And then there were seven…
KPop Demon Hunters, which rebounds from No. 16 to No. 7 on the Billboard 200 dated May 2, is one of only seven soundtracks to land 38 or more weeks in the top 10 since separate stereo and mono charts were combined in August 1963. It gets better: KPop Demon Hunters is only the second soundtrack to an animated film to spend 38 or more weeks in the top 10. The other, as you can probably guess, is Frozen. Both films won Oscars for best animated feature film and best original song.
(Mary Poppins, which had more weeks in the top 10 than either of those films, blended live action and animation.)
KPop Demon Hunters spent its first 35 weeks on the Billboard 200 inside the top 10, becoming the first soundtrack to achieve that feat since the aforementioned chart overhaul in August 1963. It subsequently dropped out of the top 10 for a few weeks before moving back into the winners circle on the chart dated March 28 in the wake of the film’s double Oscar wins and the elaborately staged performance of “Golden” on the Oscar telecast. It remained in the top 10 on the chart dated April 4 before dropping out again for a few weeks prior to this week’s resurgence, which is due to two new vinyl variants of the album being released via independent record stores for Record Store Day (April 18).
By logging 38 weeks (so far) in the top 10, KPop Demon Hunters moves up our list of soundtracks that have logged 25 or more weeks in the top 10 since August 1963. This week, it pulls ahead of Prince & the Revolution’s Purple Rain, which logged 37 weeks in the top 10.
(The Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular weekly basis in March 1956 but split into mono and stereo LP charts from 1959-63.)
Here’s an updated list of soundtracks with the most cumulative weeks in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 since separate mono and stereo album charts were combined in August 1963:
