K-Town
The 13 Best Things That Happened in Music This Week (July 3)
This week was full of star-studded events and awards shows, with the “Global Goal: Unite For Our Future” concert, BET Awards and Juno Awards all taking place virtually. In other awards show news, we’ve got an update on the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards — more on that later. Take a look at some of the week’s biggest music happenings below. Stars came together for the virtual “Global Goal: Unite For Our Future” concert From Jennifer Hudson’s rousing kickoff to Justin Bieber and Quavo’s stripped-down performance, the “Global Goal: Unite For Our Future” event on Saturday (June 27) was chock-full of amazing moments. Christine and the Queens, Chloe x Halle, Shakira and more also performed. In case you missed the concert, you can watch all of the must-see performance videos here! The 20...
Blackpink’s ‘How You Like That’ Collects Multiple Guinness World Records
Blackpink’s historic week has been rewarded with a swag of Guinness World Records. The south Korean girl group’s music video for “How You Like That” earned 86.3 million views on its arrival June 26, enough to set records for most viewed YouTube video in 24 hours, most viewed music video on YouTube in 24 hours, and most viewed YouTube music video in 24 hours by a K-pop group. It’s not such a great week for compatriots BTS, who were the previous record holders in those categories with the video for “Boy With Luv” featuring singer Halsey, which dropped in April 2019. “Boy With Luv” is now scrubbed from the record books. Jisoo, Jennie, Rose and Lisa aren’t done with busting records. The live premiere of ‘”How You Like That” reached 1.66 mil...
BTS & Big Hit Entertainment Donate $1 Million to Crew Nation
BTS and management company Big Hit Entertainment have donated $1 million to Crew Nation, Live Nation’s charitable effort to live show staff impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to Variety. “This is one of the largest artist donations that has been raised for the Crew Nation fund since its conception,” an announcement to the publication read. “If it weren’t for COVID-19, we would have been happily touring across the world with many of our live concert crews by now,” said the K-pop superstars in a statement. “We are aware that a lot of communities need help due to COVID-19, and we wanted to support the music industry crews by making a donation. We hope to meet again on stage very soon.” The generous notions comes just weeks after BTS and Big Hit Ente...
BTS Takes Over ‘UNO! Mobile’ for Limited In-Game Event
Collectibles, card sleeves, avatars, voice packs, icon borders and game backgrounds featuring the South Korean boy band will be available. South Korean boy band BTS is taking over UNO! Mobile, the electronic version of the classic card game. Mattel163, the publishing and development studio from toy giant Mattel and internet company NetEase, unveiled the collaboration on Tuesday. They describe the BTS appearance as a limited in-game event with themed collectibles such as card sleeves, avatars, voice packs, icon borders and game backgrounds available for players on iOs, Android and the Facebook app. Among the activities, there will be competitive and cooperative in-game challenges with the chance to unlock rewards and collect tokens to use in the BTS-themed claw machine. “We&...
Here’s When Blackpink’s Highly Anticipated Comeback Single Is Dropping
Get ready, Blinks! Blackpink is coming back to your area soon as the K-pop girl group announced its comeback single will drop June 26, according to YG Entertainment. The untitled single ends Blackpink’s one-year musical hiatus since the Kill This Love EP, which reached the No. 42 spot on the Billboard 200 in April 2019. The song also serves as the lead single for the quartet’s first-ever full studio album due in September. Sounds like everything’s going according to the release plan YG Entertainment publicized to fans last month that stated the pre-release title track will come out in June. Blinks can then expect a second new song from members Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa either in July or August. To hold fans over until then, the women delivered ...
ARMY, K-pop Fans Become an Unexpected Ally to American Protesters
As American protesters took to the streets to mourn the death of George Floyd, they found an unexpected ally: K-pop fans. Floyd died May 25 after a police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes even after he stopped moving. K-pop fans galvanized by police brutality and political disappointments swiftly mobilized, re-purposing their usual platforms and hashtags from boosting their favorite stars to backing the Black Lives Matter movement. They flooded right-wing hashtags and police apps with short video clips and memes of their K-pop stars. In a tweet Thursday to its 26 million fans, South Korean boy band BTS said it opposes racial discrimination and violence and announced a $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter. Fans quickly followed suit with the hashtag #MatchAMil...
