[0:00]These are only some of Arirang's records and my live reactions during the first four weeks. So you have probably seen BTS is receiving a strong reviews from multiple critics. So Rolling Stone UK, View of the Art, Rolling Stone, Consequence, All Music, Clash, The Guardian, Telegraph, Associated Press, New York Times. I believe strong reviews like this, I think Yoongi got for D-Day, right?Plus from Person, for a K-pop album, I believe this is the highest. All of these are stellar reviews except for one, which is by Pitchfork. Now, let me tell you something about Pitchfork. Not just this author, but Pitchfork overall, they are rage baiters. Just so you have an idea, the album by Peppa Pig. I'm not joking. The album by Peppa Pig has a higher score than Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, and that Michael Jackson is no surprise at all. They are rage baiters, they know what they're doing, and yes, it is very unprofessional from them to have this particular credit who hates BTS very publicly on Twitter. He responded to an Army saying like, if I was honest, I would give like even a lower score. Pitchfork loves the attention even if it's negative. So who cares about their low review, especially when you see all of these amazing reviews. This is the highest a BTS album has received in terms of critic score. And even with the Pitchfork review, the Metascore is still very high.
[1:36]Arirang debuts at number one on Spotify. Actually, in every single chart, in every single Spotify chart. So this is the top album's debut global. Arirang is at number one. Of course, when it comes to songs, look at the top 10. Number one, Swim, two, Body to Body, number three, Hooligan, number four, FYA, number five, Aliens, six, Normal, 7, 2.0, eight, Like Animals, nine, Merry Go Round, and 10, They Don't Know About Us. This is for just the US. Top Albums Debut USA. Number one, Arirang. And for Top Songs Debut USA, we have Swim, Body to Body, Hooligan, FYA, Aliens, 2.0, Normal, Merry Go Round, Like Animals, and They Don't Know About Us. Before Arirang and after Arirang, Swim is at number one with 14.6. Number 29 out streaming the rest of the industry. Number 29 is right here. 6 million, more than 6 million. It's even higher than all of these songs. That's, that's absolutely crazy. And here we have our filtering rate. So this is something important to pay attention to. When we stream on all of these platforms, we have filtered streams and unfiltered streams. And for some reason, BTS always has like the highest filtering ever. So we stream a lot and in the end, only some of those streams count. In the case of Arirang, our filtering rate is nothing. It's only 9%. And for the album as well, overall, Arirang has a very low filtering rate. This is the comparison with other albums. Overall, Arirang had a 35% drop for the second day. And you can see these are other big albums, and they had around the same or more of their songs streams drop the second day. Our drop is not that big. We're actually doing amazing on Apple Music. BTS Arirang has now reached number one in 117 countries on Apple Music. It's the first album by a group and Asian act in history to achieve this.
[3:37]So this is a confirmation by Netflix. 18.4 million global viewers showed up for their BANGTAN when BTS reunited Live On Stage for the first time in almost four years in BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG. And just a little comparison. Who did this? The Oscars had 17.9 million in viewership. The Grammys on the floor as always, 14.4 million, Golden Globes 8.6, Emmys 7.4, VMAs is like underground 5.5. So BTS had more. BTS comeback concert live on Netflix boosted app installations by 347% in South Korea. This is just the numbers for South Korea. BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG is charting at number one on Netflix Top 10 TV Shows Today in over 76 countries worldwide! Look at all of these countries, BTS's show was at number one on the TV show section, including the US, the UK.
[4:41]Arirang debuts with 4.2 million copies in its first week on Circle Album Chart. This is crazy. As expected, BTS continues to be the biggest act in the world for a sixth consecutive day. In every single platform, BTS is number one. This is for Spotify. Daily Top Songs Global, Swim is at number one for six consecutive days. Body to Body is at number two for six consecutive days as well. Daily Top Artist Global, number one is also BTS. Just so you have an idea how well we're doing with Swim compared to Butter and Dynamite. By the fifth day of release, Butter did, for example, 7 million, but Swim is doing 11 million. And this is very important because we're not just streaming Swim, we're streaming an entire album. Compared to the releases of Butter and Dynamite, we were focusing just on these songs. We had the chance of streaming those songs more. But this time is different. We're streaming 14 songs. Even though we're still streaming 14 songs, Swim is doing better. The comeback of the decade, following BTS's Arirang, the streams say it all. This is the BTS effect. This is by Spotify News, by the way. In the weekend following the release of Arirang, BTS's first-time listeners spiked by over 690% on Spotify. On March 20, BTS reached number one on Spotify's Daily Top Artists Charts across 70 different markets. Biggest first week album debuts by K-Pop acts on Spotify of all time. Of course the list is just BTS and BTS members. Number one is Arirang with 545 million. Proof found on the floor. This is the end of Proof's career, like that's it for them. And also in terms of K-Pop, because why not? I thought that it would be funny sharing this. Biggest First Week Albums Debuts by K-Pop acts on Spotify counter in 2026. Not even close. I saw someone adding all of these and it's still not enough to surpass Arirang. K-Pop is not the competition. The competition are these artists. Biggest first week album debuts in Spotify history.
