BTS (Hangul: 방탄소년단; RR: Bangtan Sonyeondan), also known as the Bangtan Boys, is a seven-member South Korean boy band formed by Big Hit Entertainment in 2013. The name became a backronym for Beyond the Scene in July 2017. The band won several New Artist of the Year awards for the track “No More Dream” and gained prominence with their subsequent albums Dark & Wild (2014), The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2 (2015) and The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever (2016). The latter two entered the U.S. Billboard 200, and The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever won the Album of the Year award at the 2016 Melon Music Awards.
Their second full Korean album, Wings (2016), sold more than 1.5 million copies, making it BTS’s first “million seller”. BTS made their debut on the Billboard Hot 100 with the track “DNA” from the EP Love Yourself: Her, which peaked at #67. Another track from the EP, the remix version of “Mic Drop“, peaked at #28 on the Billboard Hot 100. Both tracks are certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, a first for any Korean group and the second Korean act overall after PSY. Their third album, Love Yourself: Tear, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 making them as of 2019 the first and only Korean act to achieve this. Love Yourself: Answer sold over 1.9 million copies on Gaon Album Chart in August 2018, breaking the chart’s all-time monthly record previously set by Love Yourself: Tear. On November 9, 2018, Love Yourself: Answer became the first Korean album certified Gold and the single “MIC Drop” became the first track by a Korean group certified Platinum in the United States. In Korea they have sold over ten million albums, with five million sold in 2018.
Known for their large social media presence, BTS were the most retweeted celebrities in the world for 2017 and 2018. In October 2016, Billboard placed BTS #1 on their Social 50 chart, another first for a Korean group. In May 2017, they won the Top Social Artist Award at the Billboard Music Awards, becoming the first Korean group to win a BBMA. On November 20, 2017, Guinness World Records revealed that BTS had earned a spot in their 2018 edition for “having the world’s most Twitter engagements for a music group”. In 2018, BTS became #1 on the Forbes Korea Power Celebrity list, which ranks South Korea’s most powerful and influential celebrities, as well as #1 in a Gallup poll for Korea’s most loved artists of 2018. They also became the youngest ever recipients of the Order of Cultural Merit from the South Korean government. In September 2018, BTS gave a speech at the United Nations as ambassadors for UNICEF and were featured on the cover of Time magazine’s international edition as ‘Next Generation Leaders’.
The septet co-writes and produces much of their output, to which some media outlets have attributed their success. Their music often features references to literature and to an alternative universe storyline. Some of the recurring themes that appear in their albums include mental health, the troubles of school-age youth, and loss.