Beyond The Scene: BTS and the Korean Invasion
June 16, 2018 9:32 PM   Subscribe

BTS (방탄소년단; Bangtan Sonyeondan), also known as the Bangtan Boys, celebrate their 5th anniversary with a notable first in the U.S.: their 6th album, Love Yourself 轉 'Tear' (YT playlist), is the first (largely) Korean language album to hit #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, which some to ask: bigger than Bieber? (CNN) Is it time for a Korean invasion? (NPR)

Before LY: Tears, BTS' latest Japanese language album, Face Yourself (YT playlist), peaked at #43 on the Billboard Top 200 albums, and was #1 on two of Japan's album charts, and that was only in April of this year. (K-pop bands release Japanese albums because it's easier for Korean singers to sing Japanese and break into that market while it's hard to do the same in English.)

BTS have broken more than 20 records to date, and has a huge and diverse group of fans, from black K-pop fans in the U.S. (YT) to bringing K-pop to South America (NYT). BTS, and K-pop bands in general, dominated Twitter in 2017 (Forbes).

In addition to being notable for K-Pop, Love Yourself: Tear is the first predominantly non-English album in twelve years to get the top spot on the Billboard album charts. The last non-English chart-topper was Il Divo's Ancora (YT) in Feb. 2006, two years after Josh Groban's debut album, Closer (YT pl), topped with 13 songs in either Italian, Spanish or French.
posted by filthy light thief (11 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
A Deeper Look at Why BTS Has Thrived in America (Jakob Dorof, Vulture)
posted by Panthalassa at 9:53 PM on June 16, 2018 [4 favorites]


Bless this post, bless this OP, bless this group
posted by Hermione Granger at 12:12 AM on June 17, 2018 [4 favorites]


My favorite 14-year-old ESL student is obsessed with BTS. We talk about them a lot because it's good for her speaking skills, so I know way more about the ins and outs of K-pop idoldom than I ever thought I would, but I actually quite like it.

An interesting side effect is that she is also extremely up-to-date on North Korea news because her favorite BTS member is going to have to leave the group next year to go into the military unless there's some sort of peace agreement that allows South Korea to do away with conscription. Our classes are mostly about K-pop and international politics.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 12:16 AM on June 17, 2018 [6 favorites]


Vox Explainer
posted by k8t at 12:52 AM on June 17, 2018 [4 favorites]




Because of BTS, last year, at least one Jewish teenager was excited to get socks for Hanukkah.

I'm going to go text this post to Kid Ruki now.
posted by Ruki at 8:26 AM on June 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


I first came across BTS late last year sometime after Blood Sweat & Tears and Not Today dropped, and that was how at age 24 I found myself into a boy band for the first time. They're not the first boy band (nor first asian boy band) I've seen but when I watched them something clicked and a week later I somehow knew all their Korean names, ages, and at what era a footage was taken at a glance (apparently a pretty common progression amongst fans).

I definitely think a part of their appeal (apart from them tapping into some aesthetic zeitgeist happening at the time) is the way they express affection for each other and how it makes them feel soft, harmless and fun. They don't think twice about cuddling, pigging backing on each other, hugging each other from behind, feeding each other food. I do have some related thoughts about heterosexuality normativity erasing other sexualities and that's why none of the affection is clamped down on or directed towards more bro-y channels, women consuming m/m interactions problematically and how SE Asian companies market towards that, and how much Anglo societies vs SE Asian societies view these guys as femme or androgynous, but I'm too tired to type it coherently right now.

her favorite BTS member is going to have to leave the group next year to go into the military
This is news to me. I wonder whether they'll have the members serve in small groups while other members keep a presence in the industry (given that their output is full of solos/duos/etc anyway), or if they'll go and serve in large groups. Mid-twenties seem the prime age to be idols, so it seems unlikely that they'll have each member serve individually as age dictates; by the time the youngest serves, the oldest will be about 30 already. Maybe by that time they'll have split up and Jin and V will be going more towards an acting career, and the others going solo.

