Stereogum writes article saying BTS is ruining the USA charts ; Forbes writes article in defense of BTS ; Twitter army’s attack stereo gum writer

[My Everything]

Spoiler

About nine months ago, the phenomenally successful South Korean boy band BTS released “Dynamite,” their first-ever English-language single. Up until the moment that they announced “Dynamite,” the members of BTS had said that they didn’t plan to record in English. This made sense. They didn’t need to record in English. At the time, BTS represented a radical decentering of the global pop system: A leviathan-level success story in which the principal figures come from outside the anglophone pop system to capture the hearts of millions of people around the world. BTS weren’t simply huge in Korea or even Asia. They were (and are) huge everywhere, and their rise mirrored the trajectories of Spanish-language urbano stars like Bad Bunny and J Balvin. In America, BTS could sell out stadiums and land top-10 singles while only sprinkling occasional English into their records. They didn’t need to pull crossover moves. Instead, they brought everyone else into their world. Then they went ahead and pulled a crossover move anyway.

“Dynamite,” written and produced by British pop-industry professionals, is a perfectly OK example of sunshine-drenched, Bruno Marsian quasi-disco. The song is fine. It won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. BTS and their handlers delivered a piece of product designed to attract as many consumers as possible into their whole thing. They succeeded. “Dynamite” came out in August of 2020, and it promptly debuted at #1on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first K-pop single ever to scale those heights. The song occupied that slot for three weeks. It got actual pop-radio airplay, something that had previously evaded BTS. It was a genuine smash. But then some funny things happened.

Since last September, BTS have notched up three more #1 hits. In October, members of the group jumped on “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat),” a TikTok-driven hit from the young New Zealand producer Jawsh 685 and the fading American dance-pop singer Jason Derulo. That song, which has a complicated history of its own, was hanging out in the lower rungs of the top 10 for a while. When BTS showed up on the remix, the song went straight to #1. A couple of months after that, BTS released the breezy midtempo ballad “Life Goes On,” and that debuted at #1, too. In the process, it became the first Korean-language single ever to top the Hot 100. (“Gangnam Style,” which peaked at #2 in the period just before Billboard used YouTube streams to figure out the charts, got robbed.)

A week and a half ago, BTS released “Butter,” a song that sounds a whole hell of a lot like “Dynamite.” It’s their second English-language single. The entire creation of “Butter” feels oddly murky; one of the seven credited songwriters, for instance, is Columbia Records chairman Ron Perry, a man with no previous songwriting experience. The song has done what it was intended to do. “Butter” now sits at #1. According to Billboard, no group has cranked out their first four #1 singles this quickly since the Jackson 5 did it in 1970. (Justin Timberlake notched his first four chart-toppers even faster in 2006 and 2007, which is weird. Timberlake only ever reached #1 once as a member of *NSYNC, and none of the hits from his massively successful 2002 solo debut Justified made it to the top.) 

Here’s the thing, though: “Butter” is not the most popular song in America right now. Billboard figures out its charts through some arcane combination of streaming, sales, and radio play. “Butter” made it to #1 almost entirely based on sales of discounted digital singles. “Butter” did get a lot of streams, but it didn’t get as much as any of the three most popular songs from Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album. At radio, the biggest song in America right now is “Leave The Door Open,” the retro-soul soul ballad from Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak’s Silk Sonic project. There, “Butter” isn’t even a factor.

So “Butter,” like the big BTS hits that preceded it, sits at #1 right now mostly because BTS have effectively mobilized their tireless fan army. BTS sold downloads of “Butter” for 69 cents. They also sold an instrumental version. That’s 69 cents, too, and its sales count towards the chart fortunes of BTS. (There are also physical editions of the single, but those won’t count on the charts until they ship.) BTS fans are extremely plugged into the whole pop-chart thing, and they’re invested in helping the group get to #1 as many times as possible. If that means buying two different versions of the same song for 69 cents a pop, plenty of them are happy to do it. If you look at the charts, then, you’re going to get a completely distorted idea of how popular BTS actually are.

