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Blackpink becomes first K-pop girl group to land at #1 album spot on Billboard 200 chart

The album’s score recorded 75,500 traditional album sales and 25,000 streaming equivalent, which equals to 37.49 million on-demand streams in a week

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA: Billboard confirmed that Blackpink has officially made history with their latest album ‘Born Pink'. Debuting at No 1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart on September 26, it is the first K-Pop girl group to have acheived this milestone. This is not all. 'Born Pink' also debuted at No 1 on the Top Albums Sales chart. The album features eight songs with mostly English-centric lyrics. 

Blackpink is known for topping charts since its official debut in August 2016. Their first studio album “The Album” which was released back in 2020 landed at #2 on the Billboard Albums chart. Moreover, the K-Pop act becomes the third band to have topped Billboard 200 Albums after BTS’ ‘Proof’ and Stray Kids’ ‘Stray Kids Mini Album Oddinary’. Black Pink is the second female group to have achieved this milestone after Danity Kane’s second album ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse.’ 

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How does Billboard rank most popular albums?

The girl group has been criticized for chart manipulation after the recent news release. Some trolls have even called them “Fraudpink” due to their rising popularity. It goes without a doubt that many K-Pop fans believe that Blackpink has also achieved the level of fame it has because of its label, YG Entertainment. The record label is known for launching Treasure, Big Bang, PSY, and many more. Plus, K-Pop boy band BTS faced controversy with the same issue in 2021. But none of these accusation have ever really stuck and is usually the work of a few vocal anti-fans.

Billboard was keen to announce its ranking system as well. According to Luminate, Blackpink has garnered a total of 102,000 equivalent album units. The album’s score consisted of 75,500 traditional album sales and 25,000 streaming equivalent album units which are equal to 37.49 million on-demand streams throughout the week. The album also collected 1,500 TEA units in the first week. With such skyrocketing numbers, the first place spot was guranteed for the girl band. 

Fans leave overwhelmingly positive comments

Blinks who have been doing their best to promote the album were ecstatic about the news. The official Twitter account of Billboard has received over 14.8k retweets of the announcement at the time of writing. Moreover, the band was praised by their fans from around the world. Fans have congratulated the band, commenting on the Billboards tweet.  However, trolls never seem to leave the side of the popular girl band. Some antis have called out "mass buying" campaigns, a wide range of chart manipulation tactics to even accusing YG of paying Billboard for the milestone.

The chart manipulation controversy has become quite common in both the western and K-Pop industries. The band has not spoken yet on this matter. However, the relentless claims have never turned out to be true. Lastly, the whole charting process depends entirely on numbers and sales, as per Billboard itself. 

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