BTS’s ‘Life Goes On’ Did the Impossible
Maybe it’s because the pandemic has warped my sense of time, but it feels like just yesterday that BTS got their first No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. The South Korean pop septet’s first all-English single, “Dynamite,” was everywhere—in commercials, at the MTV Video Music Awards, on the radio. In September, the song made them the first all–South Korean group to top the chart. Just last week, it landed BTS a Grammy nomination—the first such nod for a Korean group. (These guys break records so often that reciting their achievements can sometimes feel exhausting.)
[Read: BTS’s ‘Dynamite’ could upend the music industry]
When I wrote in September that BTS would one day get a No. 1 hit with a song in their native Korean, I didn’t think it’d happen less than three months later. Today, the band in the world—and there’s a good chance you haven’t heard it.
