BigXthaPlug! — while the Hot 100 singles chart is looking quieter, albeit still stuffed with demon-hunting K-poppers.

TOP ALBUMS

Last week, the soundtrack to KPop Demon Hunters looked primed to overtake the album that’s dominated the Billboard 200 all summer: Morgan Wallen‘s I’m the Problem, which sat at No. 1 for a 12th nonconsecutive week. This time around, KPop Demon Hunters indeed surpasses I’m the Problem at long last — but a different K-pop juggernaut swoops in to seize the chart’s top spot.

With I’m the Problem dropping to No. 3 and KPop Demon Hunters holding at No. 2 for a sixth nonconsecutive week, the No. 1 album in the country belongs to the K-pop group Stray Kids and its new album Karma. It wasn’t close, either, as Karma racked up sales of an astounding 296,000 copies — the second-highest sales total of any album released this year (behind The Weeknd‘s Hurry Up Tomorrow).

Stray Kids’ first seven charting albums and EPs have all debuted at No. 1, which extends the group’s all-time record (dating back to the Billboard 200’s creation in 1956). It’s also broken a four-way tie with BTS, Linkin Park and Dave Matthews Band for the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 this century. But there’s an asterisk worth considering, as well: All six of Stray Kids’ previous chart-toppers — which, mind you, only date back to the spring of 2022 — have spent precisely one week at No. 1. And, given that sales account for nearly 95% of Karma‘s week-one numbers (it’s No. 34 on the Top Streaming Albums chart), it’s highly unlikely to top next week’s Billboard 200, especially with Sabrina Carpenter‘s Man’s Best Friend slated to enter the chat.

Still, give Stray Kids credit: Seven No. 1 albums in the span of three and a half years is a remarkable feat. And in 2025, not many acts can sell nearly 300,000 copies of an album in a single week.

Three other artists debut in this week’s top 10, with another re-entering the chart after a long absence. After her breakthrough album Bewitched peaked at No. 18 — and won a Grammy somewhere along the way — the Icelandic singer-songwriter Laufey scores her first-ever top 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 Private Music. The rapper BigXthaPlug lands the highest-charting album of his career with his album of country duets, I Hope You’re Happy, which enters the chart at No. 7. And a 10th-anniversary reissue of Tyler, The Creator‘s Cherry Bomb sends that album back to No. 6, albeit briefly. (Literally 98% of its numbers are derived from sales.)

Finally, a busy week of new album releases means there are three other debuts worth noting: Mariah the Scientist‘s Hearts Sold Separately, Sombr‘s I Barely Know Her and Offset‘s Kiari all land solidly in the top 20.

TOP SONGS

This week, the lion’s share of the chart action is taking place on the Billboard 200 albums chart. By comparison, the Hot 100 singles chart looks an awful lot like last week’s.

That’s great news for KPop Demon Hunters — which, if you’ll recall, just became the first soundtrack in Billboard chart history to land four songs in the top 10 simultaneously. This week, it pulls off that exact 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’s Done,” also help fill out the top 10, while three other songs from the soundtrack reside in the top 25.)

Elsewhere, there isn’t much movement — somehow, Teddy Swims‘ “Lose Control” is still sitting in the top 10 for a record-smashing, mind-numbing 76th week — though Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” does decisively re-enter the top 10 in the run-up to the release of Man’s Best Friend. Look for that album’s arrival, and the release of the saucy “Tears” as a single, to shake up next week’s Hot 100.

WORTH NOTING

Though pedants will remind us that the summer of 2025 doesn’t end for several more weeks, Billboard‘s limited-run Songs of the Summer chart operates on more of a “Memorial Day to Labor Day” system. Which means that we’ve just gotten the final, definitive summer chart for the year — and it tells us what we’ve known for months now. Your official, Billboard-approved Song of the Summer is… Alex Warren‘s “Ordinary.”

Billboard operates the Songs of the Summer chart for 14 weeks each year, and in 2025, “Ordinary” sat at No. 1 for all 14 of them. Now, eagle-eyed chart-watchers will note that “Ordinary” did not top the Billboard Hot 100 for all 14 of those weeks — and, in fact, does not currently sit atop the Hot 100. But Songs of the Summer operates cumulatively, and thus greatly penalizes late-breaking entries in the song-of-the-summer sweepstakes.

Some years, that system works fine — for example, in years when the major contenders were already charting prior to summertime. But this year, it massively skews the chart in favor of stuff that was topping the charts in May. Which is to say: “Ordinary” and scads of Morgan Wallen songs. Wallen’s “What I Want (feat. Tate McRae),” “Just in Case” and “I’m the Problem” sit at Nos. 2 through 4, in that order, while Kendrick Lamar‘s “Luther (feat. SZA)” lands at No. 5 after a long run atop the Hot 100 early in the year.

Because it came out just in time to miss last year’s Songs of the Summer chart, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ “Die With a Smile” lands at No. 6, while another ancient song — Chappell Roan‘s “Pink Pony Club” — turns up at No. 8. And the rest of the top 10 consists of songs that would rank higher had they broken through sooner: “Golden” at No. 7, “Manchild” at No. 9 and Ravyn Lenae‘s “Love Me Not” at No. 10.

If this system seems imperfect, it’s worth remembering that determining something as abstract as “the song of the summer” is always going to be more art than science. After all, the “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” meme didn’t even crack the Hot 100.