HUNTRIX’s ‘Golden’ Claims 3 Consecutive Weeks at Billboard Hot 100 Top Spot — First Time a K-Pop Girl Group Reaches This Milestone

‘Golden’, the OST track from ‘KPOP Demon Hunters’, has topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for three consecutive weeks, setting a new milestone in K-Pop history. This song is the first track performed by a K-Pop girl group to reach the summit of the Billboard Hot 100. Additionally, ‘Golden’ also secured first place on the Billboard Hot 200 chart. At the same time, Stray Kids’ fourth studio album ‘KARMA’ took the top spot on the Billboard 200 (the main album chart), enabling K-Pop to dominate both the main single and album charts on Billboard. It has been five years since K-Pop last held first places on Billboard’s main charts — a feat last achieved in December 2020 when BTS topped the charts with their album ‘BE’ and its Title Track ‘Life Goes On’. HUNTRIX, the group behind ‘Golden’, is a fictional K-Pop singing trio composed of EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and REI AMI, who portray the characters Rumi, Mira, and Joy in the movie. By reclaiming the top spot with ‘Golden’, HUNTRIX became the first female group associated with K-Pop to reach the Hot 100 summit. They also marked the first time since Destiny’s Child held first place for two weeks with ‘Bootylicious’ in 1924 that a group with three or more female members has topped the Hot 100 — a record that spans 24 years. The soundtrack for ‘KPOP Demon Hunters’ achieved historic success. When ‘Golden’ first reached number one in the previous chart week, the film set a new record by having four of its tracks simultaneously enter the Top 10 of the Hot 100, the first time this has happened in the chart’s 67-year history. SEVENTEEN’s ‘Your Idol’ and ‘Soda Pop’ ranked fourth and fifth respectively, while HUNTRIX’s ‘How It's Done’ remained in the upper ranks. ‘Golden’ continued to perform strongly on the charts. From August 22 to 28 (U.S. time), it recorded 35.3 million official streams (a 4% increase from the previous week), 19.7 million radio plays (a 21% increase), and 9,000 album sales (an 11% increase). Its performance was further boosted by the release of a singalong version in North American theaters on August 23 and 24, followed by its debut on Netflix on August 25. ‘Golden’ is now the third K-Pop song to hold the top spot for more than three weeks, following BTS’s ‘Butter’ (10 weeks) and ‘Dynamite’ (3 weeks). It has already matched ‘Dynamite’s’ record of three weeks at number one. Stray Kids’ album ‘KARMA’ also made history. It sold 313,000 copies in the United States during its first week, setting a new record for the group and ranking as the third-best-selling album released this year. With ‘KARMA’, Stray Kids achieved their seventh Billboard 200 number one, becoming the only artist to have every album reach the top spot since their sixth mini-album ‘ODDINARY’ in 2022. This marks the first time in the 69-year history of the Billboard 200 that a single artist has had seven albums consecutively reach the summit, surpassing previous records held by BTS, Linkin Park, and Dave Matthews Band, who each achieved six consecutive number ones. The production team behind ‘Golden’ also demonstrates K-Pop’s strength. Renowned K-Pop producers Teddy, IDO, 24, and EJAE contributed to its lyrics and composition, and it played a crucial role in the movie as well.