BTS’s 'Map of the Soul: 7' sells most hardcopy albums in U.S. in 2020

BTS [BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT]

BTS’s “Map of the Soul: 7” (2020) sold the most hardcopy albums in the United States last year, a report by MRC Data showed on Thursday.

According to the MRC report of the U.S. music market in 2020, BTS's fourth full-length album "Map of the Soul: 7" sold 646,000 hardcopy albums in the United States last year since its release in February, the highest number by any artist.

The band's latest album "BE," released in November, sold 252,000 copies to rank No. 5 of the list, giving BTS two champions on the top 10 list.

BTS's "Map of the Soul: 7" also scored high on the Top 10 Selling Albums of 2020 in the United States, which took both the hardcopy and digital album sales into account, to rank at No. 2 on the list with 674,000 copies.

The No. 1 selling album was Taylor Swift's "Folklore" with 1.276 million copies sold. In third place was The Weeknd's "After Hours" with 480,000 copies followed by Harry Styles' "Fine Line" with 420,000 copies.

BTS's first-ever Grammy-nominated single "Dynamite" was the best-selling digital track of 2020, beating The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" by more than double, with the former selling 1.26 million copies and the latter 580,000.

"Dynamite" was the only song last year to see more than 1 million downloads in 2020.

Meanwhile, another K-pop act also listed high on the hardcopy album sales list — boy band NCT 127's "NCT #127 Neo Zone" ranked at No. 6 of the top 10.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]