2NE1 Sets New U.S. Record for Highest-Charting, Best-Selling K-Pop Album With ‘Crush’
2NE1's "Crush" sets new U.S. record for highest-charting, best-selling K-pop album and snags the accomplishment without revealing any album material prior.
K-pop notches its biggest sales week yet for an album, thanks to 2NE1. The girl group’s new album “Crush” opens at No. 61 on the Billboard 200, selling 5,000 copies in the week ending March 2, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The set surpasses the previous best week, logged by boy band BIGBANG’s “Alive” in 2012, which launched with 4,000. More impressively, the quartet managed the feat with four days of sales.
2NE1’s 20 Best Instagram Photos
2NE1 also immediately sets the record for the highest-charting K-Pop album on the Billboard 200. Until this week’s chart, the scene had only hit as high as No. 126 with Girls’ Generation-TTS’ “Twinkle” EP in 2012.
Trending on Billboard
Similarly to Girls’ Generation’s “Mr. Mr.” EP rollout — which bows at No. 110 on Billboard 200 in the week ending March 2 — “Crush” had an atypical album release. The LP dropped on digital retailers on Feb. 27 without revealing any of the album’s material — not even a snippet. No music videos promoted the album either.
The videos for lead single “Come Back Home” (above) and album track “Happy” (below) were revealed on March 2, after that week’s tracking period. 2NE1 did spend 2013 promoting three digital singles — “Falling in Love,” “Do You Love Me?” and “Missing You” — but none appear on this LP.
Elsewhere on Billboard charts, 2NE1 sends every album track to the K-Pop Hot 100 this week, all charting inside the top 40 slots. Their chart dominance ranks as follows:
No. 2 “Come Back Home”
No. 4 “Gotta Be You”
No. 7 “If I Were You”
No. 9 “Crush”
No. 11 “Good to You”
No. 16 “MTBD”
No. 17 “Happy”
No. 18 “Scream”
No. 22 “Baby I Miss You”
No. 39 “Come Back Home (Unplugged Ver.)”
On the World Digital Songs chart, 2NE1 controls six of the 25 titles on the tally, led by “Come Back Home” at No. 5. All charts will be refreshed tomorrow morning on Billboard.com.
Additional reporting by Keith Caulfield