On July 15th, BTS j-hope released his official MV for his solo title song “Arson”, a part of his debut solo album “Jack In The Box”. With j-hope’s album release, BTS is also starting their 2nd chapter, where individual schedules become the group’s main focus.
According to j-hope, “Arson” is the song that fully embodies the spirit of “Jack In The Box”, where the male idol conveys his aspirations, passions, and sufferings from within. With a unique melody that takes on hip hop elements and meaningful lyrics, “Arson” really raises the goosebumps of its listeners. However, praises aside, there are still opinions that j-hope’s music is “too artistic” for the general public.
With such a huge fanbase, it comes as no surprise to see j-hope still taking international music charts by storm. In fact, he’s the top solo artist in the international field at the moment, with outstanding achievements.
Poor performance on Korean music charts
On Korean music charts, “Arson” debuted at #5 on Bugs, #71 on MelOn Top 100, and #102 on Genie. Now, the song has completely disappeared from Top 30 iChart – the compilation for digital charts within Korea. It has also left the Top 50 of popular Korean music streaming platforms.
According to j-hope fans, the reason why “Arson” shows poor digital performance is because it was not clicking with the Korean public. Meanwhile, fans of BTS mostly focus on international charts like Billboard and iTunes.
Reigning on international music charts
Korea aside, “Arson” and “Jack In The Box” are both doing extremely well on international grounds.
In particular, the MV for “Arson” has surpassed 10 million views within the first 21 hours of release, and 10.4 million views within the first day – which is a huge achievement for a solo artist. The MV managed to reach #1 on the top trending YouTube music category, reach the top trending in 74 countries, reach #1 on the global YouTube trending list, and reached the top trending in 68 countries in the general category.
Meanwhile, on music streaming platform Spotify – which is often said to be BTS’ playground, “Jack In The Box” achieved 17,918,280 streams on Global Spotify – setting a new record for a Korean soloist. Soon after, the album continues to become the fastest of a Kpop solo artist to surpass 50 million streams on this global platform.
Moreover, j-hope’s new album also helps him become the Asian artist with the highest ranking on the Top 10 Global Artist Digital Ranking at 3rd place. He also managed to become the first Kpop artist to enter the Top 3 top-selling artists digitally on a world-wide basis.
In the US – an extremely difficult market for Asian artists, the title “Arson” and “Jack In The Box” still achieved “all-kills” on Amazon Music’s Digital Song and Digital Album charts, proving the idol’s massive influence.
Source: K14
