Mengapa BTS bisa mendunia

Grup pop Korea Selatan ini telah mencapai puncak tangga lagu di AS,
menyatukan jutaan penggemar di seluruh dunia menjadi ARMY yang
bergaya sendiri, memecahkan rekor penayangan online, dan menjadi
bagian dari IPO besar. Sekarang BTS sedang bersiap untuk merilis
album baru.

Sudah sangat lama sejak kami melakukan wawancara tatap muka seperti ini. " Rapper J-
Hope, 26, anggota grup Korea Selatan BTS, berbincang-bincang sambil menunggu rekan
satu grupnya menetap. Pandemi virus corona menghentikan tur dunia grup tersebut, yang
akan membawa mereka melintasi 17 kota. tiga benua tahun ini. Tapi itu tidak membuat
mereka menjadi kurang sibuk saat mereka menunggu rilis album baru.

In early September, all seven members of BTS—short for their Korean name Bangtan
Sonyeondan, which they alter in English to “Beyond the Scene”—were camped out in
Seoul’s artsy Yeonnam neighborhood, just weeks after their latest catchy hit,
“Dynamite,” topped global charts and became the most downloaded song of 2020 in the
United States. Decked in monochrome outfits, rappers RM, Suga and J-Hope and
vocalists Jung Kook, Jin, V and Jimin—as they are known by their stage names—
shuttled between interviews and the WSJ. photo shoot inside a house-turned–chic cafe.
Clearing security to meet them involved surprisingly little hassle: a name check,
temperature screening and Covid-19 health form followed by a short walk to the entrance
where security personnel quickly glanced at name tags.
In July, BTS broke the Guinness World Record for staging the biggest virtually attended
livestream music performance, which attracted fans from over 100 countries. They miss
the real thing, though. “That feeling [of being onstage] is really the best thrill I probably
get in life. Even if I leave one day, I think I’ll be back for this,” says Jin, 27, of being
onstage in front of BTS’s devoted fans, officially dubbed ARMY. The name stands for
“Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth,” though the demographics of the band’s fan
base now extend well beyond that age group.

In part thanks to the ardor of the ARMY—which one count estimates as high as 48
million, based on online commentary by unique authors—the band is often called “the
Beatles of the 21st century.” The group has exploded the familiar boy band recipe, taking
the concept of fandom into new territory and developing the South Korean genre known
as K-pop into a global force. A voluntary census conducted by fans between July and
September gathered over 400,000 responses from surveys translated into 46 languages,
according to University of Nevada graduate student Nicole Santero, who led the effort
with two others under the Twitter handle @ResearchBTS. The data, which is still being
analyzed, is pointing toward the demographic and geographic diversity of BTS fans.

Their impact has extended beyond music. In June, the band donated $1 million to Black
Lives Matter, a sum that was matched by fans across the world in just over a day. The
group also used its clout to launch Connect, BTS, a public art project showcasing works
this spring by the likes of Antony Gormley and Tomás Saraceno in New York, Berlin,
London, Buenos Aires and Seoul. In October, the band’s management company, Big Hit
Entertainment Co. , went public on the South Korean stock exchange. The company
raised about $840 million through its initial public offering with a valuation of about $4
billion, which leapt to $7.6 billion by the end of trading on the first day, October 15,
before sliding over the next few days to $5.9 billion. (By way of comparison, in early
June, Warner Music’s IPO resulted in a $15 billion valuation, which has since dropped
slightly to a $14.36 billion market cap.) Big Hit’s stock debut put the equity holdings of
Bang Si-hyuk—the 48-year-old founder and co-CEO of Big Hit and the mastermind
behind BTS who owns nearly 35 percent of the business—at a value of around $2.8
billion. BTS is Big Hit’s largest asset, and Bang has given each band member 68,385 of
his personal shares, worth over $15 million to each on the day of the IPO. BTS’s global
success has powered Big Hit, which is only 15 years old, to revenues high enough to
bump one of South Korea’s traditionally entrenched “Big Three” entertainment
companies from the top rankings.
“These guys have achieved gradual growth by putting their voices into music,” Bang said
by email. “BTS’s music that sings of the emotions and experiences of youth first
resonated among their peers. Then it resonated among the contemporary global citizens.
And that sentiment transcended borders and reached to the peripheries of the world.
That’s how the group got to receive so much love and support. This enables BTS to be
connected to their fans wherever they are, and is what makes the seven boys special.”
The latest single, “Dynamite,” is their first group song recorded entirely in English, and
their first track to truly break on American Top 40 radio. The track is their first song to
get to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was quickly followed by their second U.S. chart-
topper, a remix of Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685’s TikTok hit “Savage Love (Laxed—
Siren Beat).” Their fifth album, BE (Deluxe Edition), is out this month, and the members
of BTS say they’re trying to keep their focus on their music. “We’re preparing our next
album now, [and I] think it’d be great if all our songs make it into Billboard’s Hot 100,”
says Jimin, 25. “Another performance at the Grammys would be great.” A few seats
away, Suga, 27, teases, “Just say you’d like to receive the award.”
Who are BTS? And how did they get so famous? The questions have persisted even as
the world has become mesmerized by BTS’s irresistible hooks, Technicolor production
and high-flying choreography.