Apart from the first few weeks of obsession, I only watch their videos now when I'm procrastinating. Their annual halloween dance practise videos are hilarious and some of my favourite things, and (the numerous) videos of them just goofing around are fun to watch. Though now that my bias has shifted towards Jungkook (currently about 21?), I don't watch their older videos anymore (where he's around 14), even though I don't feel anything thirst-wise there because compared to now he's just smol baby, and even though they're often marketed that way; see interviews where when they're taught greetings in another country, they're taught to address older females/onee-chans/jiejies/noonas. I'm glad there're uploads now of them covering their older songs so I can enjoy watching them sing the songs without feeling inappropriate (now I just have to figure out the same for 16 y.o. Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth).

Anyway, I haven't watched Fake Love yet. I'm saving it for my next procrastination binge. Might watch GoGo again though, I need some goofiness right now (Jungkook is the one in the ethiopian flag coloured hoodie)
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 9:21 AM on June 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


Been an ARMY since I Need U and sooooo excited to see them again in September. This is the best group.
posted by dual_action at 11:54 AM on June 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


I only learned about these guys because my brother, who lives in Korea, got a voice acting gig and gives the translated English dub voices of three of them when they coo over their new phones.
posted by klangklangston at 3:19 PM on June 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


klangklangston, there are fans who'd interview your brother about that voice dub. I'd be interested.

They were honestly the best thing I marathoned last year. They put out a ridiculous amount of content. Their YouTube channel releases behind-the-scenes "Bangtan Bombs" (Eng subs) and Episodes (subs). They sometimes do vlogs as well. There's a South Korean website equivalent of celebrity streaming, VLive, where a member can talk about the making of Love Yourself: Tear, talk to fans while wearing face masks, host their own variety show (Bangtan plays weird games at an amusement park! Bangtan learns to make kim chi! Bangtan learns to train dogs!). This doesn't include the paid Vlive content where they sort of have a travel show. They thankfully only have one Twitter account but each member definitely has their own flair. And did I mention they have a Soundcloud to upload covers and mixtapes? (RM, Agust D, Hope World)

(This doesn't even include Festa aka Home Party where they celebrate their anniversary by releasing pictures, songs, or videos of them eating and just talking about their year. The rap members released a diss track called Ddaeng last week for Festa and now it's showing up on the Soundcloud charts.)

With the narrative that Kpop is mostly manufactured and controlled by large companies that a bunch of likeable dudes from a small company who help write and produce their own music provides both that authenticity and underdog vibe. But it really comes down to the music and the message and for me, they've got catchy songs with lyrics that I need in my life right now. (Paradise, Sea, Lost, You Never Walk Alone). With the world especially feeling like a trash fire these, you've got BTS playing with puppies and singing songs about how life can be hard and scary but to keep trying, even if you don't have a dream. That mixture of earnestness and sincerity is really appealing right now.
posted by zix at 10:20 PM on June 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


He's currently on a vacation with my parents in Ecuador, but most of the time he's a humble English teacher in Ansan. They torqued the fuck out of his voice with post processing (in part so he can seem like three distinct people), but it was hilarious how TOP SECRET the whole process was. Send me an email and I can connect you; I don't know how much he can say about it, since they embargoed the fuck out of it before hand (I'm not sure he even knew which K-pop band he was dubbing for when he was reading the script) but I think I was viewer #6 on that YouTube video. He's done English dub for commercials on and off for a while, because he reads English children's books for a video series at the school he works at, and somebody there also works for a production company. You can definitely tell the difference in budget when he's reading those ;)

Funnily, this is the second commercial for a phone that I know he's done — when I visited him about a decade ago, we were coming out of Yongsan and inadvertently walked into where Samsung was filming a commercial on the steps. They grabbed us, gave us some swag, and did three takes of asking us questions in rapid-fire Korean which we were told to answer "YES!" and "It's the best!" or something like that. I returned to America; my brother got hassled by his coworkers when it finally aired like three months later. At least, apparently, we were edited in the more flattering style for foreigners, where the cuts made us look like we totally understood technical questions about, like, data transfer rates and network capacity in Korean but were choosing to answer in monosyllabic English because we were so excited at the technical feats of engineering prowess.
posted by klangklangston at 7:51 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


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