[Yonhap Photo]
SEOUL -- Music-related online communities and social media were swamped Monday with messages of admiration and excitement from fans at home and abroad after South Korea's boy band BTS became the first K-pop group to reach the top spot on Billboard's weekly albums chart with its new album, "Love Yourself: Tear".
BTS opened a new chapter in South Korea's music history, just 10 days after the new album was released globally. Billboard 200 is a weekly record chart published by Billboard Magazine ranking the 200 most popular music albums in the United States.
"The First Place! The First Place! The First Place!," LostWings, a Chinese fan from BTS' official fan community ARMY, said in a post, praising the group for reaching a pinnacle through five years of "blood and sweat".
Sara, a 17-year-old U.S. fan, shared her admiration through a tweet: "I AM LEGIT CRYING IM NOT EVEN KIDDING THIS IS AMAZING! And to think this is only the BEGINNING. They deserve the world congratulations, boys!" Another Twitter user Helena wrote: "I love you sunshine. Thank you always for your great music... Congratulations!"
[AP / Yonhap Photo]
The potential of K-pop was already proven six years ago by rapper Psy, who overwhelmed the world with his onetime hit song "Gangnam Style". Psy became the first K-pop artist to be placed in the top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100, the chart ranking the 100 most popular songs. BTS was eulogized for grabbing the first place in the weekly albums chart for the first time in 12 years as a non-English music album which contained 11 songs.
The group grabbed global attention when it beat Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Shawn Mendes to be awarded "Top Social Artist" at this year's Billboard Music Awards for the second year.
BTS X ARMY, a global fan club, said in a post that "This is just the beginning", with the boy band achieving "what no other Asian artist has done before".
"I think that BTS should no longer be categorized as a K-pop group," Kim Kyo-seok, a pop-culture critic, told Aju News. The world has accepted BTS as a pop-band, just like Backstreet Boys, an iconic boy band from the 1990s, he said. "From now on, no one should use the term Hallyu (the Korean cultural wave) when describing BTS' success."
BTS debuted in 2013 and carefully and strategically tapped a new market by communicating actively with a global fan club called "ARMY" through its official website and social media. The group's strategy has worked to build up a sincere, hardworking image backed by beautiful songs and performances
The boys also captured fans and other music lovers with a ballistic level of choreography which would be some sort of a culture shock for many foreign fans as they carry our hard performances while singing and rapping live. "BTS did not go through a fuss trying to write lyrics in English for foreign fans who are eager to learn and memorize the lyrics in Korean," Kim said.
It is common to see fans singing along BTS' songs in Korean at overseas concerts and events, rarely seen at concerts of other K-pop stars such as BIGBANG and BLACK PINK. When this year's Billboard Music Awards was aired on May 20, hundreds of fans broadcast live videos which showed them singing songs along with the boys through social media. The act of singing along has settled as a culture. When a new album or a song is released, it immediately gets translated into tens of languages by fans.
BTS members attribute their success to freedom to do any music it wishes. "We pursued music in the way we wanted it to be. We were aware that BTS is a performance group and tried to stick to basics," RM, the group's leader, told reporters last week, sharing his thoughts on how the group became so successful in the international music scene.
This story was jointly written by Park Sae-jin and Jazin Wee.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
