BTS

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  BTS stepped onto a television stage on the 13th of June, 2013, performing their debut single "No More Dream" on M Countdown before a country that had barely heard of them. They came from Big Hit Entertainment, a label that was not one of the three agencies dominating K-pop at the time. The members had been practicing up to 15 hours a day, living together, building toward a moment that almost no one expected to matter. Within a decade, they would become the best-selling musical act in South Korean history, sell out Wembley Stadium and the Rose Bowl, and address the United Nations General Assembly. How did seven young men from a minor entertainment company become one of the most influential acts on the planet? The answers lie in the music they chose to make, the fans they cultivated, and a willingness to say things that Korean pop rarely said out loud.

• 2. Bulletproof Beginnings

  ›

  Big Hit Entertainment CEO Bang Si-hyuk originally wanted to form a hip hop group around RM, whose full name is Kim Nam-joon, an underground rapper already well known on the Seoul music scene. Physical album sales were declining in 2010, and digital revenues had not yet risen to compensate. Bang decided to form an idol group instead, drawn by the potential for live performances and devoted fan communities. Many trainees refused to join an idol group; J-Hope, RM, and Suga stayed. Bang made a deliberate choice to let members be individuals rather than a tightly choreographed ensemble.

  Auditions were held in 2010 with a plan to launch the following year. The band members lived together and practiced up to 15 hours a day. Their debut single album, 2 Cool 4 Skool, was released on the 12th of June, 2013, and did not sell particularly well at first. Its lead single, "No More Dream", took direct aim at the pressure South Korean parents place on their children. Scholar Kyung Hyun Kim later described early BTS songs like "No More Dream" and "N.O." as expressions of rebellion that tapped into Korean teenagers' frustrations with the country's educational system, which helped the group build a fan base among young people in North America and Europe.

  By the end of 2013, BTS had released the second entry in their school trilogy, the EP O!RUL8,2?, and was recognised with several New Artist of the Year awards in South Korea. Their first fan meeting in Seoul, held after the February 2014 release of the EP Skool Luv Affair, gave birth to the name A.R.M.Y. for the fan club. That July, the group played their first US show, in West Hollywood.

• 3. Youth, Wings, and Breakthrough

  ›

  The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 1, released in 2015, marked BTS's first deliberate move beyond hip hop. The group chose the Chinese title "花樣年華" to define youth metaphorically as "the most beautiful moment in life". The single "Dope" from that release reached number three on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart, and its music video was viewed over 100 million times on YouTube.

  Their compilation album The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever, released on the 2nd of May, 2016, concluded the youth trilogy and won Album of the Year at the 2016 Melon Music Awards. Tickets for 14 shows in 10 Asian cities sold out, some in as little as five seconds. One month before that trilogy ended, their second Korean studio album Wings arrived in October 2016, inspired by Hermann Hesse's novel Demian. Its music video for "Blood Sweat & Tears" referenced Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Herbert James Draper's painting The Lament for Icarus, and two works by Pieter Bruegel. Wings opened at number 26 on the Billboard 200 with the best week ever at that point for a K-pop album in the US, and it led the iTunes album charts in 23 countries.

  In February 2017, the repackaged Wings edition, You Never Walk Alone, shattered South Korean monthly sales records with 1.49 million copies sold in its first month, up from 500,000 pre-orders for Wings to 700,000. The lead single "Spring Day" was written in part as a tribute to victims of the Sewol Ferry tragedy. That May, at the 24th Billboard Music Awards, BTS won Top Social Artist, the first K-pop group to win any Billboard award, defeating Justin Bieber and ending his six-year winning streak. Their fans cast over 300 million votes to make it happen.

• 4. The Love Yourself Series

  ›

  On the 18th of September, 2017, BTS released the EP Love Yourself: Her, the opening movement of an album series built around the "起承轉結" narrative sequence of beginning, development, turn, and conclusion. RM described the lead single "DNA" as "taking BTS to new ground", calling the album "the starting point of a second chapter of our career". The music video for "DNA" accumulated 21 million views in its first 24 hours. The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 85, making BTS the first K-pop boy band to appear on that chart.

  A remix of "Mic Drop" featuring Desiigner peaked at number 28, the first time a K-pop group cracked the top 40. In November 2017, BTS became the first K-pop group to perform at the American Music Awards. Their Japanese single album released on the 6th of December, 2017 was the only album by a foreign artist to be certified Double Platinum in Japan that year.

  Love Yourself: Tear, released on the 18th of May, 2018, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, the first K-pop album to top the US albums chart and the first song sung mostly in a language other than English to debut in the top 10 of the Hot 100. The follow-up compilation Love Yourself: Answer sold over 1.9 million copies on the Gaon Album Chart in August 2018 alone, with 185,000 album-equivalent units in the US in their highest sales week to that point. In November 2018, it became the first Korean-language album certified Gold by the RIAA. That same October, BTS renewed their contract with Big Hit Entertainment through 2026.

  For the North American leg of the BTS World Tour: Love Yourself, the group performed at Citi Field in New York City, the first time a Korean act performed at a US stadium. In 2019, they became the first non-English-speaking and Asian act to sell out Wembley Stadium and the Rose Bowl.

