5-Star (Stray Kids album)

Music and lyrics

The album runs 36 minutes and 35 seconds across twelve tracks in hip-hop, pop, and electronica. 3Racha—Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han—wrote and produced all songs, with additional contributions from Versachoi, Chae Gang-hae, Restart, Zack Djurich, Millionboy, Trippy, Nickko Young, Kyle Reynolds, Chris LaRocca, Jun2, and member Felix on "Super Bowl" and "FNF". Tiger JK appears on and co-wrote "Topline". The release centers on uniqueness, confidence, and aspirations tied to the group's growth and identity. "Hall of Fame" fuses R&B and trap metal, referencing Thomas Edison, Neil Armstrong, William Shakespeare, Stephen Hawking, Galileo Galilei, and Faker. "S-Class" is a hip-hop track with boom bap, old school, and pop elements, emphasizing the group's specialness. "Item" is a video game-themed hip-hop track about synergy and ability without special items.

Release and promotion

On April 28, 2023, Stray Kids uploaded a three-minute trailer based on the Korean game I Am Ground, showing each member introducing themselves with a chosen nickname before uniting. Pre-orders opened the same day in five versions with twelve covers: limited, standard A, B, C, and eight digipacks.

The track listing, scheduler, and digital cover were posted on April 30, confirming "S-Class" as the lead single, the Korean version of "The Sound", and "Mixtape: Time Out". Before release, the group teased five tracks via the "Unveil: Track" series and other tracks through a live-action-and-comics mashup video. Teaser photos appeared in four sets: colorful outfits with 1980s-styled backgrounds; melancholy members on a street at night; members with instruments and loudspeakers; and black-clad members with vintage cars and oriental-styled illustrations.

Critical reception

Kim Do-heon called the album "a clever piece of work" and "a well-thought-out K-pop blockbuster," citing the members' performance, production, and narrative of growth. Crystal Bell of NME gave it five out of five stars, writing that it makes the listener feel like they arrived at a party already in full swing. Kim Sung-dae of Ize questioned giving five stars, noting that "incompleteness can be a compliment" and that for Stray Kids, 5-Star means "weird and brilliant." Lee Jae-hoon of Newsis dubbed it a "K-pop adventure." AllMusic's Neil Z. Young described it as a "wild ride through genres and emotions." Jeong Da-yeol of IZM commented that despite irregularities in genre, the album arranged addictive repetitions and hit listeners' brains safely.

Commercial performance

JYP Entertainment reported 4.93 million pre-orders on May 30, 2023, and 5.13 million two days later, making it the most pre-ordered K-pop release at the time, surpassing Seventeen's FML. The album sold 2,392,666 copies on its first day and 4,617,499 in its first week, becoming the fastest first-week seller in South Korea. It debuted at number one on the Circle Album Chart for two consecutive weeks, selling 4,330,039 copies in its first week and 5,242,486 in June, earning a quintuple million certification from KMCA.

On the Billboard 200, it debuted at number one with 249,500 equivalent album units, including 235,000 pure sales—the biggest sales week of 2023 and since Taylor Swift's Midnights. It was the 19th non-English-language number-one album and the third of 2023. The album reached number 82 on the 2023 Billboard 200 year-end chart, the highest for a K-pop album that year, and received gold certification from the RIAA. In Japan, it peaked at number two on the Oricon Albums Chart and number six on the Billboard Japan Hot Albums.

It topped charts in Australia, Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Poland, and Portugal, and reached number 40 on the UK Albums Chart.