BTS dominates Hot 100
It’s no secret BTS is dynamite on the music charts — and as of Monday, the South Korean boy band has made Billboard history by landing at both No. 1 and No. 2 on the Hot 100.
With “Savage Love” beating out “Dynamite” for the top spot, BTS is the first group to achieve such a feat since the Black Eyed Peas dominated the Hot 100 with “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” for four weeks in the summer of 2009.
Jason Derulo, Jawsh 685 and BTS dropped their “Savage Love (Laxed — Siren Beat)” remix earlier this month, while the Kpop sensation’s hit single “Dynamite” arrived at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in September. The latter — which also happened to be members RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook’s first No. 1 track — previously held the top position for three nonconsecutive weeks.
“Savage Love” also marks Derulo’s second No. 1 — 11 years after 2009’s “Whatcha Say” — and Jawsh 685’s first.
According to Billboard, “‘Savage Love’ drew 16 million U.S. streams (up 32%) and sold 76,000 downloads (up 814%) in the week ending Oct. 8. It also tallied 70.6 million radio airplay audience impressions in the week ending Oct. 11.”
Other than BTS and the Black Eyed Peas, only three other groups — OutKast, the Bee Gees and the Beatles — have clinched both first and second place on the Hot 100 in the same week.
Over the summer, “Dy
namite” also made history as BTS’ first song sung entirely in English, released in an effort to “have as many people as possible hear it and get a little bit of reassurance and healing from it,” according to Suga.
Morgan Freeman gets assist on top album
Meanwhile on the Billboard album chart, the new No. 1 chart-topping rap album upped the ante with a Hollywood-style trailer narrated by no less of a pitchman than the actor Morgan Freeman.
“Savage Mode II,” the latest collaboration by 21 Savage, the London-born, Atlanta-based rapper, and the St. Louis producer Metro Boomin, was announced last month with an 80-second clip resembling a horror-movie promo. As special effects flicker through a haunted house, Freeman — whose voice-of- God
baritone is heard on films like “The Shawshank Redemption” and Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” — intones: “To be in savage mode is to go hard, not allowing anything to stop or deter you from your mission.”
The 83-year-old Freeman — who reportedly recorded his parts at home, on an iPhone — is also heard in eight of the album’s 15 tracks, threading some kitschy gravitas from one song to the next.
“Savage Mode II” opened at No. 1 on Billboard’s latest chart with the equivalent of 171,000 sales in the United States, including 200 million streams and 22,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to Nielsen Music. It is both artists’ second time reaching the top spot on the chart.
Also this week, the Kpop girl group Blackpink opened at No. 2 with “The Album,” its first full-length LP, which had the equivalent of 110,000 sales, including 40 million streams and 81,000 copies moved as a full package.