Fifth EP, Checkmate, lands at No 8
K-Pop superstars Itzy makes its Top 10 debut on the Billboard 200 chart as its fifth EP, Checkmate, lands at No. 8. The group has become the fourth K-pop girl group to achieve a Top 10 ranking on the Billboard 200.
Itzy recently performed the EP’s lead single, “Sneakers,” on both MTV’s Fresh Out Live and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show Me Music.” The track’s music video has already amassed over 78 million views since release and currently holds the No. 5 ranking on YouTube’s Top 100 Global Music Videos.
Quickly following this achievement, it was also announced that the group has been nominated for their first MTV VMA in the category of “Best K-Pop” for their “Loco” music video.
Itzy will be embarking on their first world tour — The Checkmate Tour — beginning with back-to-back shows in Seoul in August before heading to the United States in October. The group will be visiting eight cities through November including Los Angeles’ YouTube Theater and New York’s Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden.
Checkmate follows a momentous 2021 for Itzy, as the group broke numerous personal records on both the charts and with streams and helped solidify Itzy as one of K-Pop’s dominating forces thus far. With the release of their first full-length studio album, Crazy In Love, in September, the group took the No. 1 spot across multiple Billboard charts upon debut, including Top Album Sales, Top Current Album Sales, World Albums, Tastemaker Albums, and Independent Albums charts. The release also made a strong debut on Billboard’s Top 200 Album chart where it reached No. 11, making Itzy only the third female K-pop group that scored within the chart’s top 15. This release followed their spring EP release of Guess Who, which marked the group’s debut on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart, peaking at No. 148.
Itzy continues to elevate their star power stateside making their first national US broadcast appearance with MTV’s Fresh Out Live in January 2021, racking in the largest performance views MTV had received for the platform. They followed that up with a performance of Crazy In Love‘s lead track, “Loco,” on The Kelly Clarkson Show in September.
