Continuing on from yesterday’s article, we step straight into part three of our series of the best-selling albums in South Korean history.
Our list of the ninety-seven albums which have sold more than one million copies in South Korea - making them the best-selling albums in South Korean history - continues with the next ten entries: numbers seventy through sixty-one.
The figures showcased in this series of articles were sourced from Wikipedia, and all album figures were correct at the time of writing.
70: Kim Gun-mo - Myself (1,210,000 copies sold)
This is his second appearance on this list, after previously appearing in the first article with his previous 1992 album “Sleepless Rainy Night”, we see Busan-born K-pop and ballad singer Kim Gun-mo.
The artist’s 1997 album “Myself” was his fifth album release, and despite reaching into the top seventy of the best-selling albums in South Korean history was actually his poorest performing album since his debut.
69: Seventeen - An Ode (1,232,593 copies sold)
Seventeen returns to the list, this time with an album from earlier in their discography.
The group’s third studio album - 2019’s “An Ode” - featured eleven tracks, and even managed to come second at the 2019 year-end chart performance for albums in South Korea’s Gaon Album Chart, and came back in seventieth position at the end of 2021.
“An Ode” successfully sold more than 1.2 million copies nationwide.
68: Seo Taiji - Ultramania (1,300,000 copies sold)
Seo Taiji returns to the list, once again as a soloist and not as a member of his hip-hop trio.
Seo Taiji’s second solo studio album, “Ultramania”, was released in 2000, and featued a nu metal sound. Seo Taiji has been a forward-thinking and experimental musician destined to work with new sounds and genres throughout his entire career, both as a soloist and as a member of his former group.
As Seo Taiji signed a deal to exclusively appear on Seoul Broadcasting System, competitor broadcasters Korean Broadcasting System and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation left the album and the musician off of their music charts. The title song, “Ultramania”, won the Mnet Asian Music Award for Best Band Performance in 2000.
The nine-track album sold a total of 1.3 million copies across South Korea.
67: Jo Kwan-woo - My Third Story About . . . (1,300,000 copies sold)
Soloist Jo Kwan-woo makes his third appearance on this list (see our previous article for “My First Story” (number ninety-four) and “Waiting” (number ninety-seven) on this list).
The actor and soloist musicians third album, 1996’s “My Third Story About . . .”, is his second best-selling album over his career, with a total of 1.3 million copies sold nationwide.
66: Enhypen - Dimension:Dilemma (1,307,121 copies sold)
Let’s bring on our very first fourth generation K-pop idol group to the list of the best-selling albums in South Korean history.
The release of Enhypen’s first studio album just one year following their debut was a commercial success. Originally planned for release in September of 2021, their entertainment company Belift Lab had to postpone its original release by almost a month following members Heeseung, Jay, Jake, Sunghoon, Jungwon, and Ni-ki testing positive for COVID-19.
2021’s “Dimension:Dilemma” sold just over 1.3 million copies in South Korea, marking the group as one of the most successful fourth generation K-pop boy groups.
65: Shin Seung-hun - Shin Seung Hun VI (1,310,000 copies sold)
The “Emperor of Ballads” - Shin Seung-hun - makes his first appearance on this list. Shin Seung-hun was one of the biggest names in the South Korean entertainment industry in the 1990’s.
Prior to 2020, he held the record for the most albums sold by one artist in South Korea, with more than 17 million albums sold over the course of his three decade career to date.
Shin Seung-hun’s 1998 album “Shin Seung Hun VI” is the first of these albums to appear on our list, touching in at just over 1.3 million copies sold.
64: Exo - Don’t Fight the Feeling (1,326,189 copies sold)
Baekhyun returns to the list for the third time, but this time not as a soloist. Instead, it’s as a member of SM Entertainment’s internationally recognisable boy group EXO.
The group’s seventh EP - released and marketed as a “special album” - was 2021’s “Don’t Fight the Feeling”, and is still their most recent release to date. It was the group’s first release of new material since 2019, and featured the returns of members Xiumin, Lay, and D.O.
The special album, which garnered more than 1.3 million sales, is the sixth release by the group to top 1,000,000 sales throughout their career.
63: NCT Dream - Hello Future (1,366,073 copies sold)
A second sub-unit of SM Entertainment’s massive boy group NCT - NCT Dream - arrives on the list of the best-selling albums in South Korean history.
The group’s 2021 release “Hello Future” was in fact a repackage album of the group’s album “Hot Sauce” released seven weeks prior, featuring three new tracks. The repackaged album was rather successful, achieving sales of more than 1.35 million copies.
“Hello Future” reached number one on the Gaon Charts in South Korea and reached number two on the Billboard Japan charts in Japan, while also charting in Hungary and Belgium.
62: H.O.T. - I Yah! (1,383,985 copies sold)
First generation SM Entertainment boy group H.O.T. makes their second appearance on this list.
The appearance comes with H.O.T.’s fourth album “I Yah!”, with a title track that sang about a 1999 fire that killed kindergarten students at the Sealand Youth Training Center.
The 1999 album sold more than 1.3 million copies, and the group became the first K-pop group to perform at the Seoul Olympic Stadium the same month as the album’s release.
61: BTS - You Never Walk Alone (1,385,883 copies sold)
Big Hit’s popular septet of BTS has also made their second appearance on this list of albums, still far behind some of their best-selling albums on the list.
BTS’ 2017 release “You Never Walk Alone” was a repackaged album of the groups 2016 album “Wings”, and featured the singles “Spring Day” and “Not Today”. The repackaged album achieved sales of almost 1.4 million copies.
“You Never Walk Alone” achieved top ten status on five national weekly music charts, including first place on South Korea Albums (Gaon), Taiwan East Asia Albums (G-Music), and US World Albums (Billboard), third place on the New Zealand Heatseekers Albums (RMNZ), and seventh place on Japanese Albums (Oricon).
Have you listened to any of the albums listed above, or do you own any of them? Which of these ten albums are your favourite? Let us know by commenting on our socials @KpopWise. And make sure to tune in tomorrow as we showcase the albums from number sixty to fifty-one on our list of the best-selling albums in South Korean history.