ITZY’S FIFTH EP, CHECKMATE, TAKES #8 SPOT ON BILLBOARD 200 CHART, MARKING THE GROUP’S FIRST TOP-10 EFFORT ON THE CHART
WATCH THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT’S “LATE SHOW ME MUSIC” PERFORMANCE OF “SNEAKERS” HERE
GROUP EARNS FIRST MTV VMA NOMINATION FOR “BEST K-POP” FOR “LOCO” MUSIC VIDEO
Critically acclaimed K-Pop superstars ITZY returned with their highly anticipated EP, CHECKMATE, which took the #8 spot on the Billboard 200 chart this week, marking the group’s first top-10 ranking on the chart. Further, the group has become the 4th 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 #5 ranking on YouTube’s Top 100 Global Music Videos.
Quickly following this achievement, it was announced today that the group has been nominated for their first MTV VMA in the category of “Best K-Pop” for their “LOCO” music video. Next up, 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 #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 #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 #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. Some recent features for the group include Rolling Stone, who featured the group in their June 2021 “The Future of Music” Issue, TIME Magazine, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, Seventeen, and Teen Vogue, to name a few.
CHECKMATE is out now via all digital and streaming platforms. Get the full album HERE.
Wednesday, October 26th – United States / Los Angeles / YouTube Theater
Saturday, October 29th – United States / Phoenix / Arizona Federal Theatre
Tuesday, November 1st – United States / Dallas / The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
Thursday, November 3rd – United States / Sugar Land / Smart Financial Centre
Saturday, November 5th – United States / Atlanta / Fox Theatre
Monday, November 7th – United States / Chicago / Rosemont Theatre
Thursday, November 10th – United States / Boston / MGM Music Fall at Fenway
Sunday, November 13th – United States / New York / Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden
About ITZY:
ITZY first rose to prominence in 2019 with their debut single “DALLA DALLA” that ranked #3 on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart. The song pulled in a registered 17.1 million “day-of” music video views on YouTube. At that time, the song both broke breaking the record for the most viewed K-pop debut music video in history and held the record for the fastest K-pop debut music video to reach 100 million views. Their follow up single “WANNABE” charted at #4 on the Song Sales chart and is one of the top 10 K-pop song to trend globally on Spotify, while also ranking on the Emerging Artists chart, where it hit #31 for their third week in a row. Billboard Magazine ranked “DALLA DALLA” at #20 on the “25 Best K-pop Songs of 2019: Critics’ Picks” and Dazed Magazine ranked the track at #8 for “50 Best K-pop Songs of 2019.” The group recently took home the Best New Artist Award at the 2020 Korean Music Awards; and has been included in the TIME, PAPER, Buzzfeed, Dazed, Teen Vogue and HypeBae 2020 roundups for best K-pop songs of 2020. ITZY’s third album, Not Shy, peaked on the Billboard Social 50 chart at #11 and World Album chart at #8; plus their past albums, IT’z ICY and IT’z ME have both entered the Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart. In May 2021, ITZY made their debut on the Billboard 200 album chart with their six-track EP GUESS WHO.
