As stated in NME Martin Talbot the Chief Executive at the Official Charts Company, said: “Congratulations to BLACKPINK. Being any kind of chart first is a record which can never be taken away, so for their new album ‘Born Pink’ to become the first UK Official Number One by a K-pop girl group is a fantastic achievement – and puts them in the record books forever!”

The rest of this week’s UK top five includes Suede‘s Autofiction at Number Two, the band’s highest chart position since 1999. The London-based rock group also claimed the best-selling album in UK independent record stores this week,. Then Rina Sawayama‘s Hold The Girl at Number Three, Marcus Mumford‘s (self-titled) (Number Four), and Pink Floyd‘s Animals reissue (Number Five).

The album was accompanied by the release of a vibrant video for the lead single “Shut Down,” which paid homage to some of BLACKPINK’s prior collective and solo releases. There where visual references to their singles “Kill This Love,” “Ice Cream,” “How You Like That,” Rosé’s “Gone,” Lisa’s “Money,” and Jennie’s “Solo”. BLACKPINK also shared two tracks from Born Pink prior to its release – first, “Ready To Love,” which premiered as part of the band’s virtual concert with PUBG. In August, they then returned with their vivacious single “Pink Venom,” which upon release broke Spotify and YouTube records for a K-pop girl group and racked up the views for the biggest music video premiere of 2022 so far. You can view the music video below.

Additionally according to The Korea Times quoting YG Entertainment citing data from Hanteo Chart, (a local market tracker) the album broke the record for the biggest first week sales by a K-pop girl group in history by selling more than 1.54 million copies in the first week of its release. BLACKPINK are also set to embark on a world tor kicking off with a pair of dates in Seoul before heading to North America and Europe which will include two shows at The O2 in London.

Directed by Anton Corbijn, the Dutch photographer and prolific director of music videos and feature-length films, the documentary is set for release on June 26th, on DVD and BluRay. Featured on the film’s official website, a pre-release sneak peak is on offer for those who can’t wait the extra week – a video of the band performing “Cover Me” from the soon-to-be-released Berlin concert.

Sourcing an official statement for the upcoming release, an article published by NME claims the new concert film will “zero in on their lives – all extremely different save for their love of Depeche Mode’s music and the way that music has shaped their experiences – intercut with the final Berlin show, held at the iconic Waldbühne (“Forest Stage”) on the record-breaking two-year Global Spirit Tour in 2018, which saw them play to over 3 million fans at 115 shows across the world.”

Quite the feast of sight and sound awaits, I’m sure. Not surprising, though, for a film like this to be coming from a director who, in a previous interview with NME, said the band were constantly changing and developing, artistically. “Depeche Mode were only interested if there was a different angle to it,” Corbijn said, “so we decided to look at the reason for why Depeche Mode was still growing. They have all these fans and they’re the biggest cult band in the world. It’s unbelievable.”

- Photo credit: Owen Ela