The Real Meaning of BTS’s Chart-Topping Single

When I wrote about becoming a fan of BTS last year, I spoke with the South Korean critic Kim Youngdae about the xenophobia that the band has faced in the U.S. over the course of their rise. (Earlier this year, a Howard Stern Show staffer joked about the group having the coronavirus, and fans recently circulated a clip of a radio-station host mocking BTS’s Korean lyrics on air.) “The American mainstream music industry is really hesitant to call Asian artists ‘pop stars,’” Kim told me at the time. “But the entertainment industry always has to acknowledge the hottest or biggest thing, whether they like it or not.” BTS’s giant, hyper-loyal fanbase was essential in fighting this institutional conservatism, he said. By aggressively streaming, buying, and sharing BTS’s music, these fans forced a dinosaur-like industry to pay attention.

Over the years, U.S. interviewers have asked BTS if they would ever switch to making music in English, only to get the same answer: No. For the seven members, performing in Korean is essential to their identity as a group. Though BTS is known for complex choreography, impeccable live vocals, and energetic concerts, their lyrics matter, too. The group has made genre-bending albums that critique aspects of Korean culture and society, including mental-health taboos and the rigid school system. Its rappers often write intricate wordplay into their rhymes. BTS fans around the world regularly look up lyric translations, contrary to what some American music critics believe, and many learn Korean to better appreciate the group’s work.

For some fans who have long followed BTS, the ascendancy of “Dynamite” is thus bound to be bittersweet. Whether the band intended to or not, the only English-language single they’ve released in seven years has become their biggest chart success yet, outperforming the dozens of more artistically ambitious records that they wrote or produced in Korean. “We don’t want to change our identity or our genuineness to get the No. 1,” RM, the group’s leader, told Entertainment Weekly last year. “Like if we sing suddenly in full English, and change all these other things, then that’s not BTS. We’ll do everything, we’ll try. But if we couldn’t get No. 1 or No. 5, that’s okay.”

If anyone can get a Korean song to No. 1 on the Hot 100, it’s the group that reached No. 4 with a Korean song earlier this year—that same track, “ON,” won BTS three VMAs last weekend. They don’t need to alter their DNA. “Dynamite” is likely to reach even more listeners who don’t think language barriers are a reason to ignore good music, listeners who might keep an eye out for the new album or dive into BTS’s deep Korean discography. The Talking Heads frontman David Byrne put it this way in a 1999 New York Times piece: “To restrict your listening to English-language pop is like deciding to eat the same meal for the rest of your life.” ARMY couldn’t agree more.

Lenika Cruz is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where she covers culture.