Record labels have always tried to juke the chart stats. Billboard has kept changing its tabulation methods in part because labels keep trying to use shady tactics to push their songs to #1. (At times, Billboard has allegedly been complicit in those tactics; witness the sordid saga of how Andy Gibb’s “Shadow Dancing” blocked Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” from the #1 spot in 1978.) There have also been vast stretches where the Billboard charts haven’t been a useful metric in figuring out what’s actually popular. For most of the ’90s, for instance, record labels refused to sell singles, driving people to buy CD albums instead, while Billboard refused to count any songs on the charts that weren’t officially released as singles. Still, the Hot 100 is the best historic marker we have for what’s big at any specific time. In gaming the system, BTS are fucking that whole thing up.

It’s not just BTS. Thus far this year, 10 songs have made it to #1 on the Hot 100. Seven of those songs have debuted at #1. Last year, people like 6ix9ine and Travis Scott weaponized their self-aware fanbases to push unremarkable, unmemorable singles to #1, helped in part by scams like merch bundles. You could accuse Taylor Swift of something similar with the two #1 hits that she released in 2020. These days, it’s not just the artists and the record labels who are trying to game the charts. It’s the fans, too. Billboard has messed around with its rules a few times to keep things like that from happening, but the fans keep figuring out new ways to push not-that-popular songs to #1. A lot of the time, these songs plummet out of the top 10 almost immediately after getting their one week at #1. It feels like a broken system.

Now: BTS truly are a massively popular group. They’re big enough that their popularity has actually changed Korean laws. K-pop boy bands used to go on hiatus when the members of the group would have to report for compulsory military service, but thanks to a law passed in 2020, they can now delay their service until age 30. BTS keep appearing on American TV because people want to see them. “Dynamite” was a legit #1 hit — the kind of song I actually heard out in the world more than once. Maybe I’ll encounter “Butter” the same way, too, but I have my doubts. Instead, we’re dealing with a situation where everyone is working to inflate certain numbers and to affect the charts in that way. It’s almost like sports fandom, if you could actually will your team toward a championship by being louder and more obnoxious than anyone else in the arena, or by buying more jerseys than anyone else.

Look: It doesn’t ultimately matter how many times BTS get to #1 in America. The group has already proven to be hugely important to the history of pop music, and it’ll likely be years before we see how the ripple-effects of their popularity have changed the world. But it’s frustrating to see a phenomenon like this inflating the stats, obliterating any sense of accuracy in how we keep these records. I’m writing both a column and a book about #1 singles, so I have a vested professional interest in these charts not getting completely fucked up. But even as a fan, a passive observer, it’s not a fun thing to watch. Organic popularity, once the driving force behind pop music, barely feels like it exists anymore. Instead, the pop charts are turning into a battlefield for warring stan armies.

There’s no real answer for this. If Billboard changed its rules again, then fanbases would just change their approach toward pushing songs toward the charts. Stan culture has made it so that we feel like we’re winning if our favorite artists are winning; you see the same thing reflected in, say, all the people on Twitter who jump to Elon Musk’s defense whenever anyone points out that that guy has too much money. That means the fuckery on the Billboard charts is merely a symptom of a larger societal fuckery. But it’s still fuckery.

Spoiler

h

 

On Wednesday, Stereogum’s Tom Breihan published an article titled “BTS And Their Fan Army Are Rendering The Pop Charts Useless.” Breihan, who writes a weekly columnabout every song to ever hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, argues that because “Butter” soared to No. 1 based largely off the strength of 69-cent digital downloads (plus an instrumental version that was independently available for download and also counts toward its chart placement) while trailing several new Olivia Rodrigo songs on streaming services and falling short of Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” at radio, its success is somehow inorganic. He claims that “Butter” is not, in fact, the most popular song in America right now, and that “if you look at the charts, then, you’re going to get a completely distorted idea of how popular BTS actually are.”

“The Hot 100 is the best historic marker we have for what’s big at any specific time,” Breihan continues. “In gaming the system, BTS are f***ing that whole thing up.”

To his credit, Breihan—who is a terrific writer and whose columns I frequently enjoy reading—cites other artists who have charted No. 1 hits via unscrupulous measures, such as Travis Scott, 6ix9ine and Taylor Swift. He’s talking about bundles: Up until last year, Billboard counted music sold through merchandise and ticket bundles toward its song and album charts, which the aforementioned artists—along with Lady Gaga, Kenny Chesney, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, the Weeknd and many more—milked to the fullest extent. (The Weeknd’s enormous After Hours debutwas assisted by more than 80 different merchandise bundles.) Billboard stopped counting these bundles toward its charts last July while also ceasing to allow physical music bundled with digital downloads to be reported as digital sales. That means artists must actually ship physical products before they can be counted toward the charts. 