[6:48]BTS has never been on the top 10 of this list. These are extreme high numbers. And this is BTS's first entry on this historic list of the top 10. Even the biggest artists that you can imagine are not here. And BTS is at number eight.
[7:01]I need to point out the differences as well, because most of these artists are based in the US, so it is very easy for them to have partnership deals with Spotify. I think all of them. Even Bad Bunny, he's from Puerto Rico, but that's part of the US. That's part of the US and those counts towards US Billboard Chart. They all sing in English or Spanish. English, we know, dominates the music charts around the world and Spanish has so many countries in Latin America. BTS singing Korean, I think it's even such an accomplishment. Yes, like way harder for them. Now, this is for the UK charts. Entry at number one this week on the albums. BTS has the number one album in the UK. That is pretty much expected, but the singles chart in the UK is so hard. But this is their highest debut. BTS earns the highest debut by a K-Pop act in UK Official Singles chart history with Swim at number two. Number 28, Body to Body, number 39, FYA. The full album is doing so well that Body to Body and FYA are charting as well. It's not that big of a deal. I just love seeing these moments of BTS winning week after week. BTS doesn't necessarily attend these Korean music shows, these K-Pop music shows. But they still win, and so far, BTS has won three times already without attending.
[8:23]First place on Show Champion. This is for Swim, of course. Second win for M Countdown. I'm pretty sure they're very close. Oh my goodness, Swim again. And let's see the third win for Music Band. I wonder who it would be. Amazing. And BTS wins again. Arirang and Swim top all charts. Let's start with the US. Swim is number one. The points gap between number one and number two is actually pretty good. So that's why headlines were Swim tops the charts comfortably. Now, when it comes to the Hot 100, once again, this is the US single charts. Look at all of these songs charting on the Hot 100. Number 25, Body to Body, number 35, Hooligan, number 36, FYA, number 41, Normal, number 47, Aliens, number 50, 2.0, number 52, Merry Go Round, number 53, Like Animals, number 56, They Don't Know About Us, 61, One More Night, 63, Please, and 68, Into the Sun. Number one is Swim. Plus the 12 that we have right here, those are the 13 eligible songs charting on the Hot 100. Number 29 was robbed, but you can see here, Number 29 was not eligible for this week's Hot 100. It earned enough unit sales to chart but does not, presumably due to its lack of lyrics and/or short run time. Previously, a song as short as 34 seconds charted. So this is presumably, even though other songs with no lyrics and with a short run time have charted on the Hot 100. Other people are assuming that it may be because there's no songwriters, and the other ones, even though they were short and had no lyrics, they still had, I don't know, producers or something like, I just feel like Billboard should, they should just explain the reason, because we're just assuming that these are the reasons why. Previously, a song as short as 34 seconds charted. Shorter songs and songs with no lyrics have charted, so what are we doing here? This is how it used to look. BTS Billboard Hot 100 charts profile. It used to say six number one hits and 27 songs on the Hot 100. Now, seven number one hits. It's just so poetic that Swim, their comeback song, is the seventh number one hit that they have. Seven number one hits and 40 songs on the Hot 100. These are the Hot 100, all entries by K-Pop acts in history. All other K-Pop, they have a total of 55. We're talking every single K-Pop artist out there, even if they were number 100, they are included here. BTS has 77, including the members, entries. All of these number ones, Permission to Dance, Butter, Dynamite, My Universe, Savage Love Remix, Seven, and Like Crazy were also number one by Jungkook and Jimin, but so many other entries. This is hilarious, I'm