JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A K-pop group has this week's No. 1 album in the U.S. It's made a habit of debuting at the top of the charts lately. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson has the story.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: The biggest pop and hip-hop stars of the 21st century have racked up a ton of No. 1 albums - Taylor Swift, Drake and Jay-Z each have more than a dozen. But a newer act is catching up with them in a hurry. The K-pop boy band Stray Kids now has nine chart-topping albums, and those have all debuted at No. 1 within the last five years.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS & THAT")
STRAY KIDS: (Singing) Everything I do, multiply it by two. I got this and that, this and that.
THOMPSON: That's "This & That." It's the title track from Stray Kids' new album. This week, the song becomes the group's first ever top 40 hit. So how does an act with nine No. 1 albums only have one top 40 single in its career? For Stray Kids, it's simple. For all the crossover success of BTS, BLACKPINK and the movie "KPop Demon Hunters," K-pop music still doesn't get much radio airplay in the U.S. Before "This & That," Stray Kids' biggest hit, "Chk Chk Boom," peaked at No. 49 a couple years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHK CHK BOOM")
STRAY KIDS: (Singing) Boom. Vamos, I know that you want it. Boom. Lobos, we cannot stop hunting. Boom. Ra-ta-ta-ta, I'm a make it. Boom, boom, chk, chk, boom.
THOMPSON: Stray Kids' new album may have debuted at No. 1, but it doesn't even enter the Billboard chart listing the week's top 50 albums on streaming. "This & That" was streamed less than albums compiling the greatest hits of Nickelback, Pitbull and One Republic. So how does Stray Kids' new album debut at No. 1 if most radio stations aren't playing the songs and it's not one of the week's 50 most streamed albums? The answer is sales. As with many devoted fan armies, Stray Kids devotees show up to buy each new album the week of its release. And with many variant editions of the same title available for sale on CD, vinyl and digital download, some of those fans are buying multiple copies.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS & THAT")
STRAY KIDS: (Singing) Cappuccino and Americano. I'll take this and that, this and that.
THOMPSON: Their efforts have paid off. "This & That" has already sold 357,000 copies - the best week of Stray Kids' career so far.
Stephen Thompson, NPR Music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS & THAT")
STRAY KIDS: (Singing) I ain't getting no pain. I'll show you the way, I got no shame, and I'm (singing in Korean). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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