Breihan also notes, as I have in previous articles, that many of the songs that debut at No. 1 on the Hot 100 plummet several dozen spots in their next week and quickly vanish from the charts when they’re no longer being propped up by branded sweatpants, lollipops and condoms. “It feels like a broken system,” Breihan laments, and in a sense, he’s right. That’s why it’s disappointing to see him place the blame almost exclusively on BTS and give his article such an obvious rage-bait headline while making scant mention of all the other artists who have been manipulating the charts for years. (You can click here to read up on some of 2020’s more egregious chart-gaming examples, including Harry Styles’ eleventh-hour, multimedia push of “Watermelon Sugar,” Travis Scott and Kid Cudi’s hilariously excessive bundling efforts on “The Scotts,” and Drake literally paying influencers to make a viral dance challenge for the terrible “Toosie Slide” before it even came out.) 

It’s worth noting now that BTS have never relied on merch or ticket bundles to sell their music because they don’t have to. They’re one of the few artists capable of selling out stadiums all over the world while simultaneously netting No. 1 hits and shattering sales and streaming records. It wasn’t always that way. Eight years ago, the group started out with virtually no stateside presence. Their first several albums didn’t even crack the Billboard 200, and once they started to do so, the group enjoyed a years-long ascent before finally topping the chart with 2018’s Love Yourself: Tear. Music video streaming records, collaborations with major Western pop stars and the leap from arenas to stadiums followed, cementing BTS’s status as not just the biggest “K-pop” group, but one of the biggest musical artists in the world. They’re doing concert numbers on par with U2, the Rolling Stones and Metallica, while doing chart numbers comparable to Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. 

You can’t fabricate that sort of otherworldly success, nor can you rush it. BTS have been methodically growing their audience for years, and now, their enormous, global fan base has the power to shoot their songs and albums to No. 1 in America and abroad. That’s how popularity works: You get more fans, you get better chart placement. In a way, you could consider the BTS ARMY the largest grassroots organization in pop music, supporting their favorite artist 69 cents at a time. Is it unconventional and a little excessive to spectators who don’t understand the fandom? Maybe, but really, what’s the difference between downloading a single multiple times—when Billboard only counts up to four purchases per transaction, mind you—and buying an overpriced hoodie from an artist? Fans are entitled to spend their hard-earned money however they want, and it’s weird to scold them for doing so. 

BTS aren’t tarnishing the credibility of the Billboard charts; they’re spotlighting just how fundamentally broken the charts, and the metrics by which they are calculated, have been for years. Pop radio is an outdated monolith designed to uphold the status quo of algorithmic pop songs by Western artists; bonus points if those artists are white and conventionally attractive. For the first several years of their career, BTS were effectively blackballed from U.S. pop radio for simply daring to sing in their native Korean. The fact that radio stations were so quick to add their two English-language hits, “Dynamite” and “Butter,” is exciting on one hand, but also indicative of the systemic issues still plaguing the format. 

As for streaming, companies like Spotify will likely never be fully transparent about their streaming filtration methods, which knocked the official first-day streams of “Butter” to roughly 11 million, down from the 20.9 million unfiltered streams it garnered, which would have been the biggest single-day total in Spotify history. And if we’re talking about dubious sales tactics, let’s not forget that prior to the introduction of Nielsen SoundScan in 1991, Billboard tracked sales by calling record stores across the country, an honor system that was subject to outright fraud by clerks with a vendetta against certain artists or a little financial incentive from record labels. If you want to argue that the pop charts are useless, you’ve got to be willing to admit they have been for decades.

Rather than chastising fans for spending their money on music released by their favorite artist—which, you might recall, is how songs topped the charts in the olden days before streaming existed—maybe we should criticize the record labels that reportedly spend tens of thousands of dollars on strong-arming radio stations into playing their music despite such pay-for-play practices being ostensibly outlawed, according to a damning Rolling Stone exposé from last October. We should ask why non-Western artists are so often “othered” and why their fandoms feel like they need to employ alternative methods to send them up the charts. We should ask the skeptic within us and the skeptics around us why the notion of a South Korean boy band topping the charts is less credible than one of their Western contemporaries doing so, and why those Western artists don’t warrant the same scrutiny. 

