Billboard 'Top 10' Non-English Songs: Korean Song Ranks 2nd... 'BTS Power'

19 Spanish Songs in 1st Place... 8 Korean Songs
BTS 6 Songs · Psy 2 Songs

Thanks to the group BTS (Bangtan Sonyeondan), a survey revealed that Korean songs were the second most frequent among non-English songs that entered the top 10 of the US Billboard singles chart 'Hot 100'.

On the 16th (local time), the US music media Billboard posted an article titled 'All Non-English Songs That Entered the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100' on its homepage.

According to this article, since the introduction of the 'Hot 100' chart in 1958, only 35 non-English songs have entered the top 10 of this chart. Among them, Spanish songs were the most with 19 tracks, followed by Korean with 8 songs. Next were German with 3 songs, French and Italian with 2 songs each, and Japanese with 1 song.

Group 'Bangtan Sonyeondan (BTS)' [Photo by Big Hit Music]

The reason for the rise of Korean songs like this is thanks to BTS, who have established themselves as global artists representing K-pop. BTS has so far placed six songs within the top 10 of the 'Hot 100': 'FAKE LOVE', 'Boy With Luv', 'ON', 'Life Goes On', the collaboration with Britpop band Coldplay 'My Universe', and member Jimin's solo track 'Like Crazy'.

BTS's agency explained, "The 'Hot 100' chart ranks songs based on a combination of streaming, converted sales of digital and physical albums, and US local radio airplay, making it difficult for non-English songs to enter. The remarkable rise of Korean songs is largely due to BTS, the representative K-pop artist."

Notably, among the 35 non-English songs that entered the top 10, only 10 reached number one, and BTS topped the chart with three songs: 'Life Goes On', 'My Universe', and 'Like Crazy'. 'Life Goes On' also set the record as the first non-English song to debut at number one on the 'Hot 100' in its first week of release.

Among Korean songs that entered the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, aside from BTS, the other two songs were by Psy. His global hits 'Gangnam Style' and 'GENTLEMAN' made it into the top 10.

Billboard analyzed, "Of the non-English songs that reached the top 10 of the 'Hot 100', 23 appeared after Psy's 'Gangnam Style' in 2012. This phenomenon coincides with the point when the globalization of music began to stand out, marked by hits from BTS and Latin pop star Bad Bunny."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.