There’s a point where a streak stops looking like luck and starts looking like a pattern. Stray Kids passed that point years ago, and their new album just pushed the pattern into territory almost no group in chart history has reached.
THIS & THAT is debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, marking the ninth consecutive time the K-pop group has topped the chart. That result puts them ahead of every group this century for total No. 1 albums, and ties them with the Rolling Stones for the second-most No. 1s by any group in the chart’s history. Only the Beatles, with 19 chart-topping albums, sit ahead of them.
The numbers behind this particular debut are what make it stand out even within Stray Kids’ own run. THIS & THAT moved 369,000 equivalent album units in its first week, according to tracking data, with traditional album sales accounting for 357,000 of that total. That makes it the group’s biggest sales week ever, and the sixth-largest overall album week of 2026 so far. Among releases driven primarily by physical and digital sales rather than streaming, it’s the second-largest week of the year, trailing only BTS’ Arirang, which opened with 532,000 units back in March.
To put that growth in context: Stray Kids’ previous album, Karma, debuted with 313,000 units. THIS & THAT is outpacing that by roughly 50,000 units, even though it’s a shorter, eight-track project rather than a full-length album.
The streaming numbers tell a similar story of momentum. The album reportedly generated more than 12.8 million first-day streams on Spotify, the biggest single-day opening from a fourth-generation K-pop act on the platform this year. The title track “This & That” reached No. 31 on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs Global chart with 2.3 million streams on its own, while several other songs from the project — including “After You,” “FARMING,” “RUN IT,” and “I Do” — all landed on the same global ranking. The album also climbed to No. 1 on the Worldwide iTunes Albums Chart and its music video topped YouTube’s global trending chart for music.
What makes the achievement historically significant isn’t just the size of the numbers — it’s the consistency behind them. Stray Kids have now debuted at No. 1 with every single one of their nine charting albums, a run that started with Oddinary in 2022 and has continued through Maxident, 5-Star, Rock-Star, Ate, Karma, Do It, and now THIS & THAT. No other act, in any genre, has opened all nine of its charting albums at the top of the list.
The new album isn’t debuting into an empty top 10, either. Rapper Pooh Shiesty lands his second top 10 entry with All Eyes on Shiest, released while he remains in jail awaiting trial, opening at No. 7 with 51,000 units. Karol G also cracks the top 10, with No Me Arrepiento de Sentir Tanto debuting at No. 8 on the strength of 50,000 units, nearly all of it streaming-driven.
For Stray Kids, the achievement extends a run that has already reshaped how quickly K-pop acts can climb the American albums chart. What began as a breakthrough with Oddinary has become one of the most dominant active streaks in Billboard 200 history, and with each new release, the group keeps raising the bar for what a debut week can look like.
