BTS soars to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 with a Korean-lyric song

BTS ranked first on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the first time with a Korean-lyric song. Billboard announced on Monday (local time) on its website that the title song “Life Goes On” of the boy band’s new album “BE” (released on November 20) ranked first on its singles chart for December 5.

“Life Goes On” includes English lines such as “Like an echo in the forest” and “Yeah, life goes on,” but most of the lyrics are Korean. It also delivers a message of consolation to those who are affected by COVID-19 through lyrics that say “One day the world stopped/Without any signs of warning.”

It is the third time that BTS’ name soared to the top of this chart. The first time was with English single “Dynamite” in August. “Savage Love” (Laxed – Siren Beat) (BTS Remix) by Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685 in which the Korean band featured also ranked first on the chart in October. 　

The band previously ranked fourth on the Hot 100 chart with “On” early this year and eighth with “Boy with Luv” last year. It had seven songs out of eight songs in the new album on the top 100 chart this time. Various songs including “Blue & Grey” (13th), “Stay” (22nd) and “Illness” (72nd) are on the chart.

“Dynamite” also ranked third again, which puts the band on the first, third and 13th of the chart. The album “BE” also ranked first on the album’s chart on the same week, which means the band made a grand slam on the singles and the album chart.

imi@donga.com