K-pop surges on the album chart, and Shaboozey ties an all-time record

You want milestones? We’ve got milestones, starting with Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” matching the longest-ever run at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, 19 weeks. Over on the albums chart too, with three K-pop records in the top 10 simultaneously for the first time ever. And BTS has a new feather in its cap that’ll be awfully hard for other groups — K-pop or otherwise — to duplicate going forward.

TOP ALBUMS

Some weeks offer little in the way of chart movement, as juggernauts (your Taylor Swifts, your Beyoncés, your Morgan Wallens) lock down the top spots for weeks or even months at a time. And some weeks are like this one, where half of the top 10 turns over and new entries rule the day.

Amid all that volatility, there are three K-pop records in the Billboard 200 top 10 for the first time ever. At No. 1, the boy band Ateez banks its sixth consecutive top 10 album with GOLDEN HOUR: Part.2, the success of which is derived almost entirely from sales (179,000 copies sold) rather than airplay or streaming. BTS’s Jin debuts at No. 4 with his first solo album, Happy. And the boy band ENHYPEN returns to the Billboard 200 at No. 7 with ROMANCE: UNTOLD, which debuted at No. 2 in July, dropped off the chart as summer rolled on and now returns, thanks to a deluxe reissue that includes two new bonus tracks.

There’s another K-pop milestone to be found in that paragraph: With the arrival of Happy at No. 4, all seven members of BTS have now charted a solo album in the Billboard top 10. The members of the group have been on a planned break as they pursue solo careers and complete their mandatory military service in South Korea, but they are scheduled to reunite next year, making BTS look like one of the surest bets for chart success in 2025.

Speaking of sure bets, Linkin Park returns to the top 10 with its first album since the death of singer Chester Bennington in 2017. From Zero, which features a new drummer (Colin Brittain) and singer (Emily Armstrong), debuts at No. 2. And the Puerto Rican star Rauw Alejandro has scored his first-ever top 10 album, as Cosa Nuestra debuts at No. 6.

The quintet of new albums forces the holdovers in the top 10 to slide down to make room: Tyler, The Creator’s Chromakopia (from No. 1 to No. 3); Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet (from No. 3 to No. 5); Gracie Abrams’ The Secret of Us (from No. 4 to No. 8); Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft (from No. 5 to No. 9); and Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (from No. 6 to No. 10). Naturally, some will rebound next week as the dust settles, but they’re still going to have to make room for Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, which dropped last Friday and is likely to carve out a large footprint when next week’s chart rolls around.

TOP SONGS

He did it, y’all: Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has officially tied the all-time record of 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, set in 2019 by Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus).” Considering that the last few weeks of Lil Nas X’s run were boosted by star-studded remixes — remember the “Seoul Town Road Remix” with RM from BTS? — it’s remarkable to see Shaboozey pull off 19 weeks with no featured guest vocalists.

Unlike Lil Nas X’s record-setting run, Shaboozey’s ride at the top has been interrupted. Twice, in fact: “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” was bumped from the top spot by one-week boomlets for Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” (which surged upon the release of its official video) and Morgan Wallen’s “Love Somebody” (which debuted at No. 1 a few weeks ago before sliding to the back half of the top 10). Those momentary displacements could prove consequential to Shaboozey’s chances of breaking the record outright, because there’s a winter storm brewing courtesy of Mariah Carey, Brenda Lee, Wham! and company. (More on that below.)

If there is indeed one more Christmas-less week at No. 1, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has a solid shot at stretching its run to 20 weeks, because it’s still managing to hold off a crop of sturdy perennials. In fact, this week’s top 10 is virtually identical to last week’s: Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars still can’t crack the top spot together, as “Die With a Smile” holds at No. 2 yet again, while Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” sits entrenched at No. 3. Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” is somehow surging in its 45th week in the top 10 — that’s the second-most weeks of all time, behind The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” with 57 — as it rises from No. 5 to No. 4, switching places with Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.”

Then, it’s a whole lotta stasis: Gracie Abrams’ “That’s So True,” Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” (featuring Morgan Wallen), Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste,” Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” and Wallen’s “Love Somebody” round out the top 10, in that exact order, for a second straight week.

But not for long…

WORTH NOTING

…because, look, the “winter is coming” gags write themselves. If you’ve grown weary of this particular iteration of the top 10 singles in the U.S., you won’t have to wait much longer for them to be replaced en masse by another gaggle of familiar faces.

Last week, we got our first hint of the deluge to come, as Wham!’s 1984 staple “Last Christmas” — perhaps deriving a bit of a boost from its 40th anniversary — re-entered the Hot 100 at No. 38. This week, it climbs to No. 24, and it’s brought a fair bit of company along for the ride: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” (No. 16), Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (No. 23), Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” (No. 47) and Burl Ives’ “Holly Jolly Christmas” (No. 48) all re-enter the chart this week. (Here’s a Hot 100 bookkeeping curiosity: Billboard only allows old holiday songs to return to the chart if they’re in the top 50; in other words, the only way a holiday song can chart between No. 51 and No. 100 is when it hits the Hot 100 for the first time.)

It’s become something of a holiday cliché to view Mariah Carey’s 1994 staple “All I Want for Christmas Is You” — which celebrates a round-numbered anniversary of its own this year — as the default holiday chart-topper. But in the 2023 holiday season, fueled in part by a new video (and support from TikTok users), Brenda Lee’s 1958 song “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” actually took the top spot for several weeks. So expect a fresh round of jockeying for supremacy this year, including a potential surge for “Last Christmas.”

And, no, none of us are allowed to go on and on about how sick we are of any of these songs until at least, say, December 1. After that, they’re fair game. (Lookin’ at you, “Jingle Bell Rock.”)