Stray Kids Release New Album ‘5 Stars’ – Billboard

While the media has fixated on K-pop superstars BTS, Blackpink, Tomorrow X Together, and, more recently, newbies Fifty Fifty, don’t sleep on Stray Kids.

The South Korean boy band doesn’t get the attention, but they’re flying in the upper-elite class, with No. 1s on the Billboard 200 chart with Maxident and Oddinary. Both recordings made a mark on the other side of the Atlantic, cracking the Official U.K. Albums Chart.

According to the IFPI, Stray Kids was one of the top 10 most popular artists of 2022, coming in at No. 7 on the Federation’s year-end list, led by Taylor Swift; while Maxident was the No. 6 most popular album of the year (Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti was No. 1).

The eight-member pop group return with 5 Stars (via JYP Entertainment and Republic Records), the lads’ third Korean-language studio album, and fourth overall. Prior to its release at the stroke of midnight, 5 Stars was already a hit.

Based on data commissioned by online casino guide 6Takarakuji, the LP has notched more than 5 million pre-orders, ahead of recordings by BTS, TXT and Seventeen’s 10th mini album FML, which dropped last month.

Stray Kids recently completed a string of concerts in North America, including their first-ever stadium concerts in the United States, for which they warmed-up with a late-night TV performance of Oddinary track “Maniac” on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Forming in 2018, the Kids — Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N. — took over the top 5 of Billboard’s Hot Trending Songs chart, powered by Twitter, dated Jan. 28, with the title track at No. 1, and the cuts “DLMLU,” “Novel,” “Battle Ground” and “Lost Me” at Nos. 2-5, respectively.

Later, in February, the boy band dropped The Sound, marking their first original Japanese full-length album.

Spanning 12 songs, 5 Stars can be streamed in full below.