BTS rampages back to the top of the charts The K-pop group has officially returned from its four-year hiatus bigger than ever. Based solely on first-week sales, there's only one artist who has done any better. The K-pop group has officially returned from its four-year hiatus bigger than ever. Based solely on first-week sales, there's only one artist who has done any better.BTS reunited after a four-year hiatus to release the albumrecently returned from a nearly four-year hiatus, during which its members released solo projects and completed mandatory military service in South Korea. The group's comeback album,, debuts at No. 1 this week, thanks in large part to sales of roughly 532,000 copies — including 208,000 on vinyl alone. Arirang's total"equivalent album units" figure for the week, which represents a mix of sales and streaming, landed at a whopping 641,000, the most for any album in one week so far this year.BTS was bound to put up splashy numbers in its first week back, but it's still worth noting how much the K-pop landscape changed during its absence. The genre has made huge inroads in the U.S., as other K-pop acts have continued to top the charts and last year's200 have come out since the last time BTS topped that chart, less than four years ago. The ground on which BTS stands has shifted substantially.demonstrate that the group's power over the charts has only grown in its absence. The album's chart numbers mark the biggest for any record since the colossal debut week ofOf course, BTS's sales numbers got a boost from a wide variety of available physical editions — 17 on vinyl and nine on CD — but that's standard operating procedure these days. First-week sales of more than half a million copies? That's still astounding for any artist not named Taylor Swift, and that's not even getting into its robust streaming numbers. Consider just a handful of the artists who've released blockbuster albums without selling 500,000 copies in one week since the last time BTS put out an album:, released concurrently with the album — debuts at No. 1. It's the seventh BTS song to top the Hot 100 and first since 2021, though two BTS members — Jimin and Jung Kook — have hit No. 1 as solo acts during that time. "Swim" will need to build momentum to stay at No. 1 for long, however. It debuts at No. 2 on the streaming chart and No. 18 on Radio Songs, but tops the Hot 100 easily due to first-week sales of 154,000 copies. That's a tremendous number, but it won't carry over into future chart weeks.