K-Pop Back On Top: SuperM Leads Elite 100

The group’s debut album, SuperM – The 1st Mini Album, dropped Oct. 4, fueling 157,200 album sales for the week, the highest of any artist for the week. SuperM also sold 4,000 songs for the week and logged 4.4 million on-demand streams. 

The group combines members from other groups under the SM Entertainment umbrella: Taemin from Shinee; Baekhyun and Kai from Exo; Taeyong, Ten and Mark from NCT; and Lucas from NCT.

SuperM is scheduled to hit North American arenas this November, starting with Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Nov. 11. The group also has a run planned through February 2020, starting at Forum in Inglewood, Calif., Feb. 1. 

Pollstar recently profiled the international K-pop sensation BTS, during which Jared Braverman, Live Nation’s senior VP of touring, spoke to Pollstar about the international rise of the non-English superstar group.

“You go back years, decades, Michael Jackson was going over to Asia and was singing in English, and people knew every word and danced and sang along,” Braverman said. “It’s taken this long for an Asian act to come over and have that same impact outside of Asia, but it’s nothing new in the world.”

Summer Walker also made big strides this week, getting to No. 4 this week thanks to 113.2 million on-demand streams. The rising R&B star dropped her second major project, Over It¸ last week.  

The singer’s next stop is a two-night stand at Electric Brixton in London, after which she plays Troxy then heads to North America. Her upcoming festivals plays include Day N Vegas in Sin City and Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival in Los Angeles. 

Brantley Gilbert came in at No. 23 with a healthy mix of sales and streams. His strongest metric for the week was 24,800 album sales. 

The country singer announced his “Fire’t Up” tour last week, which will hit 34 cities in early 2020. 

A few collaborative tracks pushed their respective artists onto the chart.  Youngboy Never Broke Again and Juice WRLD’s joint project “Bandit” propelled the duo to No. 49 on 27,200 song sales and 23.2 million on-demand streams. Justin Bieber’s record with Dan + Shay, “10,000 Hours” earned 59,600 song sales for the week, the chart leader in that category, edging out Post Malone and Lizzo. 

Dermot Kennedy also hit No. 61 after the Oct. 4 release of Without Fear. Right behind him at No. 62 was The Avett Brothers, who released Closer Than Together last week.

Next week’s chart will include data on releases from Youngboy Never Broke Again, Babymetal, Wale, Cody Jinks, Lil Kim, Blood Orange, Starcrawler, Big Thief, Casanova, Chris Knight, Lacuna Coil, Cursive, and Elbow.