Riding intense fan interest in its collectible CDs, the K-pop quintet Tomorrow X Together scored its first No. 1 album on the Billboard chart this week, ending a seven-week run on top for the R&B singer SZA.
“The Name Chapter: Temptation,” a five-song EP by the South Korean boy band that clocks in under 15 minutes, sold a total of 161,500 equivalent units, including physical sales, downloads and streams, according to the tracking service Luminate. Nearly all of that sales activity — 98 percent, Billboard reported — was on that quaint technology known as the CD. The group released 14 different editions, including autographed versions and some with mystery bonuses like photo books and postcards.
The No. 1 debut marks the third Top 5 release for Tomorrow X Together — made up of the musicians Soobin, Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Taehyun and Hueningkai — after the group landed “Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child” at No. 4 last year and “The Chaos Chapter: Freeze” at No. 5 in 2021. Its pure sales numbers for “The Name Chapter: Temptation” were the highest on the chart since Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” in November, Billboard said.
SZA’s “SOS,” a consistent hit on streaming services, falls to No. 2 for the first time, with another 100,000 units in its eighth week of release. Overall, the album has topped more than one billion streams and one million in equivalent sales.
Swift’s “Midnights” comes in at No. 3 with 68,000 units; the rap producer Metro Boomin’s “Heroes & Villains” is No. 4 with 47,000; and Drake and 21 Savage’s joint release, “Her Loss,” is No. 5 with 44,000.
Further down in the Top 10 were debuts by Sam Smith, whose “Gloria” hit No. 7 (and took home a Grammy on Sunday night for the single “Unholy”), while Lil Yachty’s “Let’s Start Here,” a psychedelic foray that strays from rap music, lands at No. 9.
