Who will next break BTS's best-selling album in SK record after Seventeen and Stray Kids?

Quote from Nutcraker

I'd say BTS. They will take the title back from all of the Kpop groups who surpassed them while on hiatus.

It's a fact.

You guys are forgetting one key factor. These groups are breaking this record with multiple album versions, inflating their sales.

BTS don’t even do 4 album versions anymore and their albums are all super expensive. How are armys gonna break these numbers with such a disadvantage???

I honestly don’t expect this record to be broken if Hybe keeps moving like this. And no matter what other stans say, it’s a big fact that album versions do inflate numbers and BTS are a classic example with MOTS7 and recent albums

Quote from KpopVeteranARMY

As an ARMY, I noticed BTS's fandom sorta seems to start to be getting a little antsy even with all of BTS's members' solo releases in the past 2 years, with BTS's members' solos not doing as well as expected even with Jimin's debut single Like Crazy hitting #1 on Billboard's Hot 100, with metrics like views seeming to be suffering a lot and most of their album sales, while doing really well are still being surpassed by BLACKPINK's members' solos, but they seem to slowly showing their strength again with the release of BTS's most popular members Jungkook and V's solo releases with V's album finally surpassing Jisoo's by selling 2 million copies and JK's Seven #1 on Billboard Hot 100, 3D #5, and his upcoming solo album in November Golden will probably sell equal amounts to V and probably outsell it.

I can see ARMY going to some other group like TXT if BTS doesn't really comeback around 2025 like promised. But if BTS DOES come back in the same year as TXT, I still predict TXT coming out on the bottom. We'll see if HYBE can follow up on their plans, lol!

What are you even saying because even Suga sold more albums than any BP solo member first week with less versions?? You are also ignoring important context about their album sales when Jin only had two versions, RM only had one physical version and Jhope didn’t even have a physical, just weverse initially. Like you can’t make these claims and draw those absurd conclusions when as an “army”, you aren’t even aware of these facts.

Also stop trying to provoke both armys and Moas. Armys aren’t going anywhere. We never did. BTS total streams across all solos and group is averaging 50M streams daily, a huge increase from the 21M+ we were doing before chapter 2. If armys have truly moved on to other groups like you claim, these groups should be debuting on hot100 by now

BTS

I agree that the 4 million BTS sold and the 4 million current groups are selling or even 2 million or whatever is not the same

Kpop sales are inflated and not accurate at all.

any artist as long as their company makes up album sales numbers

Simple: JK then BTS again.

Quote from KpopVeteranARMY

But Jisoo still outsold Suga overall, and she also outsold Jin, even though both of them only had 2 versions……..I think overall sales matter more. Not to be mean or a “bad ARMY” or anything, just stating the facts.

I *AM* AN ARMY (and also used to be a big BP fan if not actually a full-on Blink), I have bought all BTS albums and all but Born Pink from BP, just didn’t keep THAT close of an eye on how many versions every single member BOTH BTS & BLACKPINK had of their solo albums or anything since I wasn’t a HUGE fan of all of BTS’s members OR BLACKPINK’s newest solos, so I didn’t buy all of them and thus didn’t check out how many versions they each had. :P (I did buy some however, including that weird Weverse edition of J-Hope’s album they released at first that not even all ARMYs were aware of that didn’t even come with a physical CD, just a QR code for their Weverse Albums app and 3 photocards. I can take a picture of it, and all my other BTS albums and the BTS posters on my walls if you’re still not sure I’m an ARMY :P)

I agree that number of versions have an impact on sales, but am unsure how big of an impact they have on physical album sales nowadays, but I still think they’re not the biggest *END ALL BE ALL* factor for album sales as much as many Kpop fans think they do. For example, back in 2011, SNSD only released 2 versions of The Boys album in Korea (1 was a repackage), yet even before you count the repackage sales, it STILL OUTSOLD their following I Got A Boy album which had 10 VERSIONS (1 for each of the members + a group ver- most likely the album that started the trend of Kpop albums having a version for each member).

In my theory, that’s because The Boys overall as a comeback did better than I Got A Boy (for many reasons), which was more controversial due to its unusual song structure (yet also won Youtube’s Music Video of the Year award against Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, One Direction, etc and started the trend of disjointed song structures in Kpop, although Super Junior & SHINee did it first w/SPY and Sherlock (Clue + Note)). (Although I’m aware that the song The Boys didn’t chart as well in Korea digitally as the song I Got a Boy did. But digital chart ranking is not the only way you can measure the success of a comeback.)

Similarly, you might notice that some of BTS’s least popular songs since Dynamite were Life Goes On and Yet To Come, which likely impacted their respective album sales IN ADDITION TO the ridiculous prices and fewer number of versions of Be + Proof. Especially considering the only version of Be that was available for 3 months was $50! But Proof initially had both the affordable and expensive version available at release (priced at $25~ + $70 respectively). The $300 collector’s edition was released months later, lol.