Boy bands have long been one of pop music’s most consistent and reliable constructs.
Though we now look back at the Beatles fully aware of their world-changing musical and
cultural innovations, when they appeared in the early ’60s, more attention was paid to
their haircuts than to their songwriting. The Fab Four also established the blueprint of
distilling members to one characteristic—The Quiet One or The Cute One—and having
fans identify with a favorite.

BTS has topped Billboard’s song chart, released one of America’s bestselling albums of
2020 and performed at the Grammys with Lil Nas X. They sold out London’s Wembley
Stadium in 2019, won four MTV Video Music Awards this year and smashed the record
for the most views on YouTube in a 24-hour period (over 100 million)—all while singing
almost entirely in Korean. They have also collaborated with musical stars such as Ed
Sheeran, Sia, Nicki Minaj, Halsey, Charli XCX and Charlie Puth.

These patterns reappeared a few years later with a couple of family groups with ear-
candy hooks and elaborate dance moves: the Jackson 5 and the Osmonds. The structure
became formalized in the ’80s—enhanced with a sprinkling of light hip-hop—with New
Edition (a teen spin on R&B groups with multiple vocalists like the Temptations) and
New Kids on the Block, who sold more than 70 million albums worldwide. Puerto Rico–
based band Menudo reinforced the genre’s formulaic reputation by replacing members
when they reached the age of 16.

Meanwhile, pop music in South Korea was also establishing a lane for groups of singing
and dancing teenagers. As far back as 1962, a single released by a Korean girl group
called the Kim Sisters even cracked the Top 10 of the U.S. Billboard charts. But
contemporary K-pop is generally seen as starting with the ’90s trio Seo Taiji and Boys,
who synthesized Korean music and style with gleaming highlights taken from Western
pop and were propelled to stardom on a TV talent show. One of the Seo Taiji and Boys
members, Yang Hyun-suk, then founded YG Entertainment in 1996; it is now one of
Korea’s “Big Three” entertainment companies, and has spawned its own bands, including
girl group Blackpink.

In the U.S., boy bands went nuclear at the turn of the century with the notorious manager
Lou Pearlman’s Florida pop factory, which assembled both the Backstreet Boys and
NSYNC, and dominated the charts for years. Pearlman tried to repeat history with O-
Town and LFO, while other groups like 98 Degrees followed a similar model. At the
same time, in the Asian music industry, groups such as the Taiwanese band F4 and the
Japanese group Arashi were logging huge hits, with g.o.d. setting the pace in South
Korea.

Inevitably, there was a backlash, and then inevitably—because there’s always a new
generation of teenagers coming of age—about a decade later, the pendulum swung back.
One Direction, constructed by British music producer Simon Cowell in 2010, mixed in
some rock and EDM elements to the usual pop confection and became the biggest U.K.
phenomenon since the Beatles. (Atypically, they spun off successful solo careers for all
five members after the group began its extended hiatus in 2016.)

