{"id":8482,"date":"2025-09-11T01:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T01:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/8482\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T01:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T01:04:08","slug":"will-justin-bieber-swag-past-kpop-demon-hunters-for-no-1-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/8482\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Justin Bieber ‘Swag’ Past ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ for No. 1 Album?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Contenders<\/a> is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard 200<\/a> dated Sept. 21, we look at the chances for KPop Demon Hunters to finally take its victory lap on the albums chart, if it can hold off a pop superstar\u2019s surprise new release-slash-re-release. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tKPop Demon Hunters Soundtrack (Visva\/Republic): It\u2019s remarkable both that we\u2019re still talking about KPop Demon Hunters as a chart-topping contender nearly three months after its initial Netflix release \u2014 and also somewhat remarkable that after owning pop culture for close to the entire summer, the soundtrack still hasn\u2019t reached the Billboard 200\u2019s top spot. For most of that time, of course, it was stuck behind Morgan Wallen\u2019s 13-week No. 1 I\u2019m the Problem, but it finally snuck past that behemoth on last week\u2019s chart \u2014 only to then get lapped by a pair of 300k-plus-bowing albums in consecutive weeks: Stray Kids\u2019 Karma and Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s Man\u2019s Best Friend. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWill next week\u2019s chart finally mark HUNTR\/X and Co.\u2019s takedown of the Billboard 200? Well, the timing certainly would line up, as the set is getting a clear extra push for this week. For one thing, it\u2019s finally getting its wide retail release on CD, with exclusive variants available at Target, Walmart and Barnes & Noble, each with a poster and a randomized photo card. A deluxe version of the album was also released digitally and to DSPs, featuring two additional tracks from the film (\u201cPrologue (Hunter\u2019s Mantra)\u201d and \u201cJinu\u2019s Lament\u201d) as well as new singalong, instrumental and a cappella versions of the album\u2019s seven big original hits. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, the real-life artists who provide the singing voices of the HUNTR\/X trio have also been on the promotional trail. EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami made a live in-store appearance at a Barnes and Noble in Manhattan on Saturday to sign CDs and take some photos. The trio also made its television debut on Sunday when they appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards at UBS Arena in Long Island, presenting best album to Sabrina Carpenter (though for 2024\u2019s Short n\u2019 Sweet, not the album that held them at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 this week). \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCould it add up to the album at long last reaching No. 1 in its 12th week on the chart? It should post its strongest overall numbers yet, at the very least, as the songs are all still doing very well on streaming \u00a0\u2014 though they\u2019re maybe finally starting to slip a little in the daily rankings, so the KPDH cast would be well-served to really seize this week as their moment. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJustin Bieber, Swag (ILH\/Def Jam): While the lane has finally opened for KPop Demon Hunters on the Billboard 200, another \u201cSpeed Demon\u201d from the Republic family is zooming in from out of nowhere to try to pass it. Two months after first mixing it up with the KPop Demon Hunters cast on the chart with his surprise Swag release \u2014 both fell behind I\u2019m the Problem at the time, though Swag got the edge for No. 2 \u2014\u00a0Justin Bieber<\/a> is back with 23 new tracks\u2019 worth of the stuff, with another new surprise release called (wait for it) Swag II. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile a 23-track brand-new Justin Bieber project would always be a release to take seriously on the Billboard 200, Swag II throws an extra wrench into the proceedings: On DSPs and at digital retailers, the 23 new songs merely comprise disc one of Swag II, with a second disc also containing the 21 songs originally released as Swag the First. So Swag II is essentially less a totally new album than a super-mega-deluxe reissue of its predecessor, akin to how SZA\u2019s Lana release at the very end of 2024 was actually an expanded redo of her SOS. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA combined 44-track Bieber release seems like it could be a Morgan Wallen-sized blockbuster on the Billboard 200 \u2014 especially since Swag now comes with a standard CD release and two CD boxed sets, each with a branded T-shirt and a copy of the standard album, all without the 23 new songs. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, while \u201cDaisies\u201d and \u201cYukon\u201d from the original Swag are still performing quite well across streaming, the newly released songs have not had much streaming impact thusfar: None of the new cuts even cracked the top 40 on Spotify\u2019s Daily Top Songs USA listing, and as of Tuesday, only \u201cLove Song\u201d still even appeared in the top 200, in the bottom half. (They\u2019ve fared slightly better on Apple Music, where \u201cSpeed Demon\u201d is still lingering around the top 50 on the real-time listing.) Even with 44 tracks in total, it\u2019ll be tough for Swag to outperform KPop Demon Hunters if the songs from the latter continue to be among the most-streamed in the country, and only a couple Swag tracks even come close to comparing. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSabrina Carpenter, Man\u2019s Best Friend (Island\/Republic): Count out Sabrina Carpenter<\/a> this week at your own peril. Man\u2019s Best Friend had one of the year\u2019s best debut tallies with its 366,000 units moved \u2014 though 224,000 of that was in sales, which is likely to recede dramatically in week two. Still, the set\u2019s streaming performance has remained strong, with new songs like \u201cMy Man on Willpower,\u201d \u201cWhen Did You Get Hot,\u201d \u201cNobody\u2019s Son\u201d and particularly new single \u201cTears\u201d (which she also performed at Sunday\u2019s VMAs) all continuing to fare very well on Spotify and Apple Music. Short n\u2019 Sweet ended up being a four-week No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2024, so even if Man\u2019s Best Friend can\u2019t hold on top for a second frame, expect it to be a regular contender in the weeks to come. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409,9538],"class_list":{"0":"post-8482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-the-contenders"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}