Korean pop music began taking its own unique form and shape by 1990s, heavily influenced by American and European pop music styles, especially hip-hop, rap, rock and jazz. K-pop has revolutionised since producing the most prominent K-pop stars and chart-topping numbers making it one of the most successful music industries in the world. What remained for this industry was to achieve global prominence, and that feat was achieved by BTS. BTS are without doubt the biggest boy band in the world today. Their popularity is not confined to one region — or even continent — as the seven-member act are global in every sense of the word. In the seven years since their debut in on June 13, 2013, BTS have achieved the prominence and recognition that artistes in the Korean entertainment industry aspire to but seldom attain.   The underdogs In 2012, Rolling Stone published a list of the 10 K-pop bands most likely to make it big in the US. The list included groups like BigBang, Girls’ Generation, and 2NE1. It didn’t include a group of teenage boys, then-recently assembled through a studio audition process, being polished and prepped for their debut. Bang Si-hyuk, who worked as an arranger and producer with JYP until 2005, formed Big Hit Entertainment and began to assemble a group of teens in 2010, after he met underground rapper RM (Rap Monster). Big Hit held auditions for the other members over two years, and the group debuted in 2013 as Bangtan Sonyeondan, which means Bulletproof Boy Scouts. This would go on to become Bangtan Boys, then BTS, but the ingredients of their success were inherent in the original name. Bang intended “bulletproof” to function as a celebration of the kids’ toughness and ability to withstand the pressures of the world. But he also wanted the band to be able to be sincere and genuine — not immaculate idols groomed amid studio culture, but real boys who shared their authentic personalities and talents with the world. BTS made their debut on June 12, 2013 — they released their first album 2 Cool 4 Skool and first single No More Dream. The group — Kim Tae-hyung (V), Jung Ho-seok (J-Hope), Kim Nam-joon (RM), Kim Seok-jin (Jin), Park Ji-min, Jeon Jungkook, and Min Yoon-gi (Suga) — presented themselves as rebellious “bad boys”, sporting gold chains, bandannas and heavy black eyeliner. They spoke about social issues, such as how overworked students were being cheated out of their dreams. The seven musicians all shared one bedroom. Their label, Big Hit, was a small company within an industry ruled by the ‘big three’ of SM, YG and JYP Entertainment. So despite the band’s meteoric rise, they made their debut as underdogs. However, there were already hints of their future crossover success as their first single hit reached No 14 on Billboard’s World Digital Songs chart two weeks after release. At the same time, they received recognition in South Korea as the best new artiste at the 2013 Melon Music Awards. International recognition BTS looked abroad early. In 2014, while still relatively low profile on home turf, BTS began chipping away at the US market. They were a breakout success at that year’s KCON, a K-pop convention in Los Angeles, where they performed in schoolboy outfits. Their music made nods to hip-hop and electronic dance music, genres that were popular in the West. BTS toured the US in 2015. The band earned their first Billboard 200 entry at No 171 with The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2 in 2015. Since then, their accomplishments have snowballed. BTS was the No 1 most tweeted about musical group in the US in 2017, according to data from Twitter, topping Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. At a 2017 BTS concert in Chile, screams from the audience reached 127 decibels, “well past the noise level at which permanent hearing loss becomes a serious concern,” according to The New York Times. The same year they become the first K-pop act to win a Billboard Music Award (Top Social Artist award) and make the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 charts (Love Yourself: Her debuted at No 7). In November 2017, they made their US television debut, performing at the American Music Awards. They landed appearances on The Ellen Show and Jimmy Kimmel. They became the first K-pop group to perform at the Billboard Music Awards in 2018 when they performed Fake Love. They racked up numerous RIAA gold certifications. And two of their albums — Love Yourself: Tear and Love Yourself: Answer — hit No 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the space of a few months. They got nominated for a 2019 Grammy in the best recording package (artwork) category for Love Yourself: Tear. In April 2019, BTS became only the third group in 50 years to have three number one albums on the Billboard 200 charts in less than 12 months, joining the ranks of The Beatles and The Monkees. The next month, BTS became the first group in Billboard history to spend five weeks at number one on the Billboard Artist 100 chart. In 2020 they landed their fourth No 1 album — Map of the Soul: 7 — on the Billboard 200 chart with the biggest week of 2020 for any release. It’s the fourth No 1 in less than two years. The Map of the Soul 2020 World Tour, slated to begin in April, was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic but the group will be throwing an online ‘un-tact’ (no-contact) concert, Bang Bang Con the Live, on June 14. Different approach Like other idol groups, BTS were manufactured. But Big Hit had to do something different to break through. Bang’s focus has always been to capture the international market. That has in part, contributed to the successes of BTS. Bang has been trying to combine the world of BTS’s K-pop and market them hard including through the approximately $11.7 billion Korean gaming industry. Over the years, several BTS-themed online games have been developed by Netmarble. Lacking industry connections and big money of industry giants, Big Hit relied on social media to promote the group. BTS were one of the first K-pop groups to be on Twitter. The band posted vlogs on YouTube and shared the minutiae of their lives on Korean livestreaming platforms AfreecaTV and V Live. The Internet is full of these kinds of BTS moments: the members cuddling as they snooze, eating meals, sitting in taxis and pulling pranks on each other. The videos build up authentic characters for the members: V is the quirky one, Jimin the flirty one, Jungkook the supernaturally talented youngest member. J-Hope is high-energy, Suga the brooding musician, Jin the handsome one, who reveals himself as a pun-loving dork. RM, the preternaturally mature group leader. BTS members have positioned themselves as someone as their fans’ equal. This has captured their young fans who are known as ARMY — an acronym for ‘Adorable Representative MC for Youth’. Beyond boy band BTS’s music began as oldschool R&B and hip-hop, but has since incorporated a myriad of genres, from EDM to South African house. The lyrics, too, have become increasingly complex, closer to prose than simple pop. Their music — often written and produced by themselves — delves into issues like mental health and the class-divide. The group also speaks about and shares concerns of young people, as demonstrated in RM’s speech on self-love and expression on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in 2018, not only through their music, but also during events in which they participate. In many respects, BTS fit mould of a classic boy band — they look and sound great — but they are also grown men who cry, embrace and expose their vulnerabilities and failings even as a culture of toxic masculinity thrives on- and offline. It strengthens their messages of strength, love, hope and acceptance beyond what boy bands have offered before. A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 13, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.