ATEEZ Makes K-Pop History: First Act to Chart Two Songs on Billboard Hot 100 in a Single Year

ATEEZ made K-pop history on July 26, 2025. Their single "In Your Fantasy" debuted at No. 68 on the Billboard Hot 100 — their highest chart position to date — making them the first K-pop act to place two different songs on the Hot 100 in a single calendar year.

The Historic Double Charting

The story begins in June 2025, when "Lemon Drop" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 69, becoming ATEEZ's first-ever appearance on the chart and making them only the third K-pop boy group in history to reach that milestone, joining BTS and Stray Kids. That achievement alone would have defined a year for most acts. ATEEZ went further: just weeks later, "In Your Fantasy" surpassed the "Lemon Drop" peak by one position, landing at No. 68 and producing the double-charting record.

The significance extends beyond the raw numbers. No K-pop act had previously placed two distinct songs on the Billboard Hot 100 within the same year. BTS has placed multiple entries across their career, but the double-charting in a single year is a different kind of chart milestone — one that speaks to sustained mainstream attention rather than a single viral moment or organized fan purchasing event. "Lemon Drop" and "In Your Fantasy" are different songs charting through different mechanisms, reflecting an audience that has internalized multiple ATEEZ tracks as part of their regular listening.

What "In Your Fantasy" Represents Musically

"In Your Fantasy" is drawn from ATEEZ's Golden Hour: Part.3 – In Your Fantasy Edition, an extension of the Golden Hour album cycle that began in 2024. The song's title and thematic content connect directly to the group's 2025 world tour name — "In Your Fantasy" — creating a unified promotional ecosystem where the tour and the single reinforce each other's reach. A fan attending an ATEEZ concert in Los Angeles or London in mid-2025 would encounter the song in the most emotionally resonant context possible: live, with 20,000 other people who know every word.

The track's Hot 100 performance reflects streaming-driven chart mechanics more than physical sales or radio airplay — ATEEZ does not yet have mainstream US radio presence at the level their chart performance suggests they might soon. The song's debut and chart position instead represents the aggregate of Spotify streams, Apple Music plays, and YouTube views from a globally distributed audience that happens to be concentrated enough in the US market to trigger Hot 100 qualification. This is a different path to the Hot 100 than the one walked by, say, Psy in 2012 (YouTube viral crossover) or BTS in 2020 (organized fan purchasing), but it may be the most sustainable: organic consumption at scale.

ATEEZ's Place in the Hot 100 Landscape

The context of who has and has not reached the Billboard Hot 100 matters enormously in K-pop. BTS made their Hot 100 debut with "Dynamite" in 2020, a song designed specifically for English-language crossover. Stray Kids charted through dedicated fan streaming campaigns. ATEEZ's two 2025 entries — both Korean-language songs, both reaching the chart through organic consumption rather than one-day purchasing campaigns — represent something different: a K-pop group whose music has achieved enough genuine Western mainstream penetration to register on the chart through normal listening behavior.

"In Your Fantasy" also topped the World Digital Song Sales chart — a category that ATEEZ has dominated throughout their career, consistently ranking among the top K-pop acts on that chart alongside BTS and SEVENTEEN. But the Hot 100 crossover signals that the "global K-pop" audience and the "US mainstream" audience are no longer completely separate populations. ATEEZ has found listeners in the overlap.

The World Tour and What Comes Next

The "In Your Fantasy" world tour provided the live context for the song's streaming performance. ATEEZ performed to sold-out arenas across North America, Europe, and Asia during the first half of 2025, with the tour name itself functioning as promotional infrastructure for the single. Concert footage, fan-captured videos, and social media documentation from tour dates generated ongoing streaming momentum for the song throughout the tour cycle — a virtuous loop where the live experience drives digital consumption.

The double Hot 100 charting achievement in 2025 frames a specific question about ATEEZ's trajectory: are they the K-pop act most likely to achieve genuine Top 40 radio crossover in the near future? The evidence accumulating through 2025 — two Hot 100 entries, a world tour at arena scale, and sustained streaming numbers — suggests that the infrastructure for that breakthrough is being assembled. The chart positions themselves, at 68 and 69, are not yet Top 40. But the direction is clear, and the momentum is real.

What makes ATEEZ's 2025 Billboard run particularly significant for K-pop as an industry is the precedent it sets. Other fourth-generation acts — aespa, IVE, Stray Kids — have demonstrated varying degrees of Western market penetration, but the mechanism of two organically streaming Korean-language songs on the Hot 100 in the same year represents a different order of mainstream integration. ATEEZ's ATINYs — the official fandom name — have built a streaming culture that mirrors Western fandom behavior rather than the purchasing-campaign model. That cultural shift, more than the chart positions themselves, may be ATEEZ's most enduring contribution to K-pop's global evolution in 2025.