RS Charts: BTS on Track for Number One Debut with ‘BE’

BTS are on track for their first Number One on the Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums Chart with latest album, BE. The 7-track project, which is the followup to Map of the Soul: 7, tops the daily version of the RS 200, ahead of Megan Thee Stallion’s long-awaited debut studio album, Good News, at Number Two.

By Wednesday, BE had racked up 137,200 album-equivalent units, more than 75,000 units ahead of Good News‘ 59,300. As expected, most of BE’s units so far have come from sales: While the album had only racked up 17.4 million on-demand audio streams by Wednesday’s tally — a fraction of Good News‘ 62.2 million — it had a staggering 89,200 album sales and 126,000 digital song sales. By comparison, Good News had only racked up 7,900 album sales and 13,700 song sales by Wednesday’s chart.

Top Albums

The week of November 20, 2020
1

BE

BTS

NEW!
Album Units
137.2K

2

Good News

Megan Thee Stallion

NEW!
Album Units
59.3K

3

positions

Ariana Grande

Album Units
32.7K

4

Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon

Pop Smoke

Album Units
28.4K

5

Pluto x Baby Pluto

Lil Uzi Vert, Future

Album Units
28.4K

The Rolling Stone 200 Albums chart tracks the most popular releases of the week in the United States. Entries are ranked by album units, a number that combines digital and physical album sales, digital song sales, and audio streams using a custom weighting system. The chart does not include passive listening such as terrestrial radio or digital radio. The Rolling Stone 200 Albums chart is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ending with the previous Thursday.


K-pop fans — BTS fans, in particular — are notorious for their coordinated efforts to get their favorite artists to Number One on the charts. Clearly it works.

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