I hope HYBE are not as stupid for BTS’s 2025 comeback and release a cheap digipack at initial release along with at least one normally-priced version, plus a version for each member or something like HYBE did with TXT. That would be amazing!! (Even tho most of us would most likely complain about being unable to collect them all, LOL~ XD;)

TBH I had no idea that BTS’s streams more than doubled after chapter 2 (when they went on hiatus and all their solos started) O_O That makes me feel a LOT better as an ARMY! Well tbh I agree I was mostly trying to stir up discussion….:P I do think ARMY have *mostly* stayed in place waiting for BTS (or apparently entirely if you look at those streams, LMAO)…..but notice that I DIDN’T say “ARMY are having a mass exodus to other groups”, I said they were “slowly trickling” since I noticed BTS’s solo albums haven’t been selling AS WELL as I expected from ARMYs as an ARMY, in my opinion, for whatever reason, even if you look at the number of versions and all that. But you know, if you look at the records they broke, I guess they all slayed, especially Jimin slayed, V slayed like I said, and JK will slay everything in his path too of course naturally.

And BTS will most likely slay everyone in their path who previously broke their record when they comeback in 2025. I do also agree with redcurtain that Seventeen and Stray Kids will most likely pass it back and forth between each other until BTS’s return however.

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It’s an interesting take, I think Jimin still sold overall compared with Jisoo in terms of album sales (last time I checked the stats). But certainly Suga and Jimin did sell more than Rose and Lisa. But it’s strange as Lisa is much more popular than Jisoo, and their releases weren’t that far apart. Not to mention Lisa released it after HYLT which arguably a more popular era than PV if you look at the stats and views. You can say YG sabotaged her but it still doesn’t make any sense. It’s a bit hard to compare because the members of both groups are popular in different countries, like BP members absolutely dominate SEA but when it compares to US and Japan, the BTS members dominate. BP has always had better YT views compared with BTS since they debuted for MVs, so I don’t know why anyone is surprised when they dominate this metric. But when it compares to Spotify, it’s BTS. Again this is correlated to the markets they are big in. I think the only exception is Seven, I have not seen an Asian artist since PSY hit 1 billion on one platform this quickly, JK is expected to do this very soon. It’s not even doing badly on YT, 250 million after two months isn’t bad at all. I honestly don’t think people should care too much about album sales, it’s mostly bulk buying. Streaming is a much better indicator of one’s popularity…

Quote from killthisfenty

BTS will take their record back anyway

I doubt it given Hybe's tendency to issue more expensive albums for it

I love how it’s still BTS record despite 2 other groups selling more!

seventeen or skz or txt (until bts comes back anyways)

might be nice to have a table to compare the number of versions and prices of albums those groups sold

Quote from Yinye

17 with almost 30 million accumulative sales is still very super impressive but since it’s not across the board re streaming too - it’s def the results of fans buying physical versions to collect.

After reading RM’s recent LIVE remarks, I am just excited for when they regroup and we get new music - what revolutionary music/themes/concept are we getting?!?

Personally, I don’t care re sales or records but it will be sooooo very annoying if BTS doesn’t break the record because we’ll have to go through the BTS in decline posts and think pieces again.

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Or we can just ignore those posts and enjoy their comeback since we don't care about numbers

EXO's Let Me In was one of the releases I enjoyed the most and it didnt really make big numbers outside of their fandom even though they used to be big. But that fact doesn't make me like the song any less.

Same applies to Yet to Come and its smaller impact compared to other releases.

In the end I'll just be happy to have OT7 back and watch their shenanigans

HYYH 10th year edition

Quote from KpopVeteranARMY

In my opinion, it’s because Lisa has more popularity internationally than in Korea, but most physical sales come from Korea (and China, too, I guess).

But even if you don’t compare their views to BP, BTS’s solos YT views mostly did really bad by their standards. And the difference between BP’s + BTS’s solos’ YT views is HUGE! Much bigger than the difference between their group MVs. Except for JK’s Seven, which was the real hit among BTS solos.

Then again Jungkook just broke the record for the fastest song to hit 900M streams on Spotify with Seven! Kpop or not!

I still think physical sales is a good measure of fandom size, but for general popularity, streaming probably really is the new way to go.

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I think the YT views difference is due to releases and the type of MV. I personally wouldn’t watch BTS MVs on repeat, it’s just not as high quality or well done as BP’s, but YG has always dominated YT with high quality MVs, look at the views BB and 2NE1 use to get back in those days. I’m actually super surprised by the amount of views that BTS gets, I mean the CGI in their newer MVs do annoy me personally. Also, BTS releases a lot more content compared with BP, fewer releases does mean more fan streaming on the same videos. I mean Rose MVs didn’t generate as much buzz as the other girls. It’s the same the other way round, look at Spotify for example. The BTS members absolutely dominate it compared with BP members. If you actually compare total streaming between both platforms for a recent release such as Like Crazy and Flower (I’m putting Seven aside as it’s an anomaly), it’s pretty similar. Which makes sense as I see Jimin and Jisoo with the same level of popularity. It could be that BP fans stream more on YT and BTS fans stream more on Spotify, again it could be due to age group and country the groups are more popular in. Yeah, I suppose with a decent album sale, you can at least tour well. I did have high hopes for V’s release but honestly releasing a non-mainstream sound is bloody difficult. But he did okay on Spotify but poor on YT, which wasn’t too shocking at all given the type of music he put out….but at least it was what he wanted to do rather than be pulled in another direction