2019-04-15 // New Music Friday Monday: BTS & Halsey


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Apr 14 2019 3 mins  

  • Highlights
    • K-pop group BTS features American star Halsey on Spotify’s New Music Friday in the #4 slot for another global smash for both acts
  • Mission
    • Good morning, it’s Jason here at Chartmetric with your 3-minute Data Dump where we upload charts, artists and playlists into your brain so you can stay up on the latest in the music data world.
  • Date
    • This is your Data Dump for Monday April 15th 2019.
  • New Music Friday Monday
    • Let’s try out a new segment called New Music Friday Monday, where we dip into the data and artists behind a new release that came out over the weekend.
    • On Friday April 12th, Korean boy band BTS continued their long-term strategy for the American market by enlisting the help of Jersey-born, LA-based singer Halsey in the new record “Boy With Luv”, who sings background vocals for the track.
    • “Boy With Luv” is the key of B minor, with a speed of 120 beats per minute, which means that its upbeat tempo turns what’s normally a sad-sounding chord progression into a danceable, driving kind of tension.
    • The Echo Nest score of 80 out of 100 in the Valence scale confirms that the song’s emotional sentiment is mostly positive, with a bit of sadness to it for good measure.
    • The 3-minute and 49-second track is currently on 74 Spotify editorial playlists and 19 Apple Music editorial playlists, including the #6 spot on Today’s Top Hits and the #4 position on the Today’s Hits in US Apple storefront.
    • You might guess that both superstar names have similar playlist footprints on either platform, but they are markedly different: for example on Spotify, about 3% of BTS’ total playlists they’re on are editorial, and Halsey’s portion of editorial playlists is about the same. However, Halsey’s total playlist reach is 208M followers, while BTS’ is 113M at the moment.
    • Also, Halsey’s monthly listeners to follower ratio is at 5.9, which puts her in the viral realm of Billie Eilish and DJ Snake. BTS’s ratio is a somewhat unflattering 0.8, which puts them in the company of Justin Bieber and another K-pop boy band called BIGBANG, who both experienced public opinion issues as of late.
    • One way to interpret these signals is that following an artist is a one-time action, whereas monthly listeners is an ongoing signal measured in a 28-day window.
    • So for Bieber and BIGBANG, despite their popularity earning them high follower counts at their highest peak, their respective PR issues have cost them somewhat in recent listeners.
    • However, why would this put the squeaky clean, up-and-coming BTS in the same ballpark? It’s hard to say, but one reason may actually be the strength of their marketing strategies: they’ve done such a good job at putting BTS in the spotlight via Western late night shows, talk radio, magazine interviews and awards appearances, that it’s earned them a lot of reach, but not enough engagement to keep up.
    • For example, Chartmetric users, who are most strongly represented in Western countries, follow BTS the most on our tool, while superstars Drake and Ariana Grande are the #2 and #3 most followed, but only by a significant gap.
    • Or to put it all of this simply, the curiosity is high, but the follow-through is still catching up.
    • However, BTS also brings something to the table for Halsey, who not only makes an on-camera appearance in the “Boy With Luv” music video, but also dances choreography with them.
    • BTS’ 16.6M Instagram followers are mostly based in Asia while over 40% of Halsey’s 12.4M followers are in the US and Brazil. Despite playing shows across the Pacific, this BTS collaboration brings Halsey front and center to a whole new demographic.
    • And now that the video’s become the most viewed debut in the first 24 hours in YouTube history, Halsey has now cemented her place in the ever-evolving story of BTS, all around the world.
  • Outro