In South Korea, though, K-pop continued to become more popular and more formalized,
as it became part of an international phenomenon called Hallyu, or “the Korean Wave.”
BoA and Wonder Girls were among the acts who attempted to crack the Western market
but stalled, while Psy’s 2012 hit “Gangnam Style” was the first YouTube video to reach a
billion views. But it still came as a surprise to many when seven Korean guys married the
simmering global appeal of K-pop and the resilience of the boy band—amplified by
social media—and started storming the charts.
BTS debuted on June 13, 2013, but their first release, “No More Dream’’ (a rap-heavy
song that begins with “Hey, what’s your dream?”), hardly made a dent in the K-pop
scene, which was dominated by established acts and rising groups such as EXO and
Apink at the time. From the start, Big Hit’s Bang was looking to create a hip-hop group
that could produce their own songs with messages that would resonate with their
audience. In a 2011 lecture at his alma mater, Seoul National University, Bang predicted
the coming of “wholesome idols” who could “sing and dance, act for sure and even play
instruments and compose.” By then, he was well underway crafting K-pop’s next-
generation of superstars.

His first pick was RM (given name Kim Nam-jun, now 26), in 2010. At the time, RM
was performing in South Korea’s underground hip-hop scene under the stage name
Runch Randa. The next to join, that same year, was Suga (Min Yun-ki), who was
performing and producing under the name Gloss, after he placed second in a rap audition
organized by Big Hit. J-Hope (Jeong Ho-seok) was part of a dance crew called Neuron
before signing on as a Big Hit trainee, as performers in an apprenticeship period with
Korean entertainment companies are often called.

Jung Kook (Jeon Jeong-guk), now 23, joined as a trainee after participating in a local
televised singing audition program. He received offers from multiple agencies but chose
Big Hit after seeing RM. Jin (Kim Seok-jin) was a college student on his way to school
when an official at Big Hit approached him to audition. V (Kim Tae-hyung), 24, was
discovered at a closed-door audition held at a dance academy. Jimin (Park Ji-min) was
the last to join. He was a dance student at the Busan High School of Arts when he
auditioned for Big Hit at the suggestion of his teacher. The members have each carved
out strong identities for themselves within the group—J-Hope is considered the star
dancer; RM is seen as the main spokesperson, especially in the U.S., as he speaks
English; Jung Kook is the “golden maknae” (meaning the youngest in Korean)—but they
have all contributed their songwriting and composing skills to hits such as “Boy With
Luv,” “On,” “DNA,” “Run” and “Idol.” J-Hope describes his approach as research-
heavy. “I first study the topic and think about what story I need to tell and what kind of
content it should encompass,” he says. “Sometimes the type of stories I’m dealing with
are light, but sometimes they aren’t, so it’s important that I’m knowledgeable about what
I’m working on.”
Suga says he comes across ideas for his songs from the books he reads. “I tend to think a
lot about the meaning behind words,” he says. “We deal a lot with emotions so I spend a
lot of time thinking about how words can be construed differently.”

RM, who has credits on many of BTS’s biggest songs, will dwell on a line from a movie
or a passing scene, sometimes for years, before starting to work it into his lyrics.
“[Writing songs] takes a long time for me,” says RM. “So it hurts, body and soul, when I
have to throw one away.”

In recent years, pop music—generally associated with bubblegum, upbeat dance songs—
has been getting more serious and introspective. From the Weeknd to Selena Gomez, teen
idols have increasingly been writing and singing about mental and emotional health,
anxiety and loss. (A 2018 study at the University of California Irvine examined hundreds
of thousands of English-language pop songs and confirmed that sadness was on the rise.)
Though a casual glance at their intricate choreography may not make it obvious, BTS is
celebrated by their fans for touching on psychological and social issues in their songs.

“I don’t like talking about my dark side,” says Jin. “I’m in the camp that believes idols
should always show their bright and positive side.” Still, a conversation with Bang
inspired Jin’s 2018 solo ballad “Epiphany,” which focuses on self-acceptance. V, who
contributed to the neo-soul “Stigma”—which includes lines like “The pain is never
soothed”—recently received a phone call from producer Bang on a song he was writing.
“Could you tone down this a little?” Bang asked.

“How come he never says things like that to me?” Suga jumps in.

RM responds. “Because that’s (your) personality.”

J-Hope chimes in, laughing, “I’m a bit envious of [Suga’s] expressions.”

“I’m the type that speaks out first, and then thinks about it,” Suga explains.

