BTS (Korean: 방탄소년단; Japanese: 防弾少年团; also known as Bangtan Boys) is a seven-member boy group under Big Hit Entertainment. They made their debut with "No More Dream" from their first single 2 Cool 4 Skool on June 13, 2013.
Members
- Rap Monster (랩 몬스터) - leader, main rapper, sub-vocalist
- Jin (진) - vocalist, visual
- Suga (슈가) - lead rapper
- J-Hope (제이홉) - main dancer, lead rapper, sub-vocalist
- Jimin (지민) - lead vocalist, lead dancer
- V (뷔) - vocalist
- Jungkook (정국) - main vocalist, lead dancer, rapper, maknae
History
Pre-debut
BTS first came to prominence after winning Big Hit's "Hit It" auditions in 2010 and 2011, establishing their final lineup in 2012. In the time leading up to their debut album, the group members began engaging with fans through social media outlets like Twitter, video blogs as well as releasing songs via their YouTube page.
Prior to joining the group, Rap Monster was an established underground artist having released several tracks. Suga was also an established and Jin was a university student. J-Hope had been a member of a street dance team called NEURON and was an active participant in the underground dance scene. Prior to being in BTS Jimin was a student at Busan High School of Arts, but later transferred to Korea Arts High School. Jungkook was highly in demand by several talent agencies, but decided to join BTS after hearing Rap Monster perform.
2013: Debut with "2 Cool 4 Skool", O!RUL8,2
The group debuted on June 13, 2013 with the release of their debut single album 2 Cool 4 Skool with "No More Dream" as the title track. A music video for the track "We Are Bulletproof Pt.2" was released in July.
On September 11, they released their first mini-album O!RUL8,2 with "N.O" as the title track.
2014: Skool Luv Affair, Dark & Wild, and Japanese debut
Their second mini-album Skool Luv Affair was released on February 14 with "Boy in Luv" as the title track. A repackage was later released on May 14 and the group used "Miss Right" for their follow-up promotions.
BTS made their Japanese debut by releasing the best album 2 Cool 4 Skool / O!RUL8,2 which consists of Japanese versions of songs from their first two releases in Korea. Dark & Wild, their first full-length album, was released on August 20.
2015–2016: The Most Beautiful Moment in Life trilogy and expanding popularity
The group released their third mini-album The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Pt. 1 on April 29, 2015. Their title track "I Need U" was performed on various music shows, finally winning first place on SBS's The Show on May 5, their first music show award since their debut. "Dope" was used for follow-up promotions in June.
Their fourth mini-album The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Pt. 2 was released on November 30, 2015. The group completed their trilogy with the release of the special album The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever on May 2, 2016.
The group has an extremely large social media presence and was noted by Forbes magazine as the most retweeted artist in March 2016. Following this, Twitter released a K-pop themed emoji featuring the group ahead of their Asia tour.
2016: Youth and Wings
On September 6, BTS released their second Japanese album Youth.
Later in September, their agency announced that the group would be releasing their second Korean full-length album Wings on October 10. Pre-orders for the album exceeded 500,000 copies. Upon its released, their album's title track, "Blood Sweat, & Tears", achieved an all-kill on the music charts. The accompanying music video reached 6 million views within a day, beating the previous record by EXO's "Monster".
The album also debuted at #26 on the US Billboard 200 charts, marking it as the highest charting K-pop album ever and was the group's third entry onto the chart, another first for a K-pop artist in the US market.
2017–present: You Never Walk Alone and international recognition
BTS released a repackage of Wings titled You Never Walk Alone on February 13. The album achieved further success with pre-orders reaching over 700,000 copies. The title track "Spring Day" swept the Korea music charts, achieving another all-kill for the group. The track also appeared on US's Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart at #15, their first appearance on the chart. The music video for "Spring Day" reached over 9 million views in 24 hours, breaking their own previous record with "Blood Sweat, & Tears". This was also broken again with the release of their second music video for "Not Today" which reached 10 million views.
On April 10, BTS was the first K-Pop group to be nominated for a Billboard Music Award (BBMAs).
On May 21, the group won "Top Social Artist" at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards beating such noteworthy artists as Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and Shawn Mendes. In their awards acceptance speech, the group said: "We still cannot believe we’re standing here on this stage at the Billboard Music Awards… Most importantly, this award belongs to the every people all around the world that shine the love and light on us by the million and make BTS proud."
Discography
Korean
Studio albums
- Dark & Wild (2014)
- Wings (2016)
- You Never Walk Alone (repackage) (2017)
Mini albums
- O!RUL8,2? (2013)
- Skool Luv Affair (2014)
- Skool Luv Affair Special Addition (repackage) (2014)
- The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Pt. 1 (2015)
- The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Pt. 2 (2015)
Special albums
Single albums
- 2 Cool 4 Skool (2013)
Japanese
Studio albums
Compilation albums
- 2 Cool 4 Skool / O!RUL8,2? (2014)
Singles
- "No More Dream" (2014)
- "Boy in LUV" (2014)
- "Danger" (2014)
- "For You" (2015)
- "I Need U" (2015)
- "Run" (2015)
- "Blood Sweat & Tears" (2017)
Trivia
- Their fan club name is called A.R.M.Y which stands for "Adorable Representative M.C for Youth".
- The literal translation of their name is "bulletproof boy scouts".
Gallery
- Main article: BTS/Gallery
Official links
- Korean
- Japanese
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||