BTS’ recent album ARIRANG, which was released on March 20, came amid great expectations. This is because ARIRANG was the first time BTS had collaborated after a three-year hiatus, following their mandatory military service.
The album has been living up to all the hype surrounding it, with ARIRANG topping the Billboard 200 chart, setting a record for the most-streamed K-pop album on Spotify, and supported by an extensive 85-day world tour. Despite being one month since its release, ARIRANG continues to reign supreme, marking the first K-pop album to stay in the Billboard 200’s Top 10 for five consecutive weeks.
BTS' ARIRANG Makes History Again
This team of RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook maintains their impressive presence on the charts. In an article from Billboard dated April 26, it is noted that the song, ARIRANG, is ranked No. 4 on its fifth week on the Billboard 200, an American music record showing popularity for the most liked albums. With this feat, the album will be the first song by a Korean artist to achieve five consecutive weeks in the Top 10 chart.
In its first debut, ARIRANG ranked No. 1 for three consecutive weeks, being the first Korean song to have been able to rank first for more than one week. According to the data by Luminate, ARIRANG generated 62,000 equivalent album units in the week of April 23.
Records Broken By ARIRANG
The album has broken multiple records. It scored the highest number of first-week sales by any band since 2014, becoming number one on the Billboard 200 chart. It is reported that the record had the highest number of sales in its first day on the Hanteo Chart with over 3.98 million. In terms of streaming, the album was the most streamed of the year on Spotify after breaking the milestone of 1 million within 10 minutes.
As for the musical style of the record, it is a combination of pop, hip-hop, and electronic music styles; it includes cooperation with famous producers such as Diplo, Ryan Tedder, and Kevin Parker. Moreover, ARIRANG is notable because it is BTS’ first record since the discharge from the army.
The Meaning Behind ARIRANG
The title of the album is loaded with historical and cultural meaning. In 1896, amid political turmoil in Korea, seven Korean students went to America to attend Howard University. As immigrants in an English-speaking country who also had to deal with economic difficulties, the students presented their culture to Americans through singing traditional Korean songs, including “Arirang,” at a student gathering.
The performance was then captured on wax cylinders by Alice Cunningham Fletcher, a prominent American ethnologist, under the name “Love Song: Ar-ra-rang.” Thus, this piece of music became the earliest Korean music ever recorded. Frequently hailed as Korea’s unofficial national anthem, “Arirang” deals with issues of love, longing, separation, and endurance. Therefore, the choice of such a song for an album title represents a way to connect the artists’ journey across the globe to their heritage.