Stray Kids Are Now the Only Act in Billboard 200 History to Debut Every Single Album at Number One

Stray Kids have done something no act in the 71-year history of the Billboard 200 has ever managed: debuted every album they have ever placed on the chart directly at number one. Their new mini-album THIS & THAT claimed that ninth consecutive top spot this week, and in doing so, the group now ties The Rolling Stones for second-most Billboard 200 number ones among groups, sitting behind only The Beatles' 19.

The album moved 369,000 equivalent album units in its first tracking week, with pure sales accounting for 357,000 of those, a new personal best for first-week sales in the United States. Billboard confirmed the chart position in a preview published on August 16 (local time), with the official chart dated August 22 set to be released on August 17.

For fans who have tracked every step of the group's chart run, the sequence reads like a quiet kind of accumulation. It started in 2022 with ODDINARY and has continued unbroken through ★★★★★, 樂-STAR, KARMA, DO IT, and now THIS & THAT, eight different releases, eight number ones, and now a ninth. Among all groups that debuted in the 2000s or later, no one else is close.

The album itself is a tighter, more outward-facing record than some of the group's heavier earlier work, though it never fully lets go of what made those records feel distinct. The title track is a hip-hop cut produced by in-house production team 3RACHA (Bang Chan, Changbin, Han), relaxed in tempo, sticky in melody, with the central declaration that they'll take on whatever they want folded into a groove rather than a shout. It's the kind of song that works better in headphones than it does described on paper, and it's already expected to make Stray Kids' sixth appearance on the Billboard Hot 100.

The eight-track tracklist moves through a lot of ground without feeling scattered. RUN IT opens with brass and marching drums and earns the word anthem without too much argument. After You is progressive house built around falling-for-someone energy, dynamic enough that the genre tag doesn't feel like a constraint. FARMING brings back the wiry, wit-forward hip-hop the group's longtime fans know well, a shuffle rhythm and a slightly sideways angle that signals 3RACHA hasn't softened just because the record overall has. I Do leans on a rock guitar hook, Way Out strips everything back to acoustic hip-hop and a kind of composed sadness, and Geunal (그날) reaches for late-summer nostalgia through a full band sound. The festival version of the title track closes things out.

The album has also extended Stray Kids' footprint in the UK, with the title track debuting at number 61 on the UK Official Singles Chart Top 100 and the album landing its eighth placement on the UK Official Albums Chart. Across both major English-language markets, the consistency is the point.

Member Seungmin, speaking at a press conference held ahead of the release, addressed the pressure of the nine-consecutive-number-one expectation with characteristic straightforwardness. "Every time we prepare an album, we go in focused on giving our best rather than thinking about results," he said. "We'd be happy if results follow, and most of all, we hope our music reaches STAYs and listeners."

The group's broader calendar reflects how far the reach has grown. They are set to headline Brazil's Rock in Rio and the Governors Ball in New York, and will become the first overseas male artist to perform a solo concert at the National Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. THIS & THAT's first-week sales figure, along with the Billboard 200 streak, suggests that the foundation those stages are built on is getting stronger, not leveling off.

In the Korean music industry, 328,900 copies sold in the first week (the so-called chodonk count, tracking the first seven days from release) marked the group's fourth triple-million-seller debut by that measure. The numbers are genuinely large. What they confirm, though, is less about scale than about something more specific: a group that makes its own music, controls its own sound, and has built an audience that keeps showing up, not just once, but across nine albums and counting.