A stylish squad of good-looking dudes in their early twenties. An army of ravenous fans. Glittery pop music accompanied by pop-and-lock choreography.
By all measures, pop group BTS has the ingredients to take North American charts by storm and become the next One Direction or Backstreet Boys, depending on your generation.
The only difference: they don’t have a single English song – a fact that’s hardly slowed them down.
Since the seven-member Korean pop group formed in 2013, it has launched into global mega-stardom and become impossible for the music industry to ignore.
BTS quickly broke records with their latest electro-pop/rap album, “Love Yourself: Her,” which dropped in mid-September. Within days, the album became the highest-charting K-pop album ever on the Billboard 200, which measures album sales in the U.S.
The accompanying music video for their latest single, “DNA,” dropped on Sept. 18 and racked up 20 million YouTube views in about 20 hours – a feat that outstripped earlier records by the likes of Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Katy Perry.
Last May, BTS beat out Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez – the most followed star on Instagram – to win Top Social Artist at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards. The award was determined by the fans, and BTS’ self-proclaimed ARMY (an acronym for “Adorable Representative MC's for Youth”) cast a staggering 300 million online votes.
Never heard of BTS? You’re not alone. It’s difficult for any K-pop band to break into U.S. and Canadian airwaves.
But the group’s recent surge of momentum, largely driven by their passionate global fan base, has already pushed them into uncharted territory in North America media.
As the band’s profile continues to rise, here are five things to know about BTS:
Who are they?
The band has seven members – slightly larger than your average five-man boy band. The group is divided into pop singers, Jimin, V, Jungkook and Jin, and rappers like Rap Monster, Suga and J-Hope.
BTS is young, with their oldest member only 24 years old, and they all live together as roommates in Seoul.
Known for their kaleidoscopic hair colours and gender-defying fashion, the band members regularly appear on South Korean television. Their social media accounts are frequently updated with photoshoots and interviews, and they’re frequently spotted around Seoul.
Why are they such a big deal?
Staying relevant in pop music requires constant reinvention, and pinpointing the reason behind an artist’s popularity can be like shooting a moving target.
For BTS, commercial success has often been linked to the band’s broad appeal. They’re a boy band with slow and sappy love songs, like “Butterfly,” but also offer clubbier electro-rap tracks, like “DNA.” Their music has been compared to Canadian crooner Shawn Mendes and Scottish producer Calvin Harris.
In a recent review, The New York Times wrote that, while BTS “is capable of the flamboyance and sometimes manic energy that can dominate and typify much of K-pop, it’s just as comfortable with a more tranquil approach.”
Their eclectic sound has made them ubiquitous in Korea, and flashy, meme-worthy music videos have fueled their online fame.
They’ve also had plenty of critical acclaim. In Korea, they won their first daesang, a major music award. In the United States, they’ve had five entries on the Billboard 200, beating previous records set by major K-pop artists such as G-Dragon, BIGBANG and EXO.
Who are their fans?
BTS has legions of fans, with a rapidly growing base in the United States.
When ticket sales for their latest world tour dropped earlier this year, BTS sold out U.S. arenas in a matter of hours. They quickly added more shows and sold out massive arenas, like the 18,000-seat Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
Their cult-like following is most apparent online, where they have more than 5.6 million followers on Instagram. For context, Carly Rae Jepsen has 1.6 million Instagram fans, and Christina Aguilera has 4.2 million.
Curiously, the band hasn’t had a show in Canada since 2015, when they played the Phoenix Concert Theatre, a relatively small venue that only hold about 1,350 attendees.
Some Canadian fans considered that a snub and started an online petition urging the band to add a Canadian date to their tour. So far, they haven’t had any luck.
What does BTS stand for?
The band’s name has several meanings. Their original Korean name, Bangtan Sonyeondan, means Bulletproof Boy Scouts, and they were also known as the Bangtan Boys.
Over the summer, they added the meaning “Beyond the Scene” to more accurately reflect their English acronym.
What’s next?
At the moment, BTS is on the Asian leg of their tour with upcoming shows in Japan, Taiwan and China, but the band continues to use social media to plug their latest album.
Only one member of the group, Kim Namjoon, speaks English, but band members have said they plan to learn English and Japanese in hopes of connecting with more fans.
Beyond their music, the band faces the looming question of what happens when they are required to enroll in military conscription, which is compulsory in South Korea for men older than 18 for two years. Other K-pop bands, like BIGBANG, have splintered when members moved into military service.
For the moment, the band is racking up positive reviews in international media.
“The truth is that no other Korean artists in recent memory have been able to penetrate the U.S. market in this way; in turn, that international success has made them more relevant back home, where they were once a smaller act. They can thank a dedicated fanbase—appropriately named Army—whose frenetic devotion rivals that of Directioners and whose greatest numbers lie overseas.”
“BTS dropped an album this week and the only single you need to care about (in fairness, the Chainsmokers collab is fine), “DNA,” is absolutely not a Kendrick Lamar cover, but the sound of a boy band headed in a new direction plotted for crossover domination. I would venture to call this a pop emergency.”
“Ease is the most striking aspect of “Love Yourself: ‘Her’,” which is likely to be this group’s most successful release to date in this country.”
