A Month After Its Release, BTS’s ‘Map Of The Soul: 7’ Is Still The Second-Bestselling Album In The U.S.

When BTS debuted their new album Map of the Soul: 7 atop the Billboard 200 earlier this month, they did so thanks to an enormous first-week sum. In fact, with 422,000 equivalent units shifted, the group claimed the largest debut of 2020, and it was composed largely of pure sales, which isn’t always the case these days.

While the title may no longer rank as high as it once did on the all-genre multi-metric consumption chart, Map of the Soul: 7 is still selling very well, especially when compared to so many of the efforts that have come and gone since it stepped down from the Billboard 200’s throne.

This week, BTS’s Map of the Soul: 7 advances from No. 3 to No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Albums chart, which focuses solely on pure sales, while the Billboard 200 includes various streaming and track equivalent units. The Korean outfit’s latest project managed to sell another 17,000 copies this past tracking frame, which is a greater sum than most of the titles that currently outperform it on the Billboard 200.

In fact, four weeks into its time on the Billboard charts, Map of the Soul: 7 still stands as the second-bestselling album in the U.S. This time around it was only beaten by Niall Horan’s Heartbreak Weather, which debuts at No. 1 with over 42,000 copies sold. That set, the singer’s second on his own, was boosted by a ticket bundle that gives fans a pass to his upcoming tour, a tactic BTS didn’t use for this latest era.

To put that 17,000 figure into perspective, it is almost three times the number that the current No. 1 title on the Billboard 200, Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake, managed to sell this week. That streaming giant sold just over 6,600 copies.

Most albums that can sell any number worth talking about at all usually do so in the first week and then the numbers crater, and while Map of the Soul: 7 certainly isn’t being snapped up like it was when it first arrived, it is still outselling newer titles, which is rare to see a month into any effort’s time on the ranking these days.

Map of the Soul: 7 may have fallen outside the top 10 on the Billboard 200 this frame, but it outsold all but one of the highest-ranking titles (only Horan beat the band) at least twice over. That means that what is keeping BTS out of the loftiest tier is a lack of streams, which play a big part in where a title ranks on the tally.

Gallery: The World’s 30 Top-Earning Musicians 2018

33 images