The Covid-19 pandemic put the breaks on BTS’s world tour, which would have taken them across 17 cities on three continents this year, but it hasn’t made them any less busy as the band looks to release a new album.
In July of this year, BTS broke the Guinness World Record for the biggest virtually attended livestream music performance, which attracted fans from over 100 countries. Their latest global chart topping single, “Dynamite,” became the most downloaded song of 2020 in the US.
BTS has blown up the familiar boy band recipe, taking the concept into new territory and developing the South Korean genre known as K-pop into a worldwide force. BTS fans count estimates as high as 48 million.
BTS topped Billboard’s song chart, released one of America’s bestselling albums of 2020 and performed at the Grammys with Lil Nas X. They sold out London’s Wembley Stadium in 2019, won four MTV Video Music Awards this year and smashed the record for the most views on YouTube in a 24-hour period (over 100 million)—all while singing almost entirely in Korean.
In October, the band’s management company, Big Hit Entertainment Co, went public on the South Korean stock exchange. The company raised about $840 million through its initial public offering with a valuation of about $4 billion, which jumped to $7.6 billion by the end of trading on the first day.
The latest single, “Dynamite,” is their first group song recorded entirely in English, and their first track to break on American Top 40 radio. The track is their first song to get to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was quickly followed by their second U.S. chart-topper, a remix of Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685’s TikTok hit “Savage Love.” Their fifth album, BE (Deluxe Edition), is out this month, and the members of BTS say they’re trying to keep their focus on their music. “We’re preparing our next album now, and think it’d be great if all our songs make it into Billboard’s Hot 100.
