Chereads / BANGTAN SONYEONDAN (BTS) / Chapter 8 - 8: 2019: Map Of The Soul: Persona, stadium world tour and BTS World

Chapter 8 - 8: 2019: Map Of The Soul: Persona, stadium world tour and BTS World

In February 2019, BTS attended the 61st Grammy Awards as award presenters. It was their first time attending the event following an appearance by the group at the LA Grammy Museum in 2018.

In April, BTS became the first Asian act surpass 5 billion streams on Spotify, and Time named them as one of Time 100's most influential people of 2019. Their sixth EP, Map of the Soul: Persona, was released on April 12 with the lead single "Boy With Luv" (Korean: 작은 것들을 위한 시; Romanized: Jageun geotdeureul wihan si), featuring American singer Halsey.The EP's release was followed by a performance on Saturday Night Live, as the first Korean act to do so. The group's appearance was anticipated as one of the biggest in the show's history. Commercially, BTS reached new career heights. Map of the Soul: Persona became the first Korean-language album to reach the number one position in both the UK and Australia and the group's third consecutive album to top the Billboard 200 and the third within eleven months, joining the likes of the Beatles, who achieved the same in 1995–96. BTS are also the fastest group to get three number one albums since The Monkees in 1967. The EP became the best selling physical album in the US for the year of 2019, with 312,000 physical sales. Map of the Soul: Persona later became the best-selling album ever in South Korea, with more than 3.2 million sales in less than a month. Prior to BTS, the best-selling were dominated by late 1990s albums, making BTS the only act formed after 2000 to be featured in the top 10 best-selling list. "Boy With Luv" debuted at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest in history for a Korean group, and its music video became the most-viewed online video within the first 24 hours as of 2019, accumulating more than 74.6 million views. "Boy With Luv" was certified in multiple countries, including Australia where it was certified Gold for selling 35,000 units, and the US where the RIAA certified it Platinum for selling over one million units. "Boy With Luv" was also certified Silver by the BPI, for selling over 200,000 units, making it BTS' first single to attain this certification in the UK. Map of the Soul: Persona also attained Silver in the UK and Gold in France, selling over 60,000 units and 50,000 units respectively.

Following their two wins at the 26th Billboard

Music Awards in May, including for Top Duo/Group, BTS embarked on their world tour stadium extension, Love Yourself: Speak Yourself, with dates in multiple stadium venues including Wembley Stadium, Stade de France, MetLife Stadium, Rose Bowl, and

Soldier Field. With this they became the first Asian and first non-English speaking artist ever to headline and sell out Wembley Stadium. Their concerts at Rose Bowl had broken the record for highest-grossing single engagement in the venue's Boxscore history, surpassing Taylor Swift's and U2's previous dates there. All dates sold out within two hours, with second dates for all venues added due to the high demand. During the tour, BTS performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and kicked off Good Morning America's 'Summer Concert Series' as headliners at Central Park in Manhattan. They also performed on the finale episode of The Voice and one of the semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent.

In the lead up to the release of their new mobile game BTS World set for June 2019, BTS released three collaboration singles, "Dream Glow" featuring English singer Charli XCX, "A Brand New Day" with Swedish singer Zara Larsson, and "All Night" featuring American rapper Juice Wrld. The band also released the song "Heartbeat" with a music video from the game's official soundtrack, titled BTS World: Original Soundtrack. The soundtrack was later certified Double Platinum by Gaon on August 8 for surpassing 500,000 copies sold, the first soundtrack album to receive the certification since Gaon implemented it last year. Developed by South Korean company Netmarble, the game was released on June 26 to iOS and Android systems in over 175 countries. BTS released their tenth Japanese single "Lights" on July 3. Pre-orders for the double A-side single surpassed 1 million copies, breaking a 24-year-old record for foreign artists previously held only by Celine Dion with her 1995 single "To Love You More", and marked the first time a Korean artist achieved a million shipment for a single in Japan. "Lights" went on to sell over one million copies and received Million certification by the RIAJ on August 8, the first time a male act achieved this since Masafumi Akikawa's August 2007 single, "A Thousand Winds". It is BTS' first million certification in Japan since their debut.

Love Yourself: Her and Love Yourself: Tear both crossed 2 million copies in August, and

Love Yourself: Tear was awarded Double Million certification by Gaon. It is BTS' second album to do so following Love Yourself: Answer's certification in October 2018. All three albums of the Love Yourself series have sold more than 2 million copies each in South Korea. Love Yourself: Tear later attained Silver in the UK, becoming their third album to be attain this certification following Love Yourself: Answer and Map of the Soul: Persona.

In October, BTS performed at King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh, becoming the first foreign act to perform a solo concert in Saudi Arabia. For the final stop of their record-breaking Love Yourself: Speak Yourself World Tour, the band held a run of three sold-out nights at Seoul's Olympic Stadium to close this chapter of their story. According to Billboard's year-end Boxscore charts, the group grossed over $196 million and played to more than 1.6 million people across 42 shows in the chart period ranging from November 1, 2018 to October 31, 2019 and ranked third overall on the year-end Top 40 Tours chart behind Ed Sheeran and Pink. The group outgrossed legacy rock acts like the Rolling Stones, Metallica, and KISS, as well as fellow boy band the Backstreet Boys, making them the top-grossing touring group of 2019. That same month, the group released a remix version of the song "Make It Right" featuring American singer Lauv as the second single from their album Map of the Soul: Persona.

In November, BTS became the first K-pop group to win the Favorite Duo or Group – Pop/Rock at the 2019 American Music Awards and the Favourite Social Artist award consecutively in 2018 and 2019.

In December, they attended both the 2019 Melon Music Awards and 2019 Mnet Asian Music Awards. The group became the first artist in the history of K-pop to receive all grand prizes from both ceremonies; getting four from each award show. At the end of the year, BTS ranked number fifteen on Billboard's year-end Top Artist Chart and were also the number two act of the year in the Duo/Group ranking, only behind Jonas Brothers. They were named as 2019 Hitmakers Group of the Year by Variety.They were also the most tweeted-about musicians of 2019. On December 31, 2019, BTS performed in New York City's Times Square for ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. At the 34th Golden Disc Awards, BTS became the first artists in history to win grand prizes in both the physical and digital categories in a single year. Map of the Soul:.Persona was named the second best-selling physical album of 2019 in the U.S. by Nielsen Music only behind Taylor Swift's Lover and was ranked sixth overall on the chart of Top 10 Albums (Total Sales) in the U.S. BTS wrapped 2019 as the fourth most successful group on Billboard's Top Billboard 200 Artists - Duo/Group ranking, only behind Queen, Imagine Dragons and The Beatles.

With strong global sales of 2.5 million pure album units, Map of the Soul: Persona was named as the third best-selling album of 2019 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, making BTS the first Korean artist to be listed on the Global Top 10 Album Chart for two consecutive years. Map of the Soul: Persona was also the second best-selling global album by a band only behind Arashi's 5x20 All the Best!! 1999-2019. Attributing to the album's critical and commercial success worldwide, the IFPI named BTS as one of the best-selling artists of 2019 for a second consecutive year, making them the first non-English speaking act to achieve this.