The legend of “Record-Maker” BTS continues.
The fourth full-length album MAP OF THE SOUL: 7 released on February 21 is rocking the music charts around the world with its overwhelming album sales. BTS is rewriting K-POP history once again, surpassing the numerous records of their own. Let’s look at the records they’ve already surpassed since their comeback and the ones they’ll break in the future.
# No.1 on Billboard 200 for the 4th time?
MAP OF THE SOUL: 7‘s title track “ON” swept Korea’s major music sites since its release at 6 p.m. on February 21. The number of users in an hour reached 123,489 on Melon, Korea’s largest music site, recording the largest number of users since the chart was reorganized in February 2017. As of 6 p.m. on Feburary 24, 15 tracks including the title song were ranked in top 20 on Melon’s real-time charts.
Their overseas popularity is still ongoing. The album topped the iTunes album chart in 91 countries and regions worldwide, setting the highest record. Its title track “ON” also topped iTunes song chart in 83 countries.
Now, ‘Billboard 200′ and ‘Billboard Hot 100′ on the U.S. Billboard chart are left. Attentions are drawn to whether the album will continue the previous record of topping the ‘Billboard 200’ after three consecutive years and if “ON” will surpass the record of No.8 recorded with “Boy With Luv (feat. Halsey).” Things are looking good as Billboard predicted that BTS will likely become the fourth top performer on the main alum chart, Billboard 200, on February 24. If BTS tops the chart, they will be the first non-English-speaking artists to sweep the Billboard’s main chart for a fourth consecutive times.
# 2.65 million album sales in one day
BTS’s fourth full-length album MAP OF THE SOUL: 7 sold about 3 million copies in its first week of release for the first time in the history of K-POP. According to Hanteo Chart, MAP OF THE SOUL: 7 sold more than 3 million copies as of 11:20 a.m. on February 24. This is about 65 hours after the official release of the album at 6:00 p.m on February 21. The album has sold a cumulative of 1 million copies within an hour of its release, and 2.65 million copies in just one day of its release.
This record is well over 2.13 million album sales (sold in a week) of the previous album, MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA. Since the album already recorded the highest album sales of 3,399,302 sold by Korean artists in Guinness World Records last June, the question now is will they break another record.
# 75 million views in 4 days
The Kinetic Manifesto Film of the title track “On” (Kinetic Manifesto Film: Come Prima performed by BTS for Lead Single) surpassed 75 million views as of 6 p.m. on February 24, the third day of its release. This currently ranks 22nd in all of BTS’s music videos released earlier.
So far, the most viewed BTS video is a music video for “DNA,” released on September 18 in 2017, which has more than 927 million views in total. This is followed by 700 million views of “Boy With Luv,” “Fake Love” (650 million), “Fire” (640 million), “MIC Drop” (620 million) and “IDOL” (620 million). Now with BTS officially starting their promotion for “ON,” more attention is being paid to all the new records the Kinetic Manifesto Film will set.
In addition, “ONchallenge” video posted on TikTok hit 100 million views in just 60 hours.
BTS is also expected set various records with their world tour, starting in April. Previously, BTS attracted more than 2.06 million audience during their tour “LOVE YOURSELF” and “LOVE YOURSELF: SPEAK YOURSELF,” which held 62 concerts from August of 2018 to October of 2019 in 23 different regions.
