BTS, NCT Dream, Stray Kids have 2021’s bestselling K-pop albums, and Exo member Baekhyun is top solo artist

K-pop acts increasingly hit new milestones for album sales each year, and 2021 was no different, with numerous outfits selling millions of copies.

Gaon Chart, which is run by the Korea Music Content Association, reported in July that more than 26 million albums were sold by South Korean artists. Based on Gaon’s figures, 10 albums released in 2021, all by boy bands, sold over 1 million copies each.

Of those 10, four sold more than 2 million copies each. The bestselling album of 2021 from any South Korean artist is, to the shock of absolutely nobody, a release from superstar hitmakers BTS.

The group’s English-language album, Butter made history as the top K-pop album of 2021. By the end of November, Butter had recorded over 2.95 million copies sold according to Gaon, and is likely to have sold more than 3 million by early 2022.

Other albums that sold over 2 million copies in 2021 were NCT Dream’s Hot Sauce, NCT 127’s Sticker, and Seventeen’s Attacca.

Attacca, which is the first Seventeen album to sell more than 2 million copies, joins a rare club of K-pop groups to sell over 2 million copies of a single album.

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The overall success of the Sticker and Hot Sauce albums released by NCT units was boosted by sales totalling more than 1 million each for NCT Dream’s Hello Future and NCT 127’s Favorite – extended “repackage” editions released as follow-ups.

Beyond these 2-million sellers, 2021 saw five other K-pop albums sell over 1 million copies: Baekhyun’s Bambi, Seventeen’s Your Choice, Exo’s Don’t Fight the Feeling, Stray Kids’ Noeasy, and Enhypen’s Dimension: Dilemma all reached that milestone. Baekhyun, a member of Exo, is the only K-pop soloist to have sold over 1 million copies of an album in 2021.

Depending on the success of the upcoming December 14 release of Universe, the third album released by the entire NCT group and its associated subunits, there may be a last-minute addition to the million-plus sellers of 2021. This could result in NCT selling 10 million copies or more of their albums before the end of the year.