The BTS fandom recently celebrated a major milestone as Map of the Soul: 7, the album by the world-renowned boy group, has achieved a million pure sales in the United States as of October 26, 2023. This accomplishment marks BTS as the first Asian act and the first K-pop group to reach this level of sales on American soil.
It’s particularly noteworthy considering BTS‘s current hiatus from group activities due to their military service obligations. In the music industry, “pure sales” refers to the actual number of physical copies of an album or single sold. With Map of the Soul: 7, BTS has not only set a new benchmark for themselves but also for K-pop as a whole, being the first in the genre to register over a million physical sales in the U.S.
Released on February 21, 2020, by BigHit Entertainment, Map of the Soul: 7 is BTS‘s fourth studio album. It serves as a sequel to their 2019 EP, MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA. The album has five songs and draws on the group’s growth and experiences since their 2013 debut. It blends pop, R&B, and hip-hop, incorporating elements of urban genres including rock, trap, and EDM. The lyrics delve deep into themes of contemplation, introspection, and self-acceptance.
BTS Global Press Conference ‘MAP OF THE SOUL : 7’
Fans heaped praise on BTS
The album clinched top honors from several award-giving bodies in 2020. These included the Genie Music Awards, Melon Music Awards, Mnet Asian Music Awards, and the People’s Choice Awards. Before it dropped in February 2020, the album’s stock pre-orders skyrocketed, surpassing 3.42 million copies in six days. This broke the record set by the septert’s own MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA, which had 2.68 million pre-orders. A Forbes report from February 6, 2020, highlighted that Map of the Soul: 7 received more than 4 million pre-orders globally, with over 4.02 million album pre-orders placed by February 18, 2020.
Upon release, Map of the Soul: 7 debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 422,000 album-equivalent units, of which 347,000 were pure album sales. This marked BTS‘s fourth number-one album in the U.S. and boasted the most significant first-week sales of any of their albums to date. Before the release of The Weeknd‘s After Hours on March 20, it also set a record for the highest album debut week sales in 2020. The album sold more copies overall than the next six top-ranking albums on the Billboard 200 combined.
As news of the group’s latest achievement spread online, fans took to social media to heap praise on BTS. The success of Map of the Soul: 7 is a testament to BTS‘s appeal and their output’s stellar quality. – K-Pop News Writer
Featured Image: They sold this much somewhere other than their homeland. Source: Variety.