Essential BTS

 

Last week was an essential week for the United States — therefore large parts of the world — but not only when it comes to politics. No, last week also saw the incredible rise of 17-year old actress and singer Olivia Rodrigo, who managed to sweep in and take over Billboard’s Hot 100 — as well as its recently created Global 200 chart. This is important because, for months now, the dominating international musical force was neither Playboi Carti, The Weeknd or Ariana Grande… All brilliant musicians, to be clear, but who failed to generate the global appeal required to tower over 14 billion ears (give or take). That honor went to BTS, who until last year only sang in Korean, yet managed to garner an ARMY (pun intended) of loyal supporters the Beatles and One Direction in their heyday could only have admired.

That’s right: K-pop wunderkinds BTS — all 7 of them — had themselves an incredible 2020, with their two albums hitting #1 in most geographies and “Dynamite“, their first English-spoken single in 3 years (and second overall), not only becoming a global chart-topper, but hitting 800 million views on Youtube (their sixth single to do so), establishing the best 2020 debut on Spotify and spending 4 weeks atop the Global 200 — and another 4 in the Global 200 excluding the US… In other words, while Rodrigo’s star has been shining bright as of late, BTS has literally been holding the spotlight for months.

And it’s not looking like it’s gonna change anytime soon: this weekend, the band announced that they would be launching a new and improved “Essential” edition of their latest album, BE (the one including “Dynamite”, for the few readers who may not be aware yet), this coming February. While the stars remained somewhat coy as to the contents of that new release, they did promise that it would feature new material that fans around the globe would be sure to enjoy. Pre-orders star January 25th, so we’ll now have to wait…