Breihan’s assertion that “Butter” isn’t actually the most popular song in America right now simply does not hold water. Just because a song doesn’t fit your preconceived notions of what a hit sounds like or how it is achieved doesn’t make it less legitimate. Barring a seismic industry shift, the Hot 100 still determines the most popular songs in the country, flawed methodology and all. Somebody’s got to determine what song takes the throne every week, be it fans, record label executives or somebody else with deep pockets. This week, the fans put their money where their mouth is and sent “Butter” all the way to the top. To accuse them of ruining the pop charts in the process is to ignore decades of foul play surrounding the Billboard charts as well as BTS’s own stratospheric success, which took years to cultivate and which shows no signs of diminishing. If you’re just now taking note, that’s on you.

Edited June 5, 2021 by My Everything

[My Everything]

For whatever reason I can’t post after the second spoiler but yeah the army is now viciously attacking Tom Breihan on Twitter acc

 

[My Everything]

this interaction has me SCREAMING  

 

[displeased marshmallow]

Why are you so obsessed with BTS fans?   Much less a small number of twitter stans? lol

[Quinn the Brain]

But selling is being popular tho, and he states that BTS is selling lol.

That's why BB is trash when they consider radio. That's why I like Rolling Stones Charts take of DLs, copies and streaming and not radio. And BB200 is even more a joke now allowing YouTube videos as streams ._. 

Thank God for Forbes really good response.

[deobizone]

To be fair the Forbes defense is true. A lot of western stans who aren't here for Bts call it cheating or fraud, is really just colloquial. And there's defense that western acts do same sort of thing in doing the same thing for #1 like trollz, willows examples I've seen a lot. I think western fans realize that it's just another name on the list. And it prolly aided by 2 weeks before butter billboard audited Dua lipa sales bc she had EU fans using VPN to try to get her #1 with digital sales iirc and realistically 200k+ ppl did not buy butter digital but bb can't filter website sales that way. There's these gimmicks most artists management will do like remixes, discounting etc. 

I was thinking other days bc what I see most western stan saying is, digital is weighed too heavily. I thought + saw other opinions hhh and well, it is streaming Era, ppl don't really buy anymore, maybe a signed CD, but digital other than Fandom and supporting fave, not really. But sales has heavier weight than the other scoring things iirc so when you have Fandom who can drop the money on 100, 200k sales. It's not cheating but going along with bb broken system and it feels complicated to fix bc every artists has their strengths it's just bts Fandom power is an anomaly in West

Edited June 5, 2021 by deobizone

[Aphrodisiac]

Forbes being the real mvp once again 

[Taecoholic]

The defense article written by Forbes touched on some really good points. They don't deserve to be #1 just because a South Korean band is so popular and their fans are willing to buy what they offer to them? The author believes that BTS can sells tickets to enough people to fill a stadium, but does he think they cheating when they sell 200K digital song? What kind of logic is that? lol

[Zhan Rui Sanda]

I don't know why OP is constantly trying to demonize Armys? Or why are they trying to shame us?

Anyway.

We're not attacking.

We're expressing our own opinions on our own SNS accounts. So we aren't doing anything wrong.

But if any of you see anything wrong with those tweets or posts please feel free to report them so Twitter could handle them in proper way.

And yes, I'm one of those "Twitter Armys" (whatever that means) who object the Tom guy claiming that only Streaming platforms and Radio Stations can determine what is popular or what "general audience" (or should I say silent lambs?) should buy or listen to.

I fight for a world where Fan Unions or more precisely Consumer Unions (like labour unions in the earlier days of capitalism) can protect our rights to make our own choices and to voice it loud and proud, rejecting or ignoring all kind of marketing tools forcing on us what "subscription institutes" want, particularly privileged playlisting, payola airplay, aggressive AND irrelevant recommendations popping up after every click etc.

And I refuse to be ashamed of expressing my opinion.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Zhan Rui Sanda

[godblessdelulu]

Billboard is already ruined years ago. For instance, they still try to make debuting at no.1 a one-in-a-lifetime achievement when there are at least 6 to 7 songs debuted at no.1 a year  Because radio cannot do payola anymore due to their reduced influence and streaming and digital being the more correct reflection of popular music, of course there will always be arguments like this.

