BTS again tops Billboard's Artist 100 chart, sets record as group act

Global superstar BTS has set another record, this time by claiming No. 1 on the Billboard's Artist 100 chart for a 16th week, the most for a group act.

The seven-piece act ranked No. 1, up four notches from the previous week, on the metric that measures artists' popularity across album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming as well as social media performance.

It marks a record for a duo or group act. Overall, BTS has now topped the chart the most after Taylor Swift, Drake and The Weeknd.

Billboard attributed the weekly jump to the popularity of a new edition of the BTS album "BE." BTS soared from No. 74 to No. 7 on the main album chart following the release of the "Essential Edition" in February.

"BE" was originally released last November as the "Deluxe Edition," and the new edition came out on Feb. 19 carrying the same eight tracks as the original version, such as "Life Goes On," "Blue & Grey," "Stay" and the prereleased hit "Dynamite," with some different features.

According to the Nielsen Music data quoted by a Billboard article, the "BE" album sold 28,000 copies from Feb. 19-25 in the first week after the release of the new edition, up 888 percent from the previous week.

The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard's main albums chart upon the release of the November version, while the lead track "Life Goes On" became the first song sung in Korean to top the main singles chart. The album has since stayed on the chart for more than 13 weeks. (Yonhap)