Dynamite and an ARMY: how K-pop’s BTS invaded the US billboard charts

RM, V, J-Hope, Jungkook, Suga, Jin and Jimin belong to no ordinary boy band, but a multibillion-dollar enterprise making up a chunk of South Korea’s GDP
While their success has only recently been recognised overseas, it has been a long-time coming and owes much to savvy marketing and fan engagement

K-pop idols

Crystal Tai

Published: 7:30pm, 8 Sep 2020

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While K-pop outfit BTS’ first English-language single Dynamite continues to dominate the charts, the boy band’s management company Big Hit Entertainment is reportedly eyeing an IPO in October worth US$811 million.

The firm’s CEO Bang Si-hyuk is to offer his superstar group just over US$54 million in shares to strengthen their “long-term partnership” and “boost morale”, according to industry reports this week.

And that’s a boon not only for the personal fortunes of the band’s seven members – RM, V, J-Hope, Jungkook, Suga, Jin and Jimin. The group accounted for more than US$4.65 billion, or 0.3 per cent of their native South Korea’s GDP in 2019, according to the Hyundai Research Institute.

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Yet for all the band’s success – and its immense global fan base called ARMY – it is only recently, and particularly since Dynamite debuted at No. 1 on the US billboard 100 chart in late August, that overseas critics and institutions have begun to sit up and take notice.

For K-pop fans and industry experts who’ve been watching the group’s monumental rise, the band’s tremendous global success is not down to chance. Rather, it has been in the making since the group’s 2013 debut and owes much to savvy marketing and fan engagement.

“The heart of BTS’s success is the talent and charisma of the members presented to global audiences through abundant and frequent online interactions between BTS and ARMY,” says CedarBough Saeji, a Korea scholar and visiting assistant professor at Indiana University, Bloomington. “ARMY has truly responded to the members and lifted them up – refusing to bow to gatekeepers and continually promoting the group in small and large ways.”

One example of the growing clout of ARMY – which has thousands, if not millions of members – is how it derailed Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally in June in protest against the US president’s stance against the Black Lives Matter movement; another instance is how Australian broadcaster Channel Nine was forced to apologise to the group over a “racist” segment during which comedians insulted the group’s cultural background and image.

According to Saeji, the group’s timing – debuting at a time when many audiences were being exposed to Korean products including K-dramas, K-beauty, Korean cinema and K-pop – was also key.

Earlier K-pop artists including BoA, Super Junior, Rain, Wonder Girls, Girls Generation and others worked hard to expand to China, Japan, Southeast Asia and then globally, explains Saeji. “Although many fans today never heard those earlier artists until after BTS … those earlier artists forged relationships and made impressions on culture brokers, media outlets, journalists, and audiences,” she says. “That meant BTS did not need to start from a blank slate.”

CHAMPIONS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

BTS has broken new ground in K-pop for supporting social justice movements, from becoming the first K-pop group to speak at the United Nations General Assembly in 2018, to taking a vocal stance against racism.

“We stand against racial discrimination. You, I and we all have the right to be respected,” the band said recently in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I think this was important because it attracted fans to more than just a musical product, but a social movement with a message,” says Saeji.

Jenna Gibson, a K-pop writer and PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, agrees that ARMY is a product of their messages and morals as well. “This loyal fan base didn’t come from nowhere, BTS have continued to gain fans because there is something that resonates with people – whether it’s the messages in their songs, their teamwork, or their artistry,” she says.

Peter Chun, former US director of YG Entertainment and head of marketing of theQoos, a K-pop content and fan community platform, believes that while BTS have paved the way for K-pop, the genre, as well as East Asian cultures have far to go in gaining acceptance in the United States.

“I grew up in America, I know and have felt anti-Asian sentiment all the time. We are under-represented in the media, and a lot of times it paints Asians as uncool,” says Chun. “BTS has become a household name but how many actually know their songs and appreciate their music?

“It’s really just unfortunate that so many are closed off to K-pop and not respectful of Asians.”

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SAVVY STRATEGIES

In August, BTS performed Dynamite, their latest chart-topping single, live for the first time at the 2020 MTV Music Video Awards (VMA); during the event they also won four VMAs including Best for K-pop and Best Group – awards they received for the first time in 2019.

Dynamite was recorded in English only because BTS felt the original demo sounded better in the language, says Saeji. The difference with other K-pop artists who have tried this in the past is that BTS “had already broken into the English speaking market before releasing it”.

In the past, other Korean artists made a play for the US market seemingly overnight, “dropping an English version of one of their songs, doing a collaboration or two with an American artist, and kind of expecting it to take off from there automatically,” says Jenna Gibson, the University of Chicago scholar.

“I think the assumption was, in part, that because they were so popular elsewhere, American audiences just needed to see how talented they are and they would be on board – of course, success is far more complicated than that,” she says.

Industry watchers like Gibson say it’s only a matter of time until other K-pop groups evolve, grow and gain mainstream success in the US and global markets. “Blackpink is [already] extremely successful. I think more groups like Twice, EXO, Stray Kids, Txt, and Itzy will gain a lot more popularity.”

For Chun, the global success of K-pop and BTS is a matter of celebrating diversity, which the US needs to recognise. “We still have a way to go and hopefully younger generations can lead the future,” he says. “We need to change [perceptions of ethnic minorities] and we need to speak up. There are so many dope Asians in music, fashion, film and entertainment.”