SEOUL, July 14 — The soundtrack for animated film KPop Demon Hunters rose to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in its third week, boosted by the global popularity of the film featuring a fictional K-pop girl group.
Billboard’s news site reported yesterday that the album of the Netflix film climbed one spot from No. 3 the previous week, achieving its highest position on the chart so far.
“It’s the first soundtrack to debut in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 and then see unit increases in its second and third weeks since the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2’ album in 2017,” Billboard said.
“As the ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ soundtrack racked up 96.33 million streams for its songs in its third week, it scored the biggest streaming week for a soundtrack in more than three years.”
The soundtrack, released on June 20, debuted at No. 8 and rose to No. 3 last week before reaching its current position.
The film is a Netflix original musical animation featuring HUNTR/X, a girl group that battles evil spirits.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks top albums in the United States by equivalent album units, including sales and streaming data.
The soundtrack earned 75,000 equivalent album units during the latest tracking week, a 21 per cent increase from the week before.
Of that total, 70,000 units came from streaming, highlighting the soundtrack’s digital appeal.
It joins Wicked, Barbie and Encanto among the few movie soundtracks to reach the chart’s top two since 2020.
In South Korea, the track “Golden” by HUNTR/X reached No. 1 on Melon’s Top 100 chart, ahead of Allday Project and aespa.
As of 8am Monday, six songs from the album were charting on Melon, including “Soda Pop”, “Your Idol”, “How It’s Done”, “Takedown” and “Free”.
