The K-pop superstars make history as the first Asian act to receive IFPI's 2020 Global Recording Artist of the Year Award which counts down the best-selling artists of the year globally
All hail BTS. The K-pop group has once again made history by winning the Global Recording Artist of the Year Award 2020 by IFPI, the organisation that represents the global recorded music industry. They broke yet another barrier as the first South Korean, first Asian and first act whose songs are predominantly not in English to win the award.
The award is calculated according to an artist or a group's worldwide performance across digital and physical music formats during the year, from streams to vinyl and covers their entire body of work, making the K-pop septet—RM, Jin, Suga, J-hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook—the best-selling artists of 2020.
The Grammy-nominated group is the only Asian group in the top 10 which included Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd and Billie Eilish. The win marks the group's continued success, after finishing second in 2018 and seventh in 2019. Before bagging the award, all recipients have been from North America and the United Kingdom.
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2020 proved to be a monster year for the group as they continued to go beyond what any Asian group has achieved and cement K-pop to the global market. The group earned their first Grammy nomination, the first ever from a South Korean act; their first all-English song Dynamite broke records including the most viewed music video in 24 hours on YouTube and took the number one spot at the Billboard Hot100, again the first South Korean act to do so.
Their album, Map of the Soul: 7 was a massive chart-topper, setting a Guinness World Record for the best-selling album in South Korea and dominating all of the top five music markets in the world and once again being the first Asian act to do so. They ended 2020 with the release of their deeply-personal album BE, amidst the pandemic. With the album, BTS became the fastest group to earn five chart-topping albums in the US since the Beatles.
"BTS are a global phenomenon. They have had another outstanding year, releasing three albums, and continually finding creative and engaging ways to share their story with the world. They truly show the power that music has to bring joy and happiness to people the world over. We would like to congratulate RM, Jin, Suga, J-hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook and we are excited to see what they have in store next," says Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI.
BTS sings primarily in their native Korean but their message of self-love is universal and shows that music transcends even language barriers as seen from the massive support from ARMY (the name for their fans) who come from all ages and backgrounds. With this continued dedication to their craft, the group also became the youngest recipients of the Order of Cultural Merit from the President of South Korea for their contributions in spreading Korean culture and language.
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