Pdogg, Big Hit’s chief producer, who has provided musical direction for BTS’s albums
from the start, says it’s the band members who decide on the message (like their album
title Love Yourself) they want to send through their music. “The most important thing for
BTS as a team is the message that members want to convey,” he says. Musically, the
band’s initial heavy lean into hip-hop has become fused with genres like Brit rock, EDM
and future house over the years.
The music “still has a footing in hip-hop sound, but when it comes to genre, we’re in the
process of expanding the parameters to create a hybrid sound,” said Pdogg in late
September, a few days after he had completed production for BTS’s upcoming album.
“We’re in the process of perfecting BTS’s unique hue.”

For their new album, BTS members had made separate bids to feature melodies they had
written as the album’s lead song. Jimin describes that process as “painstaking and
tearful.” Jung Kook points out that the members weren’t just competing against each
other, but against other composers who also submitted attempts to Bang. Jin alone sent
him three different melodies. Suga made it to the finals. RM, though, chose to sit this one
out. “The competition was too fierce,” he says.

The seven members of BTS spent their childhoods in different parts of South Korea. Jung
Kook and Jimin were born in Busan, a southern port city. Jung Kook grew up in a
creative household, with an older brother who’s a talented illustrator and parents who like
to sing. As a child, Jimin learned kendo (a Japanese martial art using bamboo swords)
and thought of becoming a policeman but changed his mind after starting to dance in
middle school. His father used to say he should become a prosecutor.

V wanted to be a singer since his childhood, possibly influenced by his father, who had
dreamed of becoming a star himself. (“Tae-hyung’s father is super-talented,” Jin says,
referring to V by his real name.) Jin grew up in an entrepreneurial household. “My family
is all in business, so they’re all good speakers,” he says, and V jumps in to note, “You’ve
got your mom’s way with words.”

J-Hope was born in Gwangju and raised by his father, a literature teacher, and a “strong-
willed” mother who once ran an internet cafe. “I used to wonder how I could dance,” he
says, referring to how no one in his family danced or sang. (“His dad’s quite strict,” Jin
adds.) Suga was born in Daegu to a family that he describes as “far from having anything
to do with the arts and entertainment,” though his mother picked up drawing in her 60s.
As a kid, he thought of becoming a fireman, and at one point his father tried to persuade
him to study journalism. He composed his first song when he was 13. He’s since lost the
recording but says, “I remember it—I’ll use it one day.”

RM, who once considered studying journalism in college, wrote his first song in 2007.
He describes it as a disaster but he held onto it anyway. “I can’t even tell if the lyrics are
Korean,” he says.

Social media has overturned the rules of the music industry and elevated the power of the
fan, with BTS’s ARMY leading the way. For years, the group has had the most social
engagement of any act in the world. Many avid fans take it as their personal
responsibility to stream new BTS songs and videos through as many devices as possible
as many times as possible, helping to juice the band’s chart positions. The sense of
intimacy provided by constant social media contact also leads to an intensity and
identification with the BTS members that simply wouldn’t have been imaginable for
previous bands. (ARMY is a tightly knit collective. Many fans declare “I’m ARMY,” or
“I’m an ARMY,” when describing their devotion to the band.)

“BTS knows how to engage fans between their big video drops with a steady stream of
content,” said Lyor Cohen, global head of YouTube Music, by email. When the band
released their single “Dynamite” in September, they had also uploaded over a dozen
additional clips related to the song, Cohen says, including individual videos of each
member singing the song, a reaction video, footage from their choreography rehearsals
and a “B-side” clip of their music video showing the band from different camera angles.
The efforts pay off. When “Dynamite” premiered on YouTube, it instantly drew three
million viewers, according to Cohen. (At press time in early October, it had nearly 500
million views.) “They are truly a global act with a legion of loyal fans from around the
world.” Over 90 percent of BTS clip views this year have come from outside South
Korea, including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and India.

The group has several ongoing video series on YouTube, including Bangtan Bomb (short
behind-the-scenes clips), with over 600 episodes and counting, and Episode (longer
videos of BTS at photo or music-video shoots). There’s also Run BTS!, a near-weekly
entertainment program showing the seven stars involved in games or other activities,
which is released on South Korean livestreaming service V Live and on Weverse, Big
Hit’s own online platform, which offers exclusive content as well as premium paid
memberships. This is in addition to the usual music videos, vlogs, interview clips and
reality TV shows in which the band appears.

