BTS members and US singer Halsey/Courtesy of BigHit Entertainment

Boy band cruises to reach 1 billion mark

The seven members of K-pop sensation BTS continue to gain traction with their comeback album “Map of the Soul: Persona,” which was released on April 12.

The music video of the album’s title track “Boy With Luv” racked up more than 200 million Youtube views at 1:42 p.m. on April 24.

It became the 12th music video of the seven-member boy band to amass more than 200 million YouTube views. Its previous songs that reached the milestone were “DNA,” “Fire,” “Fake Love,” “Dope,” and “Mic Drop” to name but a few.

The view count of the four-minute, 12-second video clip topped 100 million in less than 38 hours after its release to break the record of the world’s largest video-sharing site.

Of note is whether the music video will be able to dethrone “Hello” of singer Adele to become the fastest one to reach 1 billion YouTube views. The latter achieved the feat in 87.4 days in 2015.

Because it took four days for Adele’s “Hello” to cross the 100 million view mark, watchers expect that BTS will renew the three-year-old record. That means that the billionth view should come in early July at the latest.

Dominating Billboard chart

The fourth studio album of BTS captured its third No. 1 position on the Billboard 200 chart last week.

In particular, Billboard praised the music video of “Boy With Luv,” which features U.S. singer-songwriter Halsey.

“On the surface, this is a frothy pop song with top 40 appeal. But in typical Bangtan style, they’ve left a bountiful trail of breadcrumbs for the fan theorists,” it said.

“The song features plenty of callbacks to their past work, especially their 2014 single, ‘Boy in Luv.’ In the BTS universe, even formulaic pop can have a deeper meaning."

 

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