sorry. And this is the the other K-Pop acts entries. By the way, none of these were number one ever. Only BTS has seven number ones. Only BTS has number ones at all. Here we have the Billboard 200, the number one albums in the US. 545,000 just in the US. K-Pop artists have topped the charts, have entered these lists on the top 10, but very few artists, not just K-Pop in general, very few artists have actually topped the charts both the Billboard 200 and the Hot 100. So that means that they have a number one song and a number one album at the same time. This is very difficult not just for K-Pop, but like in general. When it comes to the artist chart, I'm pretty sure they combined the numbers from the Hot 100, the Billboard 200, which is for albums, and the top social media, they don't have that chart anymore because it was just ridiculous. BTS was number one on that social media list. BTS were number one for years. They never stopped being number one. So they just cancelled that chart. But now they have this one Artist 100. BTS number one. They've been number one on this list for 22 weeks. This is, of course, a re-entry at number one. This is the Global 200. It's like the Hot 100, but global. BTS occupies the entire top nine. Number one, Swim, number two, Body to Body, number three, Hooligan, FYA, Normal, Aliens, Like Animals, 2.0, Merry Go Round. This is another one, the Global Excluding the United States. When you exclude the United States, BTS occupies the entire top 10. Actually, I believe they occupy the top 13. But the chart only has 10, this picture only has 10 places, so we can see the top 10. BTS becomes the first act to occupy the entire top 10 spots of the Global Excluding US chart simultaneously this week. This is the Brazil chart. Swim becomes the first international song to debut at number one on the Billboard Brazil Hot 100 after the chart's reform. BTS also becomes the first international act to simultaneously chart five songs on the chart top 10. All Arirang songs debut on the chart top 30, becoming the first international album to achieve this, being five in the top 10, 13 in the top 15, and 16 in the top 20. Historic. This is for the Billboard Mexico Charts. BTS becomes the first ever non-Spanish speaking artist to reach number one on the Billboard Mexico Songs chart. They also become the first non-Spanish speaking international act to achieve the most simultaneous entries in the chart's history. This is the Billboard all kills. This is something that armies created. Because before, this all kill concept was for Korean charts. But BTS has all kills, not just in Korea charts, but on Billboard Charts. BTS is number one on all of the following charts this week. Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200, Billboard Artist 100, Billboard Global 200, Billboard Global Exclusive US, Digital Song Sales, World Digital Song Sales, Top Album Sales, Vinyl Albums. This is the Australian charts, the Aria charts. Number one, Arirang in the top 10 albums. The Aria charts are extremely difficult. Still, Swim is number four. Historic as well. BTS Arirang has been certified gold in France. Let's go to the Korean charts. Oh my goodness, who could it be? Of course, it's Swim by BTS, 7,000 points. So now they have Show Champion, M Countdown, Music Bank, and Inkigayo. Just a reminder how well we're doing on Spotify. This is the top 50 global. Number one, Swim, number three, Body to Body, five, Hooligan, nine, Normal, 11, FYA, 14, 2.0, 15, Like Animals, 18, Aliens, 19, They Don't Know About Us, 23, Merry Go Round, 26, One More Night, and 26, Please. This is the weekly top music videos global. Swim is number one on YouTube. And this is the Global All Kill. Hot 100, Apple Music, Spotify, Melon, YouTube Music, Line Music, Hanteo Chart, Billboard 200, Oricon, number one. BTS is number one in absolutely everything. Here's another one as well. BTS debuts five songs off Arirang on the official IFPI Mena Chart, with the highest Swim at number one, a new career peak and the first for a group. Guys, we ate so bad.
