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🔥 The List of “Firsts”

Some people love to devalue BTS’s hard work by comparing their favs’ achievements’ “First X number of Years” with BTS’s “First Y Number of Years” and then claim that their favs did better than BTS in a “shorter” amount of time. They even try to discredit BTS’s hard work by claiming that BTS’s success is thanks to the previous Korean artists or groups (the “paved the way” argument). What they don’t realize is that they have a lack of knowledge of how BTS’s “organic growth” led them to become the biggest group and one of the biggest global artists of the world.

BTS is considered a “legend” and is respected by critics and the public because of what they have accomplished as the “First Korean Artist or Group” and even “First Asian / Non-English Act” with a steady growth without any company promotions (in the early days), gimmicks, shady tactics or short cuts. No one “paved the way” for BTS because they went there where no Asian Artist has ever gone before. It was after BTS that others started to follow their footpath to aim for the same global and western success that BTS has already been accomplishing for years.

So, let’s get to the main point: If you haters are so “obsessed” with comparisons, then let’s compare your favs with others in terms of overall “First Korean Artist” or “First Korean Group” accomplishments and then see who made the “real” impact. So first ask yourself, “How many overall ‘Firsts’ did your favs achieve?” before dragging BTS using “First Z number of years” or “My Favs paved the way” excuses.

Below, I added only the main “First” records (BTS Years are calculated using the Date to Date Calculator).

Sections: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

(To check all the BTS Records, click here)

Part 1 Pre-HYYH Era - ’0 Western Promotions’

Date: Before 2015

First Korean Act to be interviewed "locally" by JUNON (a monthly Japanese fashion magazine since 1973) in 2014. [Source]

Special Mentions:

If we look at all the Rookie/New Artist awards that BTS won, it is interesting to note that BTS grabbed the Main Rookie/New Artist Awards from South Korea, China and later in Japan (in 2015) which are considered the main markets for K-Pop. This showed that BTS was a monster rookie.

According to Latin media, BTS had the record for the most users in the first 24 hours in the Spotify official playlist ("This is BTS") in 2014. It was later broken after 6 years by Mexican group RBD in 2020.

BTS was the 6th best-selling artist of 2014 in Gaon in terms of total album sales.

HYYH Series Era - ’0 Western Promotions’

Date: April 29, 2015 (BTS: 1 - 3 Years Old)

First Single (For You) by a Foreign Hip-Hop Artist to go #1 in the Oricon Weekly Single Ranking since the ranking by genre was announced on April 30, 2001.

First Album (YOUTH) by a Foreign Hip-Hop Group to go #1 in the Oricon Weekly Album Ranking since the ranking by genre was announced on April 30, 2001.

First Korean Act to have their album (HYYH Pt. 2) spend more than 1 week on top of the Billboard World Albums chart, with 4 weeks at #1.

First Korean Album (HYYH Pt. 2) to spend 20 weeks in the Billboard World Albums chart.

First Korean Album to spend more than 1 week in the US Independent Albums.

First Korean Act to debut in the Canadian Albums with HYYH: Young Forever.

First Korean Group to have 2 consecutive charting albums on Billboard 200.

First Korean Act to have 3 songs debut in the Top 3 positions in the Billboard World Digital Songs.

Special Mentions:

— BTS had their first All Kill with “Fire”.

— HYYH: Young Forever got over 300,000 physical pre-orders in less than a week which was a big deal that time because the #1 best selling albums in Gaon Year-End chart (2010-2015) ranged in the 300K.

— BTS single-handedly outsold 2 of the Big 3 (YG and JYP) in the yearly total album sales in 2015. BTS was the 2nd best selling artist of 2015 in Gaon in terms of total album sales.

— The Vogue US team wanted to have a photo shoot with BTS and tried to contact them since 2015.

— 3rd Korean Act to surpass total 100M streams on Spotify.

Wings Era - ’0 Western Promotions’

Date: October 10, 2016 (BTS: 3 Years Old)

First Korean Act to get an album surpass 100M streams on Spotify.

First Korean Act to get #1 in the US iTunes Albums with Wings.

First Korean Act to debut in the Top 50 of Billboard 200 (#26 Wings) with no physical sales and no Friday release.

First Korean Act to spend more than 1 Week on the Billboard 200 with Wings.

FIrst Korean Act to go #1 simultanously in both World Albums and World Digital Song Sales (Wings and BST).

First Korean Act to enter the Top 50 of the US Top Album Sales Chart (#20).

​​Part 1

​​Pre-HYYH Era - ’0 Western Promotions’

​​HYYH Series Era - ’0 Western Promotions’

​​Wings Era - ’0 Western Promotions’

Part 1

Pre-HYYH Era - ’0 Western Promotions’

HYYH Series Era - ’0 Western Promotions’

Wings Era - ’0 Western Promotions’