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    Entertainment Weekly The Ultimate Guide to BTS
    Entertainment Weekly The Ultimate Guide to BTS
    Entertainment Weekly The Ultimate Guide to BTS
    Ebook208 pages52 minutes

    Entertainment Weekly The Ultimate Guide to BTS

    By Meredith Corporation

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    About this ebook

    Entertainment Weekly takes you inside the world of the global superstars, from their early beginnings in the South Korean music scene to their Number 1 Billboard hit “Dynamite” that made pop music history. This 96-page photo-filled issue dedicated solely to BTS goes behind the scenes with the band at awards shows, on the road, and in their Seoul recording studio, where they gave EW an exclusive interview. Features bios of Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jungkook. Plus: What's next for BTS.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMeredith Corporation
    Release dateApr 16, 2021
    ISBN9781547856831
    Entertainment Weekly The Ultimate Guide to BTS

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      Book preview

      Entertainment Weekly The Ultimate Guide to BTS - Meredith Corporation

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      FOREWORD

      FROM BOYS TO MEN

      Just eight short years after their debut, BTS has become one of the MOST IMPORTANT BANDS in the world—and their influence only grows. BY STEPHAN LEE

      BTS performed Dynamite, their first English-language hit, on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2020

      IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO EXAGGERATE just how beloved and significant BTS has become since their debut in 2013. The actual stats and figures proving the band’s popularity are mind-boggling, but it’s not just the numbers that set them apart. As much as cultural critics and journalists have tried, you can’t pinpoint just one thing that generates the utmost passion and loyalty to BTS from every culture and every demographic. They’re a phenomenon, and by definition, you can’t quite explain a phenomenon. But we’ll try.

      What makes the septet from South Korea the most influential entertainers on the planet right now—if not ever—is not just the breadth of their reach but the depth. More than 40 million people around the world have enlisted in ARMY, the group’s official fandom, and the fans have used their unparalleled power to help propel the group up the charts and shatter records. With every major BTS release, the group will gain new followers, and the results are nothing short of breathtaking. BTS is easily the most-tweeted-about music act on Twitter (next time you’re on the social media site, check out how many tiny 7s you see hovering over user names, which has become an ARMY badge of honor). They hold a plethora of records for music videos on YouTube, including most views in 24 hours (101.1 million) for Dynamite; they’re the first all-South Korean act to reach the top of the Billboard 100, most recently debuting at No. 1 with Life Goes On; and it’s not just streaming—their album Map of the Soul: 7 was the bestselling physical album of 2020 in the United States. In South Korea the band is single-handedly worth a reported $3.6 billion to the national economy. By every metric BTS’s fan engagement—what Hollywood and marketing pros use as the all-important marker of success—is unprecedented and the envy of the world.

      Yet BTS’s influence goes far beyond entertainment, and ARMY does much more than stan their favs. ARMY made headlines for its disruption in politics in the summer of 2020 by trolling right-wing politicians and defusing racist hashtags on social media; they also matched BTS’s $1 million contribution to the Black Lives Matter movement in just one day.

      Fans’ advocacy efforts stem directly from the band’s good example: In 2018 BTS spoke at the United Nations General Assembly and the previous year teamed up with UNICEF for their anti-bullying, anti-violence Love Yourself campaign, which raised more than $1.4 million. The BTS juggernaut has evolved into a global social revolution for good.

      Yet in 2021 it’s easy to forget that BTS wasn’t breaking records from day one. Initially formed in 2010 by Big Hit Entertainment founder Bang Si-Hyuk, Bangtan Sonyeondan, or BTS, debuted in 2013 with their album 2 Cool 4 Skool, which wasn’t an immediate chart-topper. (At the time, Big Hit wasn’t considered one of the Big Three K-pop companies, the likes of which produced Psy, Girls’ Generation and BIGBANG.) But the relative lack of fanfare surrounding BTS’s debut may have turned out to be an advantage in the long run. From the beginning, the individual members of BTS had an unusual amount of creative freedom over their music and image; they committed to long-term storytelling rather than jumping on current trends that may have guaranteed more immediate success. Their music spoke directly to their listeners, getting refreshingly honest about the alienation young people feel from being subject to rules imposed by older generations with their school and youth trilogies of albums. Their lyrics spoke honestly about anxiety and mental health—topics that not a lot of top pop groups were approaching at the time—all with an underlying positivity and sense of hope for the future. And, of course, over some sick, innovative hooks and hard-hitting, perfectly synced choreography, which BTS pulls off better than anyone on the planet.

      It took a good three years of hard work and building deep connections with audiences before BTS broke through worldwide in a huge way. If you had to pick one album to call their international breakthrough, it’s probably Wings, which was later repackaged as You Never Walk Alone. The first single from the re-release was an original track (written in part by members RM and Suga), called Spring Day, a heartfelt ballad about yearning and love; the raw, earnest lyrics touch on themes of unconditional acceptance and understanding, which is one of the defining themes of BTS’s oeuvre:

      You know it all

      You’re my best friend

      The morning will come again

      No darkness, no season is eternal.

      It’s perhaps the song that most typifies BTS’s singular ability to speak directly and personally to fans, no matter the language.

      Although it’s impossible to pinpoint one reason for BTS’s success, the clarity of intent behind everything they do—to make people feel less alone—is the X factor that attracts millions of devotees rather than casual fans. And whether or not every ARMY realizes it, part of what fans love about BTS can be traced back to their uniquely Korean values, such as sincerity, collective harmony over pure individualism and rigorous hard work—which aren’t always themes you find front and center in a lot of pop music.

      Of course, beyond the deeper reasons BTS is so popular is Pop 101: Their music is catchy and easy to sing along to, chock-full of state-of-the-art hooks. Starting in 2017 tracks like DNA, Mic Drop and Fake Love became huge hits in the States, and the group shattered several Billboard records. Boy with Luv, featuring Halsey, set the bar even higher in 2019, and then in 2020 Dynamite—the group’s first song recorded in all

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