Singing apart, together: BTS beats the odds [GOLDEN 2023]

K-pop

Published: 14 Nov. 2023, 09:46 Updated: 16 Nov. 2023, 10:06

Singing apart, together: BTS beats the odds [GOLDEN 2023]

Boy band BTS performing during the 2021 The Fact Music Awards on Oct. 2, 2021 at the Paradise City Plaza in Incheon [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Nicknamed the “Korean Grammys,” the 38th Golden Disc Awards will take place on Jan. 6 in Jakarta, Indonesia, to honor the passion and talent that shone bright in the world of K-pop during the year of 2023.

Organized by the JoongAng Group, the Golden Disc Awards is considered one of the most prestigious awards in Korea with its unique format where dozens of nominees and multiple winners are chosen for three main categories — music, album and rookie of the year.

In this series, Golden 2023, the Korea JoongAng Daily’s entertainment arm Celeb Confirmed looks at K-pop’s biggest and brightest stars who are potential nominees, and their achievements this year.

Singing apart, together: When K-pop sensation BTS first announced last year that members would each embark on solo music projects, concern spread throughout the industry as to what each bandmate could bring to the market.

Would an individual BTS singer be able to achieve one-seventh of what the whole band was able to, or would they prove that the K-pop system was only successful for a group model? A year has passed since, and the answer is a hard yes — to the former.

BTS members promote its Love Myself campaign in a Unicef video released to mark the campaign's fifth anniversary [UNICEF]

In 2023, four BTS members each released their own solo music: Jimin, Suga (who did so under his alter-stage name Agust D), V and Jungkook. Not only did all four members sell over a million copies of their releases within a week, the four are now the best-selling K-pop soloists of the 21st century, based on the first-week album sales figures compiled by Korean market tracker Hanteo Chart.

Three out of the seven members have started their military duties, and the remaining four are set to follow soon, but all members have agreed to renew their contracts with HYBE for the second time, promising a BTS that will “stay together in 2025 and beyond.”

Until then, individual members will be flaunting their talents as solo artists, just as they have already shown they are capable of doing this year.

Read the full story here at Celeb Confirmed.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]