Randy Suh, a K-pop critic in Canada, says BTS’s success has highlighted the importance
and strength of new media in the music industry. From their early days, BTS used to put
out three or four clips on YouTube every week and release mixtapes on blogs, she says.
“That gave them an approachable image as singers, and it came at a time when people
started preferring [social media] influencers who felt closer than some pop singer far
away.”

The content empire that BTS produces is so vast that even fans can’t keep up. When
“Dynamite” launched, Michelle Tack, 47, a cosmetics stores manager from Chicopee,
Massachusetts, requested a day off work to stream the music video on YouTube. “I
streamed all day,” Tack says. She made sure to watch other clips on the platform in
between her streaming so that her views would count toward the grand total of views.
(YouTube says it has systems in place to eliminate videos viewed by computer programs,
which can skew the measure of a video’s overall popularity.)

“It feels like I’m part of this family that wants BTS to succeed, and we want to do
everything we can do to help them,” says Tack. She says BTS has made her life “more
fulfilled” and brought her closer to her two daughters, 12 and 14. The younger one
introduced her to the band two years ago.

If feels like I’m part of this family that wants BTS

to succeed, and we want to do everything we can do
to help them.
— Michelle Tack, BTS fan

Fifteen-year-old Abbey Hammond, who lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts, recalls her

reaction when she first watched a BTS video in seventh grade. “Their vocals were
amazing; they were rapping, dancing, plus they do a lot of acting in the videos—I just
thought they were all-around talented, and then looking at the lyrics, they were really
meaningful,” says Hammond. The language barrier was never an obstacle. “I don’t think
you have to understand what they’re saying to understand what emotions they’re putting
out there,” she says. “A lot of it comes from their performance. Words aren’t the only
thing you need in order to get them.”

“The best K-pop utilizes storytelling in really innovative ways,” says Colette Balmain,
58, a senior lecturer in film and media and communications at London’s Kingston
University, who organized a BTS academic conference in January 2020, at which 200
papers were submitted. She also examines “Bangtan Universe,” an ever-evolving
narrative around BTS that is told through multiple mediums, including music videos,
online blog posts and social media postings where Big Hit discloses clues or story pieces.
The storyline of Bangtan Universe, in which the seven members adopt fictional personas,
isn’t revealed in chronological order. Some avid fans take part by writing and changing
the stories based on different clues dropped by Big Hit.

“We had albums that have themes in the West, but a story across albums is unusual,” says
Balmain. “What Big Hit is doing with BTS is innovating not just the Korean
entertainment business, but also the U.S. entertainment business.”

Lee Ji-young, a philosophy professor at Sejong University in Seoul, a self-proclaimed

ARMY and author of BTS, Art Revolution, says BTS’s success in the American music
industry holds historical significance. “This shouldn’t be seen as just a victory for South
Korean singers, but a paradigm shift in America’s racial and linguistic hegemony.”
Lee says BTS’s innovations are also reflected in how ARMY is redefining pop group fan
bases. “This is an extremely active community,” she says, pointing to a Twitter account
operated by BTS fans to organize charity fundraising projects (@oneinanarmy), free
tutoring services within the ARMY community and an academic journal, The Rhizomatic
Revolution Review, for which she is an advisory board member. It publishes peer-
reviewed papers on “the art, fandom, economic effects and sociocultural forces generated
by BTS and ARMY.”
The band, which signed a new seven-year contract with Big Hit in 2018, has other hoops
to jump through looking ahead, including starting mandatory military duties for roughly
two years by age 28. That means enlisting next year for Jin, 27, the band’s eldest
member. Calls for exempting the members from service (a legal option for high-
performing athletes and award-winning classical musicians) have been on the rise, though
no precedent exists for K-pop stars. So far Big Hit has been silent on the issue.

The stars of BTS say there are still more things yet to achieve. “In the past, we had clear
goals and a thirst. We had to do well—we were desperate,” says Jung Kook. “I still have
a similar mindset. It’s the achievements we’ve made every step of the way that are
prompting me to want to challenge myself more.”

“Before, we were all just fixated on looking for the camera when the red light came on,”
says Jimin. “Now we feel more relaxed.”