[16:03]Arirang remains stable on the charts for week two. Actually, we're doing better, which is crazy. We're doing better during our week two than any other artist during their week two. So think of other big artists that they have released this year. Their week twos are not as strong as BTS's week two. Swim is being extremely stable. In all charts, in all countries. This is in Melon. Number one, Swim, two, Body to Body, Hooligan, 2.0. Basically, all the songs. And my favorite moment of the day. BTS claiming number one on today's M Countdown, scoring their second double crown for Swim. The winner is Swim. I'm so shocked. Let's look at this other one. Swim keeps going strong, earning its seventh win on today's Music Bank. And BTS wins again. And next, we have the Japan charts. Swim reaches number one on Oricon Weekly Streaming Chart with 10 million streams. For the Japan Billboard charts, Swim is number three at the Japan Hot 100, and Arirang is number one on Hot Albums Japan Billboard Chart. Swim is topping the charts of many Latin American charts, and actually, overall, if you count like all Latin America, Arirang is the most successful or like the biggest album, only after Bad Bunny albums. And of course, it makes sense if you count all of Latin American countries, it's a Latin American artist, Bad Bunny at number one, and his albums and then BTS. So pretty great achievement as well. These are the Aria charts for week two. Arirang states at number one on the top 10 albums Aria Charts from Australia for a second week. Not even just for the first one for the second week. This is the German charts. BTS made history as the first group and Asian act to debut and occupy simultaneously at number one on both the single and album chart on the Official German Charts with Swim and Arirang. This is New Zealand. Swim reached a new peak of number eight on New Zealand's Official Singles Chart in week two. And Arirang spends a second week on New Zealand Official Albums Chart at number two. Arirang debuts at number one on United World Chart with 1.9 million equivalent sales. So we know that Arirang is the number one album in the world right now. Even when other big artists have just released albums. Look at number seven. This is the remix album. The remix album is at number seven. Biggest streaming weeks for 2026 albums on Spotify. Number one, Arirang. We know this. Number two, the second week of Arirang. The second week of Arirang is bigger than the first week of other big mainstream American artists, Western artists. I'm a little bit scared now of Arirang. BTS songs on Spotify during their second week, Swim 59.3 million. Butter 53.8 million.
[18:57]And it's very important that we put this into context. When Butter and Dynamite were released, we just had to focus on one song. Now, we are focusing on an entire album. And our priority, yes, it's Swim, but it's really the entire album and these are the results. Even when an entire album, as our focus, Swim is number one is doing better during its second week than Butter and Dynamite. And not just that, Body to Body, which Body to Body is not a single. It doesn't have a music video. They're not promoting it in any kind of way. Body to Body has a bigger second week than Dynamite. This is the real definition of effortlessly. Body to Body, effortlessly. Dethroned Dynamite.
[19:37]I also found this interesting. BTS will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Arirang TV at its commemorative ceremony in Seoul. The award recognizes their significant contributions to promoting Korean culture globally through the network, as well as their role in delivering hope and inspiration to audiences worldwide since their debut. And while we're talking about this, South Korea welcomed a record 2 million visitors in March. I wonder what happened in March. This is the reality. People were talking about like this is mere campaigns, talking about how not enough people went to BTS's comeback concert. This is the reality. BTS is doing better than ever, which is expected, but at the same time, I'm surprised. I knew that BTS could do all of this, I just never thought it was going to be this big. Arirang album has surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. One billion already. It's been a couple of weeks and one billion already. Swim had its first lowest filtering rate on Spotify global since its debut day. Day 18, only 10% of filtering rate. So in in the case of the Hot 100, Swim dropped to number two. However, Swim is actually doing better during this second week than other songs, even though they were number one. Let me explain. The way the Hot 100 is taking these numbers is different. They don't count YouTube anymore. The ratios are different now. So with the new rules, we're actually doing better than expected. Actually, if you take radio out, which is the only thing that we cannot control. If we take radio out, Swim would be number one. I'm telling you guys, number two is still amazing. Because if you compare it to songs that were released alongside albums, think of Life Goes On, released alongside B. Think of My Universe that it was a collaboration with Coldplay. All of those songs were number one and then for week two, they dropped like 10 places. But now, we're at number two with Swim, with a full album of 14 songs, with basically no radio play. BTS charts 10 songs on Billboard Hot 100 for second week with Arirang, their first album to do so. Once again, first time that we're doing these great numbers, not just on week one, but also on week two. We have Body to Body on number 42, Hooligan at 64, Normal at 73, FYA at 74, 2.0 at 75, Aliens at 84, Like Animals at 90, They Don't Know About Us at 94, and Merry Go Round at 96. Other times, we would do these numbers during week one, then week two, they disappear. Not anymore. That is not happening. Now, that is for singles. When it comes to Billboard 200, which is about albums, BTS is at number one with Arirang, which is crazy, because number two was really trying like very, very hard. But at the end of the day, Arirang won against the bully. Literally. Arirang at number one, for a second week. Now, why is this so surprising? Not just because we had that competition. No other Asian act ever were number one for two weeks in a row with an album. Not even BTS. BTS for the first time have a number one album two weeks in a row. The Artist 100, BTS is at number one, once again. That is the US. When it comes to Billboard Global, of course, BTS is number one with Swim on both of these Billboard Global Charts. Two weeks at number one for the Global 200 and for the Global Excluding US. Swim, number one, Body to Body at number two. And Hooligan at number 10. For Global Excluding the United States, we have number one, Swim, number two, Body to Body, number five, 2.0 at number six, and Hooligan at number seven. So many songs still charting on the top 10. We're talking longevity. Let's see how other artists do on their 18th day as well. BTS is doing better than them on their 18th day, which means BTS is better in terms of longevity right now, which is something that I never thought I would say. Swim by BTS holds a strong at number one on the official Mena chart for a second week, with another hit, Body to Body, still in the top 20. The official top 10 counts the songs you've streamed the most during the week across Angami, Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, and YouTube. Swim continues to win K-Pop music shows. Let's watch. It's Swim. I cannot believe it. 10th win for Swim. And who can it be? Oh my goodness, it's BTS. This is the 12th win for Swim. The next one, this is Inkigayo. Oh my goodness, it's BTS. So, so close. Yeah, guys, super close. It's double the other two songs.
