Recently, a topic about the chart performance of BTS’s Jimin’s song “Who” was published on the Korean forum “theqoo” and drew huge attention.
In the topic, it was pointed out that despite gaining over 400,000 streams on Spotify’s daily chart in Japan on July 27 & 28, 2024, “Who” did not show similar trends on other streaming platforms like Apple Music.
In fact, the song even reached No.1 on Spotify Japan, while failing to make the Top 100 on Apple Music and Amazon Music – a trend never seen before in the history of Japanese charts.
Additionally, despite gaining a massive number of streams on Spotify Global, Jimin fails to surpass 15 million monthly listeners, whereas normally the monthly listener count will hit 65-80 million with the same number of streams as Jimin’s.
The same case also applies to the performance of Jimin’s “Who” on Spotify Korea, as the song topped this chart, but failed to make it to any Korean domestic streaming platforms.
In the US, “Who” even reached No.2 on Spotify, but failed to chart on other major U.S. platforms such as Apple Music, YouTube Music, or Amazon Music.
All of these lead to suspicions of illegal activities or chart manipulation in regard to BTS’s Jimin’s song.
Below are some comments from netizens:
- Seems like HYBE is facing a tough times thansk to Suga
- The charts are indeed odd. However, we don’t know if it’s because of the fandom or because of HYBE’s manipulation
- Sigh… One member faces a scandal and the rest are being dragged
- Why is it only Spotify… I wonder if it’s because of international fans
- It seems more like Jimin has a lot of international fans who stream for him on Spotify rather than chart manipulation
Source: theqoo
