Blackpink is first K-pop girl group to take No. 1 spot on Billboard albums chart

“Born Pink is the third album by a South Korean act to top the Billboard 200 in 2022, following BTS’ Proof and Stray Kids’ Stray Kids Mini Album: Oddinary,” wrote Billboard. “Unlike those two albums, which are mostly in the Korean language, Born Pink is mostly in English — though with a fair amount of Korean lyrics.”

“Born Pink” also broke Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny’s 11-week streak on the chart’s top spot.

The Billboard 200 takes into account physical CD sales as well as the number of online streams and downloads converted to count as CD sales. One-thousand-five-hundred on-demand streams are counted as one streaming equivalent album (SEA), and 10 track downloads are counted as one track equivalent album (TEA). “Born Pink” sold 75,500 in physical copies — the seventh highest physical copy sales this year on the Billboard 200 — 25,000 in SEA and 1,500 in TEA.

“The CD configuration of the album was issued in collectible packages [17 total, including exclusive variants for Target and the group’s official webstore],” Billboard added, “each with a standard set of internal paper items and randomized elements [such as photocards, postcards and stickers].”

Blackpink debuted in August 2016 with the EP “Square One” and consists of four members: Jennie, Jisoo, Rosé and Lisa. It quickly became one of the county’s top K-pop acts, releasing hit dance numbers every year including “Boombayah” (2016), “Playing with Fire” (2016), “As If It’s Your Last” (2017), “Forever Young” (2018), “Kill This Love” (2019), “How You Like That” (2020) and “Lovesick Girls” (2020).

BY HALEY YANG [yang.hyunjoo@joongang.co.kr]