BTS’ ‘Arirang’ Nearly Doubles Harry Styles’ Opening-Day Spotify Numbers to Claim Year’s Top Streaming Bow So Far

BTS‘ “Arirang,” the group’s first studio album in six years, appears to be living up to its commercial promise, based on first-day streaming results on Spotify. The album bowed with a reported 110 million streams on the service globally, which is easily the best opening number on Spotify so far in 2026. It easily eclipses the 63 million that the year’s previous leader, Harry Styles’ “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” did in its first day on the platform.

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“Arirang” broke only one all-time record with that opening figure: the best first day on Spotify ever for a K-pop release. Nonetheless, it is in very rarefied air, as that 110 million figure represents the 12th best opening day for any album in the platform’s history.

With only one day of release under “Arirang’s” belt and six to go in the chart week, any overall Billboard/Luminate numbers that include sales and radio airplay are more than a week away from being reported. But the Spotify opening bodes well for BTS being able to claim the biggest release of 2026 so far by the end of the month.

For comparison, the opening-day global Spotify figures for some other perceived blockbuster releases besides Styles’ so far in 2026 have included about 35 million streams out of the gate for both J. Cole’s “The Fall-Off” and A$AP Rock’s “Don’t Be Dumb,” 26.44 million on the first day for Bruno Mars’ “The Romantic,” and 16 million for Blackpink’s “Deadline.”

There aren’t any officially announced albums coming up in the pipeline from pop superstars that would be possibilities to have a bigger first day of streaming than BTS; only a release from Taylor Swift, Drake or Bad Bunny, should there be one, would be a likely candidate to go even bigger in the months to come.

Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” still claims the record for the best first day on Spotify ever with 314 million streams, and she has the first four spots on the list, with “The Life of a Showgirl,” “Midnights” and “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” at Nos. 2-4 in the ranking. The only other artists to have come in ahead of BTS on the list with even more immediately high-scoring albums are Bad Bunny, Drake, Playboi Carti and Travis Scott.

On the Spotify Global Top 50, as of Saturday, songs from “Arirang” occupy all 14 of the top positions, in unbroken succession. The group is not so completely dominative of the Spotify US Top 50, where they own Nos. 1-2 with “Swim” and “Body to Body,” then cede the No. 3 spot to Ella Langley’s country smash “Choosing Texas.” But all 14 of the album tracks are in the American chart’s top 26.