Kanye West’s ‘Bully’ Debuts at No. 2 on Albums Chart as BTS Holds Top Spot With ‘Arirang’

BTS has outpaced Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, to land a second week atop the Billboard 200.

The K-pop group’s latest album “Arirang” holds steady at No. 1 on the albums chart with 187,000 equivalent album units, down 71% from its opening week with 641,000. Last week, “Arirang” became BTS’ seventh No. 1 album and scored the biggest sales week for an album by a group in over a decade. With its second week at No. 1, “Arirang” has now spent the longest period atop the charts out of all of the group’s previous leaders, which each spent one week at the summit.

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Meanwhile, Ye’s “Bully” enters the chart at No. 2, becoming his 14th album to hit the top 10. It debuts with 152,000 equivalent album units, with album sales making up for 56,000 of that total. It’s a surprisingly strong performance considering his hate speech over the past few years. Still, it does end his nearly career-long string of No. 1 solo albums as his 2004 debut, “The College Dropout,” peaked at No. 2. (“Donda 2,” his last solo album, was deemed ineligible to chart in accordance with Billboard’s bundling guidelines.)

“Bully,” which was released on March 28 after numerous delays, preempted a pair of sold-out concerts at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium earlier this week, where the rapper performed a handful of “Bully” songs as well as past hits.

Elsewhere on the chart, Melanie Martinez bowed at No. 3 with “Hades,” which earned 84,000 equivalent album units to become her fourth project to crack the top 10. Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem” dips from No. 3 to 4 on the chart, while Yeat debuts at No. 5 with “ADL.” Luke Combs’ “The Way I Am” lands at No. 6, followed by Olivia Dean’s “The Art of Loving,” Don Toliver’s “Octane,” Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” and Harry Styles “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.”