BTS’s ‘Map Of The Soul: 7’ Is The Fourth-Longest-Charting Korean Album In U.S. History

Due in part to a serious lack of high-profile albums making impressive debuts on the Billboard 200 (no new releases appear inside the top 40 this time around), BTS’s latest full-length Map of the Soul: 7 reverses the course it was on and advances once again. This frame, the set, which debuted at No. 1 earlier this year with one of the largest first-week sums in recent memory, lifts from No. 74 to No. 64. That’s an impressive position for a title that’s already been available as long as it has, and this turn, it makes history once again by holding on once more.

This week is the sixteenth on the Billboard 200 for Map of the Soul: 7, and that’s enough for the title to pass another from the same band on the ranking of the longest-charting Korean albums in U.S. history. The septet’s latest effort now stands alone as the fourth-longest-charting release by a South Korean act.

Last week, Map of the Soul: 7 was tied as the fourth-longest-charting Korean-language album with another BTS favorite, Love Yourself: Tear. That project managed 15 turns on the Billboard 200, and as the former advances, the latter now has to settle for being the fifth-longest-charting title from a South Korean act.

Ahead of Map of the Soul: 7 on the list of the longest-charting Korean albums are three other sets from BTS, who only compete with themselves these days in almost every regard on the Billboard charts.

The longest-charting album by a South Korean solo musician or group remains BTS’s Love Yourself: Answer, which is also present on the Billboard 200 once again. The title has spent 75 nonconsecutive frames somewhere between Nos. 1 and 200, and it will likely continue to add to that total in the coming months and years.

Steady in second place is BTS’s Love Yourself: Her, which has charted on the Billboard 200 for 44 weeks, though it’s no longer upping that count. The third-longest-charting Korean album in U.S. history is still Map of the Soul: Persona, which ruled the list last year and which kicked off this latest series of full-lengths from the group.

Map of the Soul: 7 has a long way to go before it ties Map of the Soul: Persona as the third-longest-charting Korean album in the decades-long tenure of the Billboard 200, but at the slow rate it is falling down the ranking, it’s not inconceivable that it may one day hit that mark.