• 5. Map of the Soul and "Dynamite"

  ›

  Map of the Soul: Persona, released on the 12th of April, 2019, featured the single "Boy with Luv" with Halsey. The group performed it on Saturday Night Live, the first K-pop act to appear there. The EP sold more than 3.2 million physical copies in South Korea in less than a month, becoming the best-selling album ever in the country by that measure. "Boy with Luv" debuted at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 2019, the highest placement ever for a K-pop song at that time.

  The year closed with Map of the Soul: Persona named the third best-selling album of 2019 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, making BTS the first Korean artist to appear on the IFPI Global Top 10 Album Chart in consecutive years.

  On the 21st of August, 2020, BTS released "Dynamite", their first English-language single. It debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making them the first all-South Korean act to earn a US number-one single. At the MTV VMAs on the 31st of August, they won four awards. By November, "Dynamite" received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, the first time Korean pop artists had been recognised by the Recording Academy.

• 6. ARMY and the Power of Fandom

  ›

  ARMY, which stands for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth, is not a passive audience. As of 2020, some 40 million ARMY members subscribed to the band's YouTube channel, with more than 30 million following the official BTS Twitter and Instagram accounts. The community translates the group's lyrics and social media posts into other languages and coordinates charitable campaigns that match the donations of BTS members.

  Scolar Kyung Hyun Kim identified YouTube's rise in music video consumption as a structural factor that helped amplify BTS's reach. The group also built the BTS Universe, an alternate storyline told through music videos, mobile games, books, and short films, giving fans creative space to theorize and engage between releases. Kim suggested that ARMY are drawn to BTS partly because the members are seen as underdogs, originating from the Korean countryside and a relatively minor entertainment company, which lets young fans identify with them.

  The fandom's coordinated campaigns on streaming platforms have produced chart results that industry observers have had to account for as a distinct force. ARMY has engaged in activism on refugee crises, racial discrimination, children's rights, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Feedback from ARMY has also directly shaped the group's output: BTS removed certain Korean words from songs because they sounded like American racial slurs, and ended a collaboration with a Japanese producer when Korean ARMY members objected to his views.

  Per South Korean author Jiyoung Lee, the relationship between BTS and ARMY is "a mutual exchange between artists and their fans" that goes beyond chart performance to extend "the band's message of positivity into the world". The webtoon 7Fates: Chakho, released on the 15th of January, 2022, illustrated the depth of that engagement: it surpassed 15 million views globally in its first two days, becoming the highest-viewed title ever launched by Webtoon.

• 7. Diplomacy and Impact

  ›

  BTS was invited to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2018. That same year, they performed in Paris before an audience that included President Moon Jae-in at the Korea-France Friendship Concert. Also in 2018, they became the youngest recipients of the South Korean Order of Cultural Merit; cultural medals had traditionally gone to those with over 15 years of achievement, but Moon recognised them five years into their career for spreading Korean culture and language worldwide.

  In July 2021, President Moon appointed BTS Special Presidential Envoy for Future Generations and Culture. In that role, they appeared at the 76th United Nations General Assembly. On the 31st of May, 2022, the group visited US President Joe Biden at the White House to discuss the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and discrimination.

  The economic weight of BTS inside South Korea is documented. South Korea's Bank of Korea found in 2021 that the group, including ripple effects on tourism and interest in Korean language and film, added approximately US$5 billion per year to South Korea's economy. A 2018 study found that, on average, 800,000 foreigners per year had visited South Korea over the preceding four years for BTS-related reasons. Researcher Youna Kim described BTS as having spearheaded the Korean Wave as effectively as Psy had in the previous decade, with the cultural weight that the film Parasite carried in 2020.

  Billboard executive Silvio Pietroluongo compared the group's influence to that of the Beatles. MRC Data executive Helena Kosinski noted that BTS "don't just appeal to young people but also to the 50s and 60s age demographic", a breadth that set them apart from most of their peers.

• 8. Military Service and Return

  ›

  On the 14th of June, 2022, during their ninth anniversary celebrations, BTS announced a pause in group activities to allow members to complete their mandatory South Korean military service. Under South Korean law, all able-bodied males must complete between 18 and 21 months of service, usually by age 28. The announcement sent Hybe Corporation's stock down rapidly, with a reported decrease in market value of US$1.7 billion. Analysts estimated that the service period could cost Hybe Corporation nearly US$10 billion over ten years, with the loss to the South Korean economy estimated at nearly US$39 billion.

  Jin, the group's oldest member, was the first to enlist, on the 13th of December, 2022. J-Hope followed on the 18th of April, 2023. Suga enlisted as a social worker on the 22nd of September, 2023. RM and V enlisted on the 11th of December, 2023, followed by Jimin and Jung Kook the next day. Jin was the first to be discharged, on the 12th of June, 2024, followed by J-Hope on the 17th of October, 2024. RM and V were discharged on the 10th of June, 2025, Jimin and Jung Kook on the 11th of June, and Suga completed his service on the 18th of June, 2025.

  The group reunited publicly on a Weverse live on the 1st of July, 2025, confirming they were preparing new music. Their album Arirang was released on the 20th of March, 2026, alongside the lead single "Swim", which became their seventh US number-one single. The group held a comeback concert at Gwanghwamun Square on the 21st of March; streamed exclusively on Netflix, it ranked first in viewership in 24 countries and entered the weekly top 10 in 80 countries. BTS will perform alongside Madonna and Shakira at the halftime show of the 2026 FIFA World Cup final on the 19th of July in New Jersey.