BTS performs during an appearance on the NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” (image: NBC)
SEOUL, Apr. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — BTS is revitalizing the Korean music industry, recently stricken by the Burning Sun scandal, with a series of songs that have broken multiple records and the boy band’s strong intent to communicate with its fans.
Members of the ARMY, the official BTS fan club worldwide, are also serving as civil diplomats, eager to learn BTS songs in Korean.
BTS’s new album, “Map of the Soul: Persona”, has broken multiple records in just four days.
The album’s title song, “Boy With Luv”, reached 100 million views on YouTube in just 37 hours and 37 minutes, a new world record.
The song made it to third place in Spotify’s Global Top 200, along with other six songs that also made it to the top 50.
A band or song’s ranking on Spotify is known as one of the leading barometers for the Billboard charts, where many fans are excited, once again, to see the outstanding performance by BTS.
The Billboard charts are to be released on April 23.
On the day of the song’s release, multiple streaming sites were shut down due to spikes in traffic. Melon, a major Korean streaming platform, said it experienced shutdowns on April 12 and 13.
Hard copies of the albums also sold rapidly. There were more than 3 million pre-orders placed as of April 11, the day before the official release.
Gaon Chart’s 15th week retail store album charts (April 7 to 13) showed that 1.5 million copies had already been sold.
(image: NBC)
BTS have become more than just K-pop stars. The group made a comeback to a worldwide audience on April 13 as they appeared on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
ARMY fans were lined up in front of NBC’s New York headquarters for almost a week to win admission tickets to see the show. They brought their sleeping bags and foldable chairs to spend days waiting for their turn.
As soon as the show went on air, hundreds of illegal accounts appeared on YouTube to stream the show, all of which were shut down by YouTube and NBC.
ARMY fans volunteered to translate BTS songs into English, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese, and share the lyrics with others.
“This week’s SNL was all about BTS,” said CNN.
“SNL was hosted by Emma Stone and took jabs at Michael Avenatti, Lori Loughlin, Julian Assange, and ‘The View‘– but the spotlight belonged to the seven members of the boy band sensation.”
“Korean pop music has been steadily growing in popularity, but BTS has elevated the genre into an international movement,” CNN added.
BTS’s massive influence is drawing in experts to closely study the phenomenon.
One major entertainment company in South Korea has even set up a special task force to analyze BTS’s success, while another firm went out to reach BTS’s U.S. agency to learn about the success of BTS in the American music industry.
BTS’s social network strategy is also inspiring many entertainment companies.
BTS produced a massive amount of content for online platforms even before they made their official debut. They posted pictures of their daily lives on Twitter, video logs on YouTube, and various behind-the-scene videos.
Many singers and artists who used to refrain from establishing a social network presence to maintain their “mystical” features are now following BTS to tap into the new media platform to communicate with the public.
At the University of California, Berkeley, a student-run academic course, “Next Generation Leaders: BTS,” opened for this year’s spring semester.
The two-unit course is part of the UC Berkeley’s Democratic Education at Cal program, which shows how much BTS has made an impact on the younger generation in the United States.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