[30:27]It's been four legendary weeks of BTS. Not just surpassing every single album from this year. But, I'm not even joking, destroying the competition. The gap from number one, BTS, and number two, other artists, it's crazy. And more importantly, they have never been this stable. Billboard 200, BTS's Arirang is at number three during the fourth week. Number three, this is crazy. BTS has never even had a number one during the second week. Um, but BTS had in this time, a number one album for week one, for week two, and for week three. Even when big artists were releasing new albums, these first three weeks. For the Hot 100, this is for the US singles. Swim is at number 10, which is also amazing because BTS doesn't have these monster numbers for radio.
[31:18]Now, when it comes to the Global chart, Swim is number one on the Global 200. And at number one on the Global Excluding United States. Not just Swim, but Body to Body destroying Dynamite. But Swim is destroying Butter. BTS's Arirang becomes the first and only 2026 album to have nine songs surpass 100 million streams on Spotify. Achieved in just 32 days, a level far beyond the reach of other 2026 albums. Compared to other albums released this year, Arirang is number one by far. Fastest 2026 songs to surpass 100 million streams on Spotify. Number one, Swim in just eight days. Body to Body, in just 18 days. And then we have other artists, main singles. And then we have Hooligan in just 24 days. 2.0 in just 26 days. FYA in 27, Normal in 27, Like Animals in 30, Aliens like 30. They Don't Know About Us in 32. And then we have another song that is a lead single, actually, by another artist. Fastest BTS songs to reach 300 million streams on Spotify. Butter and Dynamite on the floor. My Universe on the floor. Swim reached 300 million streams on Spotify in just 32 days. Even though we have multiple songs that we were paying attention to because Arirang. Butter did the same, just with all the attention in Butter, in 39 days. That is embarrassing Butter and Dynamite. So this is BTS comparing it to BTS. These are 2026 songs. Swim did it in 32 days. And the second place did it in 88 days. Look at the gap. We're talking about Spotify history here. This is the competition. BTS with Arirang. It's on the top six as you can see, just behind Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. Look at these big artists that they have surpassed with Arirang. Drake album, the Olivia album, and the Billie album. These have been like big albums. But Arirang surpassed them. Those are Global and US charts. These are Korean K-Pop shows. Yeah, this is Swim's 14th win. And guess who won this week. This is Inkigayo. The contender is 2.0. So this is the first win for 2.0. BTS performance in Korea without promotions. Number one, Melon Top 100. Number one, Melon Daily Chart. Number one, Melon Artist Daily Chart. Four Weekly Popularity Awards. 15 Music Show wins. 49 real-time all kill. These are numbers in South Korea without music show promotions. Because they have not attended a single one of these music shows and they're just winning them all. And by the way, if you don't know, if you're newer to BTS, before it was unlimited. So a song could win for weeks and weeks and weeks. But because Dynamite broke the system. Because Dynamite was bigger than other songs week after week after week. So they had to do a three-win rule. So one song can only win three times. So I know we're making fun of our Queen Dynamite, but Queen Dynamite paved the way and you need to accept that. Yes, Swim is ruling and doing way better. But that is thanks to the success of Dynamite. We have to admit it.
