For a worldwide known & hailed as ‘prestigious’ chart, the people at Billboard certainly seem to have a knack for embarrassing themselves and in a bid to put down hardworking artists, foolishly declare the incompetency of their own charts.

Confused? Let’s start with some context, shall we?

For the first time since 2018, Billboard announced that South Korean music juggernaut & Grammy nominees – BTS (Beyond The Scene or also known as Bangtan Sonyeondan) – will return to the Billboard magazine cover in late August 2021 for their fall issue. As one can imagine, the fans (known as A.R.M.Y) were very excited for the fresh looks and photos the magazine would release alongside what was assumed to be a hopefully intellectual and insightful interview.

BTS on the Billboard Fall issue 2021 cover. Let’s keep in mind that the group’s past two released singles have topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts with ‘Butter’ at #1 for 9 weeks and ‘Permission to Dance’ at #1 for 1 week. After having invited one of the objectively biggest acts in the world for an interview, the questions asked were abysmal and disappointing. Instead of inquiring about their songwriting and musicality process, they took up the article space to cite tweets from random fan accounts that, mind you, were fans of competing acts on the groundless accusation of – “But just how much they’ll do has recently come into question. Through above-board means, ARMY has long exploited loopholes in music chart rules (including those of Billboard) to propel BTS singles’ performance”.

Using those as ‘proof’, Billboard stated “Rodrigo’s fans claimed that it wasn’t a coincidence. @scrappyseal, noting the reversal, tweeted that BTS had ‘0 GP [general public] support. A real smash is sustained by the GP support.’ Another fan of both Rodrigo and Lipa’s, @lipaanostalgia, described BTS as having ‘fraudulent ways’ and its fans as ‘involved in chart manipulation’ and ‘mass buying’”.

As if this was not enough, the lovely interviewer at Billboard had the audacity to ask BTS’s leader RM about chart manipulation by their fandom. Let’s keep in mind that there is no proof, there is only speculation and accusations by other fandoms and yet such a vague allegation was pointed to the members of the group to clearly put them into a defensive stance and write off some more attacking points based off their answers. If this does not reek of unprofessionalism, I wonder what does.

Fortunately, the leader RM pulled out a UNO reverse card:

“It’s a fair question. But if there is a conversation inside Billboard about what being No. 1 should represent, then it’s up to them to change the rules and make streaming weigh more on the ranking. Slamming us or our fans for getting to No. 1 with physical sales and downloads, I don’t know if that’s right … It just feels like we’re easy targets because we’re a boy band, a K-pop act, and we have this high fan loyalty”. – BTS’s RM to Billboard

BTS’s leader RM on the Billboard special fall issue 2021. As concisely pointed out by RM, if there is a debate on what being No.1 on Billboard should represent, that should be a discussion solely handled within Billboard. Such accusations being laid out does indeed feel like an attack done because they are assumed to be easy targets, as RM said. As America and many parts of the world struggle with racism with lately higher attacks on Asians, this article by Billboard is an example of such attacks with their wording and tone reeking of cultural bias and accusatory direction.

While such indistinct claims on Twitter are somehow enough for Billboard to invite BTS and attack them, it brings to question why they do not do the same with artists who are accused of using payola, i.e, payment methods to radio stations to increase radio play numbers. They also do not do this with artists who spend millions on Youtube ads, so that their music videos get increased views or with artists who use Bundling as a tactic to chart high on rankings.

BTS is not an overnight one-hit act. Their songs have remained at a consistent rise for years, with ‘DNA’ peaking at #67 in 2017, ‘Fake Love’ peaking at #10 in 2018, ‘Boy with Luv’ at #8 in 2019, ‘ON’ at #4 in 2020 & finally Dynamite at #1 in the second half of 2020 on the Hot 100 chart respectively. They have also held a completely sold-out stadium tour around the world, filling out stadiums with over 50,000+ capacity. Additionally, BTS has over 31.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone with which they debuted their song Butter on Spotify with a total of 11+ million streams on the first day. This means the monthly listeners and streaming numbers are consistent, and not ‘mass manipulation’ tactics are simply used when a new song is released.

It is safe to say, that the A.R.M.Y is the GP (general public) and as long as their support is consistent, such accusations will remain groundless.

If anything, the BTS Billboard article begets the question, what is really Billboard’s aim? Their questions in the article simply declared the invalidity of their own chart if it is that easy to manipulate. And their accusatory tone proves their desire to undermine a group act simply because of their ethnicity yet they use them for photoshoots and magazine covers because they know of the fandom power. They claim to care about chart manipulation but won’t question English-speaking artists who use actual underhanded tactics. Hypocrites, much?**