BTS TO THE BIGGEST BOY BAND
BTS won major awards at the Golden Disc and Seoul Music Awards in January 2018.
In March, the group premiered an eight-episode documentary titled Burn the Stage that offered a behind-the-scenes look at their 2017 Wings Tour, exclusively on YouTube Premium. Their third Japanese studio album, Face Yourself, was released on April 4, 2018, and quickly reached the top 5 of the U.S. iTunes Albums chart.
A nine-minute short film, titled Euphoria: Theme of "Love Yourself: Wonder" and featuring the song "Euphoria."
Followed the next day as a prelude to the group's third Korean-language studio album, Love Yourself: Tear was released.
They promoted Tear's May 18, 2018 release with an appearance at the 25th Billboard Music Awards two days later, where they made their initial BBMA performance with their single, "Fake Love". They also won Top Social Artist for a second consecutive time.
Love Yourself: Tear debuted at number one in its first week on the Billboard 200, becoming BTS' first number-one album in the US and the first K-pop album to top the US albums chart. It also became their first top-10 release in Britain, reaching number eight on the UK Albums Chart. "Fake Love" became BTS' top-10 single on the Hot 100, the first time a song sung mostly in a language other than English had debuted in the top 10.
Consecutively they released their compilation album Love Yourself: Answer in August 2018. The album was supported by the single "Idol" and its alternative digital release featuring Nicki Minaj.
Love Yourself: Answer sold over 1.9 million copies on the Gaon Album Chart in August 2018.
In November 2018, Love Yourself: Answer became the first Korean language album to be certified Gold by the RIAA. "Idol" and Love Yourself: Answer both received Platinum certification in the US, with sales of more than 1 million.
In conjunction with Love Yourself: Answer's release in August 2018, they commenced their world tour, BTS World Tour: Love Yourself, with two concerts at the Seoul Olympic Stadium, which sold out in a matter of seconds, as did others of the 22 shows in 12 countries. In October, BTS released their collaboration with Steve Aoki "Waste It on Me", their first all-English language feature.
That October, BTS renewed their contract with Big Hit Entertainment through 2026.
Finally, everything they went through together, started paying off in a huge success. But they didn't want to be like others, who forget where their roots originally belong after getting success. They remain the same crazy Korean boy band with lots of dreams in their eyes.
In February 2019, BTS, for the first time, were presenters at the Grammy Awards. It was a moment of pride for them.
Their EP, Map of the Soul: Persona, was released on April 12 with the single "Boy with Luv", featuring American singer Halsey.
The EP's release was followed by a performance on Saturday Night Live, the first K-pop act to appear there. 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 album to top the Billboard 200 in less than a year.
Map of the Soul: Persona became the best-selling album ever in South Korea in terms of physical copies sold, with more than 3.2 million sales in less than a month. "Boy with Luv" debuted at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 2019, the highest placement ever for a K-pop song.
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. And due to the demand, they had to add more shows after tickets for the first two dates sold out within two hours.
Love Yourself: Her and Love Yourself: Tear both crossed 2 million copies in August. All three albums of the Love Yourself series have sold more than 2 million copies each in South Korea.
Love Yourself: Tear gained silver certification from the BPI for sales in the UK, becoming their third album to do so following Love Yourself: Answer and Map of the Soul: Persona.
For the final stop on their record-breaking Love Yourself: Speak Yourself World Tour, the group played at Seoul's Olympic Stadium. BTS was the third top-grossing touring musical act of 2019.
That same month, they released a remix version of the song "Make It Right" featuring Lauv.
In December, they attended both the 2019 Melon Music Awards and the 2019 Mnet Asian Music Awards.
However, in each case, they became the first group to sweep the four major awards.
At the 34th Golden Disc Awards, they became the first artist 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 US by Nielsen Music behind Taylor Swift's Lover and was ranked sixth overall on the chart of Top 10 Albums (In Total Sales) in the US.
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.
In January 2020, they released "Black Swan" along with a choreography art film performed by MN Dance Company of Slovenia as the first single from their album, Map of the Soul: 7. Album distributor Dreamus reported that stock pre-orders of the album reached a record-breaking 4.02 million.
Later that month, they performed at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, making BTS the first Korean act to perform at the Grammys.
But that is when the whole world began to suffer from the pandemic named Covid-19.
Now, as they reach success, they are known as one of the most successful and biggest boy bands with the strongest fandom so far.
But as fate had brought them so far, they were about to experience something that awaits for a long time, that they were still not aware of. Soon as the pandemic took over, the crystals that remained with them began to shine without their notice. They were about to face the fate, that awaits them.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
The crossover is about to begin, but yes, I want to give you one final chapter before it happens.
See you in the next update. Love y'all. Don't forget to vote, please.