BTS

The seven-man K-pop sensation, which accounts for $4.65 billion of South Korea’s GDP and rivals The Beatles on the charts: “An absolute dream come true.”

BTS is the first group since The Beatles — to whom they also are compared for the hysterical fan mania they generate — to score three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart in less than a year, a feat that’s all the more astounding considering their songs are mostly in Korean. Their latest, an EP titled Map of the Soul: Persona, sold 3.5 million copies worldwide in the six months since its release, 562,000 of those in the U.S. alone. The candy-colored video for their single “Boy With Luv,” featuring a hook sung by Halsey (“Oh my my my!”), surpassed 100 million views in less than 48 hours — a YouTube record — when it dropped in April, and is currently closing in on 600 million views. That same month, they became the first Asian band to surpass 5 billion streams on Spotify. And then there are the live concerts. Demand for the U.S. stadium leg of their continuing 2019 tour, which resumes in October after a threemonth break, was so fie rce, it repeatedly crashed Ticketmaster’s servers, selling out all 300,000 seats — average price: $452 each — just simply in a matter of minutes.

Add in merchandising ($130 million worth of books, T-shirts, cosmetics, jewelry, dolls and other branded memorabilia — eBay Korea currently features 40,000 BTS-related products — sold every year), tourism dollars and other revenue generators, the BTS ecosystem is so enormous, it accounts for $4.65 billion of South Korea’s GDP. That’s enough to put it in the same league as Samsung and Hyundai.

“We have to consider ourselves not just better [than other K-pop acts], but the best,” says RM, BTS’ 25-year-old charismatic leader. “When we’re out there on that stage, we’re there to conquer. We think we’re the ones.”

With RM as its frontman, BTS was originally conceived as a hip-hop group — but Bang decided to go in a more radio-friendly direction, combining vocalists and rappers for what he calls “a U.S. pop formula.” At the time — 2012 — Big Hit Entertainment had about 30 young men in its own idol training program, and Bang began experimenting with various combinations until he finally landed on the magic seven: national dance champion J-Hope (real name Jung Ho-seok, now 25); introspective rapper Suga (Min Yoon-gi, 26); aspiring actor Jin (Kim Seok-jin, 26); sweet-faced Jungkook (Jeon Jung-kook, 22) as the band’s maknae — a K-pop term for the baby of the group; and V (Kim Tae-hyung, 23) as the soulful crooner. Last to join was Jimin (Park Ji-min, 23), a contemporary dancer with pillow lips and charm to spare. “All of them had a strong passion for music and a story they wanted to talk about,” notes Bang, who considered several names for his new boy band, including Big Kids and Young Nation. But BTS — short for Bangtan Sonyeondan, which translates in English to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” — was his favorite. It conjured up a generational battle pitting millennial sensibilities against the conservative expectations of Korean society. “BTS symbolizes the periphery,” he explains. “They did not shy away from the pains of this generation and were honest about talking about their own ones. And they came together at a time of increased longing for fairness and the rights of the marginalized. I think this wholesome combination has led to their global success and is why they’re so popular today.”