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Paving the way: K-Pop stars BTS make history again with US chart first

BTS have become the first Korean act to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The South Korean boy band – comprised of RM, SUGA, Jin, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook – have made history yet again with their latest single, ‘Dynamite’, as it debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on Monday (31.08.20).

‘Dynamite’ makes BTS the first Korean artists, and only the second Asian artist, to ever top the popular US chart.

The song beat Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s collaborative hit ‘WAP’ to the top spot, and comes as their highest charting single to date, after their song ‘ON’ reached number four in March.

And if topping the chart wasn’t enough, it was also revealed that BTS’ single managed to sell a whopping 265,000 downloads in the US in its first week, making it the biggest digital sales week for any artist in the past three years.

A tweet from the Billboard Charts account read: "With 265,000 downloads sold (among its overall first-week total of 300,000, which includes its vinyl and cassette physical versions), @BTS_twt’s ‘Dynamite’ debuts with the biggest digital sales week since @taylorswift13’s ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ in September 2017 (353,000). (sic)"

The latest chart success comes as ‘Dynamite’ has broken a string of records for BTS since its release earlier this month.

The song became the band’s highest charting single in the UK on Friday (28.08.20) when it debuted at number three – a whole 10 places higher than their previous best, which they bagged when ‘Boy with Luv’ reached number 13 last year.

‘Dynamite’ also smashed the record for the most viewed music video in the first 24 hours of its release, after people watched the clip 101 million times.

And the single even gave BTS the title of the biggest Spotify global debut of 2020, when it garnered 7.779 million streams in its first 24 hours, as well as breaking multiple iTunes records, becoming the fastest song to ever reach number one in 100 countries, with a time of just eight hours, and making BTS the only artist to ever have five songs achieve 100 number ones.