KATSEYE’s Animal is holding its chart position while the tour hits a pause
Animal rises to No. 27 in its 14th Hot 100 week. WILD slips to No. 52 on the Billboard 200 as the Wildworld Tour postpones Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis.
Mina Park
KATSEYE’s Animal is still moving while the Wildworld Tour is not. On the Billboard Hot 100 dated Nov. 7, the song rises from No. 30 to No. 27 in its 14th week. It debuted at its No. 24 peak on the chart dated Aug. 8 and has never fallen below No. 35. Most of those weeks have lived between No. 27 and No. 32. That is a holding pattern, not a one-week spike.
The EP that carries it is cooling. WILD falls from No. 39 to No. 52 on the Billboard 200 in its 11th week. It opened at No. 1 on the chart dated Aug. 29 with 170,000 equivalent album units. Eleven weeks later the project is still charting, just much farther from the top. The single’s durability and the album’s slide are running on different clocks. Radio and streams keep Animal in a narrow band. The full EP’s first-week sales bounce has already done its work.
The live calendar is the other half of the story this week. KATSEYE postponed three North American Wildworld Tour dates after member Megan Skiendiel fell ill: Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena on Nov. 3, Chicago’s United Center on Nov. 5, and Minneapolis’s Target Center on Nov. 7. For Detroit, the group said Megan was unwell and unable to perform. For Chicago and Minneapolis, the official Instagram notice went further. “The label has made the decision to postpone our shows in Chicago and Minneapolis as Megan is recovering from a concussion,” the group wrote. “We’ll announce the rescheduled dates as soon as possible, so please hold on to your tickets.” Venues told fans VIP packages carry over, and refunds will be available if the new date does not work.
The group has been touring the U.S. as a quartet. Sophia Laforteza and Manon Bannerman are both on mental-health hiatuses, with Sophia expected back in January. That leaves Lara Raj, Daniela Avanzini, Yoonchae Jeong, and Megan on the road. Pulling three Midwestern dates while one of those four recovers is a real pause, not a single missed night. Austin’s Moody Center on Nov. 10 is the next date still listed as scheduled. Fans with tickets for the postponed cities should wait for the rescheduled announcements rather than showing up at the old doors.
Animal was co-written with Ed Sheeran and Johnny McDaid and produced by Omer Fedi and Blake Slatkin for HYBE x Geffen. It arrived as a prerelease for WILD and became the song that kept showing up after the debut-week fireworks. This week the single is still climbing inside its lane, the EP is settling, and the tour is waiting on Megan.
