BTS’s V has shone brightly in popularity, achieving the highest ranking for a K-pop solo artist in Japan’s Oricon Annual Ranking.
According to Oricon’s “Annual Ranking 2023” announced on December 20th (covering the period from December 26, 2022, to December 18, 2023), V’s solo album ‘Layover’ secured the 16th spot in the ‘Album Ranking’ with sales of 247,826 copies. This marks the highest position for a K-pop solo artist.
Furthermore, ‘Layover’ placed 19th in Oricon’s ‘Combined Album Ranking’ and 5th in the ‘Western Music Album’ ranking. As a result, V has ascended to the highest rank among K-pop solo artists across three different Oricon chart categories.
In the ‘Digital Album’ ranking, ‘Layover’ also took the 12th place, thereby V dominating the 2023 Oricon Annual Ranking Chart and shining as a solo artist.
‘Layover’ has been charting for 18 weeks on Billboard Japan’s ‘Download Album’ chart and secured the 7th position as the most downloaded album of 2023. It also ranked 18th on the ‘Hot Album’ chart and 20th on the ‘Top Album’ chart.
Remarkably, ‘Layover’ also achieved a significant feat in the 2023 U.S. Billboard year-end summary chart, ranking 44th on the ‘Top Album Sales’ with just a six-week tracking period. This impressive achievement was reached despite the disadvantageous conditions of annual cumulative records and without any broadcasting or promotions in the U.S., marking an astonishing success. ‘Layover’ also set a new record as the first K-pop solo artist’s album to chart on the ‘Billboard 200’ for seven consecutive weeks.
‘Layover’ has achieved commercial success in the world’s largest music markets, ranking first and second globally. Particularly notable is that the album, an R&B genre not typically mainstream in the pop scene, has received acclaim for both its commercial and artistic quality.
As of December 21st, ‘Layover’ has surpassed 963 million streams on Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming platform.
