Blackpink Never Made This Chart But Jennie Just Did, With 62.6 Million Listeners

There’s a particular kind of milestone that says more than a No. 1 ever could: the one your own team couldn’t reach. This week, Jennie hit exactly that. “Dracula,” her genre-bending collaboration with Australian psych-pop auteur Tame Impala, has climbed to the top of Billboard’s Radio Songs chart a peak that Blackpink, the record-shattering group that made her a global name, has never once touched.

Billboard confirmed on September 22 (local time) that “Dracula” will rise from No. 2 to No. 1 on the September 26-dated Radio Songs chart, according to airplay-tracking firm Luminate. In the tracking week of September 11 to 17, the song reached an audience of 62.6 million listeners across U.S. radio. For both Jennie and Tame Impala, it’s a first and for K-pop, it’s only the second time an associated track has ever led the chart.

Why This Chart Is Different

Radio Songs isn’t a streaming tally or a fan-driven metric. It’s Billboard’s all-encompassing airplay chart, measuring actual spins across every U.S. radio format pop, adult contemporary, rock, alternative, the whole spectrum. That distinction matters enormously. Streaming and download charts can be moved by a mobilized fandom in a single explosive week; radio is the slow, stubborn territory of mainstream American gatekeepers. Program directors in Ohio and Arizona put a song in rotation because it works on air, week after week, with listeners who may not know or care who Jennie is.

That’s the wall K-pop has historically struggled to climb and it’s why this achievement carries a weight beyond the number itself. Billboard pointedly noted that Jennie’s highest previous mark was No. 48, reached in 2024 with “One of the Girls,” and added the telling detail: Blackpink, the group Jennie belongs to, has never even entered this chart. For all of Blackpink’s stadium tours and streaming records, American terrestrial radio remained the one frontier they didn’t conquer. Jennie just planted her flag on it alone.

A Slow Burn, Not an Overnight Spike

What makes “Dracula” so striking is that it didn’t storm the chart it earned it. The track first appeared on Radio Songs back in April at a modest No. 49. Then it began the kind of patient, undeniable climb that separates a genuine radio hit from a viral flash: No. 8 and No. 6 in June, No. 3 by early July, and No. 2 on July 28, where it stalled for weeks as it kept knocking on the door of the summit.

That trajectory is the tell. Songs that debut high and crash are novelty; songs that inch upward over five months are being pulled up by real, sustained demand. By the time “Dracula” finally reached the top, it had already become the first-ever top 10 hit on the Hot 100 for both artists — and its 62.6 million listener figure actually edges out the previous K-pop-linked benchmark.

The “Golden” Comparison and What It Reveals

The only other K-pop-adjacent song ever to top Radio Songs is “Golden,” the breakout anthem from Netflix’s animated phenomenon KPop Demon Hunters, performed by the fictional group Huntr/x. When “Golden” ruled the chart, it did so with an audience of 58.3 million meaningfully below “Dracula’s” 62.6 million.

The comparison is instructive precisely because the two songs are so different. “Golden” arrived on a tidal wave of a global Netflix smash, a cultural juggernaut that went on to win a Grammy and an Academy Award a soundtrack hit riding the biggest animated musical of its moment. “Dracula” had no such engine. It’s a stand-alone artist collaboration, a moody electronic-rock hybrid that succeeded on the strength of the song and the pairing. That Jennie’s track cleared a higher radio bar without a blockbuster film behind it suggests something significant about her standing as a solo artist in the Western market: this was a win on pure musical merit.

Not Just Radio A Genuine Crossover Hit

The Radio Songs crown is the headline, but it’s far from the whole story. “Dracula” is quietly assembling one of the most durable chart runs of any K-pop-connected release. This week it rose to No. 5 on the Hot 100, matching its own peak. It’s now spent an astonishing 37 weeks at No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs and 19 weeks atop Hot Rock & Alternative Songs the latter a genre space where K-pop artists almost never appear. Add a ninth week leading Adult Pop Airplay, and a picture emerges of a song that has thoroughly infiltrated the American mainstream across multiple formats at once.

That genre versatility is the real headline for anyone watching where K-pop goes next. Jennie isn’t succeeding on a “K-pop” chart or in a niche she’s winning on dance, on rock, on adult pop, and now on the broadest airplay tally Billboard publishes. It’s the sound of an artist being absorbed into the fabric of American pop rather than admitted as a guest.

The Bigger Picture

Jennie has spent the past two years methodically building a solo identity distinct from the four-piece powerhouse that launched her from her debut mixtape era into high-profile collaborations that place her alongside Western artists as a peer, not a curiosity. “Dracula” feels like the culmination of that project: a record that doesn’t ask American radio to make an exception for a K-pop star, but simply plays like a hit.

The line Billboard drew that Blackpink still hasn’t entered a chart their own member just conquered will sting for some fans and thrill others. But it points to a larger truth about this generation of K-pop soloists: the ceiling keeps rising, and the artists breaking through are doing it on the mainstream’s own terms. Blackpink redefined what a K-pop girl group could achieve globally. Now, one member at a time, they’re redefining what comes after.