BTS Performs ‘Boy With Luv,’ ‘Spring Day’ & ‘Mikrokosmos’ for ‘Dear Class of 2020′
K-TOWN 6/7/2020 by Ashley Iasimone BTS sent off this year’s graduates with a virtual mini concert their ARMY won’t forget for the “Dear Class of 2020” after party on YouTube. The K-pop superstars’ set list for Sunday’s (June 7) special event in honor of the graduating class featured a smooth medley of “Boy With Luv,” “Spring Day” and “Mikrokosmos.” BTS filmed their performance at National Museum of Korea, where they suited up and showed their flawless moves with “Boy With Luv.” The beautiful “Spring Day” had the group swaying on stools, while the emotional “Mikrokosmos” surely had their fans waving their arms in the air in front of their screens at home. The boy band had already chim...
BTS ARMY Matches the Band’s $1 Million Black Lives Matter Donation
K-TOWN 6/7/2020 by Ashley Iasimone BTS and Big Hit Entertainment’s $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter inspired fans to band together and match giving that amount to BLM and other organizations committed to racial equality. The loyal BTS ARMY set the #MatchAMillion goal on Saturday (June 6), and by Sunday night, they made it happen. By about 8:45 p.m. ET, donations surpassed $1 million, according to fan collective and charity project One in an ARMY‘s donation tracker. One in an ARMY compiled a card listing places to donate to, using ActBlue to allow supporters to split their funds among Black Lives Matter, Reclaim the Block, National Bail Out, Black Visions Collective, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and more organizations. “Just like BTS, we were able...
How to Watch YouTube Originals’ ‘Dear Class of 2020′ All-Star Commencement
YouTube Originals’ “Dear Class of 2020” commencement ceremony, featuring Barack and Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, BTS, Lady Gaga, Maluma and more, will officially commence Sunday, June 7 at 3:00 p.m. ET. The four-hour virtual graduation, which was pushed back a day to honor George Floyd’s memorial service, will open with Lizzo and the New York Philharmonic performing “Pomp and Circumstance” and remarks from Alicia Keys. At the end of the celebration, Katy Perry will lead the graduates in the monumental tassel turn. Check out Sunday’s full line-up of commencement speakers, performers, featured celebrity guests and YouTube creators here. Viewers can attend the virtual ceremony by watching the livestream on the YouTube Originals channel and the L...
BTS Dropped the Festa 2020 Schedule, But Did They Also Pencil in a New Single?
All right, ARMY, get ready to party with BTS in June, because the Bangtan Boys posted a jam-packed schedule for Festa 2020 Thursday (May 28)! Festa marks the boy band’s anniversary celebration, gifting fans with special “family portraits,” choreography videos, photo collections and even some new songs. This year’s festivities begin on June 1 with an opening ceremony, and runs until June 13 for “Bangtan’s Birthday Party” to commemorate the septet’s seventh anniversary of its debut. But the ARMY paid special attention to what’s slated for June 5: “Still With You.” Twitter users began replying to BTS’ social media announcement with zoomed-in screenshots of the specific calendar date, exclaiming how the waterworks hav...
Fans Pick BTS Member Suga’s ‘D-2′ Mixtape as This Week’s Favorite New Music
A new mixtape from BTS member Suga dominates this week’s new music poll. In the poll, published Friday (May 22) on Billboard, music fans voted for Suga’s most recent solo project, D-2, as their favorite new release from the past week. The mixtape, his second, brought in more than 72% of the vote. It follows 2016’s Agust D. “My previous mixtape focused more on being better at rap, better at making music, sound, mix, master and so forth. I’ve worked on a lot more projects since then and didn’t really try to become perfect,” Suga recently told Billboard. “Perfection is an elusive term. I simply just did my best.” Coming in second with 23% of the vote was Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande‘s first collaborative song “Rain On Me.” The track w...
Big Hit Entertainment Global CEO Lenzo Yoon Talks New Role, ‘Localizing’ In the U.S. & Growing Artist Roster
“Any new service that Big Hit will present all starts from our business philosophy of ‘What content will fans enjoy the most?'” A decade into his tenure at Big Hit Entertainment, Lenzo Yoon is gearing up for some big moves — both in the company and in his personal life. One of the biggest takeaways of last week’s executive changeups at Big Hit Entertainment — the South Korean label home to the record-breaking BTS, Tomorrow X Together and GFriend — came in co-CEO Lenzo Yoon’s expanding his role to Global CEO and soon leading from the United States. The move not only pointed to a more global outlook for the company (which had its biggest year ever with a record $500 million in revenue in 2019), but also that it was official...