[Maphisto40]

I love how whenever some bullshit happens to BTS in the west yet again, we are always framed as attacking when the vast majority of fans are just expressing disagreement. That way, dipshits like this guy get to say whatever they want without consequence because everybody suddenly can't read reasonable arguments and only focus on more extreme responses (which will always be there no matter what is being discussed).

Rinse and repeat for everything on the internet.

Then people like the OP get to make threads like this to further their own agendas, completely ignoring all the music industry people also calling this guy out for such a weird take.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Maphisto40

[HB23]

OP is a fucking clown lmao please go get a life i promise you will start to feel better about the world

[starsocks]

tired

I'm tired

[Dasomkimfan]

IMO remixes and instrumentals should not count towards sales for the original single, also radio plays should just be abolished completely since they are so easily manipulated by companies.

[Eremit]

in the age of streaming there just isn't a good way to measure individual song success, the chart will always be wonky. Digitals can be inflated but at least you've got fans spending money - the same way they would have when they were buying CDs and singles at the store.

Streaming is how people listen to music nowadays but it's all about playlisting and features and you don't even have to think about or know what you're listening to. Plus Spotify also just got into a big mess with the way they have artists accept lower pay for their streams (when they already don't get paid much for it, compared to digitals etc) to be featured in the Discovery mode and get better placement.

in the end, I don't think Billboard should abolish digital sales bc at the end of the day the labels WANT fans to buy those to get their faves better chart positions. There is so little money now in making music itself (you need concerts and CF deals to be rich), surely they'd rather keep the few instances where they get more than peanuts.

[HB23]

2 hours ago, Dasomkimfan said:

IMO remixes and instrumentals should not count towards sales for the original single, also radio plays should just be abolished completely since they are so easily manipulated by companies.

might as well call out playlisting too. pay enough money to spotify and they'll put your song on the top of every curated playlist on their platform lmao. hell, pay for spotify ads! and every ad will count as a stream! 

oh, then why not we talk about influencer marketing too? labels pay tiktokers huge bucks to use their artists' songs

in other words, the entire industry uses these tactics to game the charts. the thing that is broken is the SYSTEM.

in fact, the most organic thing these days is grassroots voluntary-driven consumption (and no i'm not talking about taylor putting sad face emojis and begging her fans to buy her lonely vinyls) but everyone is not ready to have that conversation because their faves are white and can do no wrong

Edited June 5, 2021 by HB23

[Yeul]

Both articles have good points. It was an interesting read on a phenomenon clearly larger than BTS. 

At the end of the day, only time will tell us which songs are classics. Not everyone has a "Bohemian Rhapsody" in their discography. 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Yeul

[iKnife BurnCat]

This is the most 1st world problem I've read in awhile

[akc]

tell me you're xenophobic without telling me you're xenophobic 

[penyair]

can these charts separate the sales between the remixes, so tired of seeing it 

[NoUsername]

I can see points from both sides, while its obviously's not BTS's fault that the chart system is "broken", can we keep relying on charts to determine what is popular/a hit if it's so easily manipulated? 

[MinnieMax]

He is a fan of an idol with a sex scandal? #confused

[Ludo]

On 6/5/2021 at 7:19 PM, MinnieMax said:

He is a fan of an idol with a sex scandal? #confused

He is know to be a BIG BANG fan aparently

[MinnieMax]

16 minutes ago, Ludo said:

He is know to be a BIG BANG fan aparently

Why people who stan Seungri are given the platform on OH uhhhh. They should be banned 
edit: thank you for answering!

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by MinnieMax

[Brightsun]

On 6/5/2021 at 7:03 PM, NoUsername said:

I can see points from both sides, while its obviously's not BTS's fault that the chart system is "broken", can we keep relying on charts to determine what is popular/a hit if it's so easily manipulated? 

It was always stacked against BTS or Kpop in general because radio play counts.

So the industry can directly influence radio channels to dictate "what's popular". All the famous artist from the US aren't as organic as the industry would like us to think.

It's against such odds that BTS and other groups fight. If anything, their success is more organic than many Western artists as they don't get the radio push. Fans are spending money on them, without the groups having been pushed at us in the West.