BTS’ “Boy with Luv” is on fire!
The track, which features Halsey, comes from their newest album, Map the Soul: Persona and was released April 12, 2019. As of this writing, “Boy with Luv” currently has over 135 million views on YouTube and is still trending on YouTube’s trend list (as of April 15, 2019, it is ranked 45).
As it continues to rack up YouTube views, “Boy with Luv” and Map the Soul: Persona have been breaking records across several music charts.
Map the Soul: Persona became BTS’ third album to rank number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Previously, Love Yourself: Tear and Love Yourself: Answer held Billboard top honors. The Billboard 200 chart counts traditional album sales, track-equivalent albums, and streaming-equivalent albums. Ten downloaded songs or 1500 song streams equal one album purchase.
Over on Spotify, “Boy with Luv” came at number three on their Global Top 200 Chart. Their third-place-ranking tops their previous fourth place ranking when they debuted on the track. With their previous fourth and now their newly crowd third place rank, BTS holds the record as the highest charting Korean group on Spotify. Additionally, each song from Map the Soul: Persona stayed on Spotify’s Global Top 200 Chart’s top 50 for two consecutive days, making them the first Korean group to hold that honor. When the chart numbers were released April 13, “Mikrokosmos,” “Make It Right,” “Home,” “Dionysus,” “Jamais Vu,” and “Intro: Persona” ranked 22, 26, 28, 36, and 50, respectively.
Meanwhile, on Korea’s iChart, BTS are the first group in 2019 to land a Perfect All-Kill (PAK) with “Boy with Luv.” This is BTS’ second PAK since 2018’s “Fake Love.” According to Soompi, “a perfect all-kill (PAK) is when the song is in first place on the major real-time and daily charts (Melon, Genie, Bugs, Mnet, Naver, and Soribada), as well as first place on Flo’s real-time charts and on Instiz’s iChart’s real-time and weekly charts.”
On YouTube, “Boy with Luv” smashed the record for most views in a 24-hour period. The previous record, held by BLACKPINK’s “Kill This Love,” was 56.7 million viewers. In a tweet, YouTube confirmed the record was broken on April 13, but they didn’t have an official count. On April 15, YouTube announced the BTS broke the record by scoring 74.6 million unique views in the MV’s first 24 hours!
Yes, we’re still running the numbers, but we can confirm that #BoyWithLuv (ft. @Halsey) is now *officially* the most-viewed 24 hour debut in @YouTube history!! Congratulations @bts_bighit � Enjoy @nbcsnl tonight! pic.twitter.com/xC8vHs27Nu
— YouTube Music (@youtubemusic) April 14, 2019
“Boy with Luv” also became the fastest video by a Korean artist to surpass 100 million views. Previously, BLACKPINK’s “Kill This Love” held the record by reaching 100 million views in two days, 14 hours, and 15 minutes. “Boy with Luv” broke the record in one day, 13 hours, and 38 minutes.
Additionally, “DNA,” one of the tracks that was considered a global hit, became the first MV by a male Korean group to reach 700 million views. The track, which was released September 17, 2017, reached 700 million views in one year, six months, 27 days, and a little over nine hours. BTS joins fellow Korean artists BLACKPINK (“Ddu-du Ddu-Du”) and PSY (“Gangnam Style,” which is also the most viewed K-Pop MV of all time with, now, over 3.3 billion views) in the 700 million view club.
Finally, BTS will also appear at the Billboard Music Awards May 1. They are nominated for Top Group/Duo and Top Social Artist. Congratulations to BTS on their accomplishments, and good luck at the Billboard Music Awards!
—-Olivia Murray
