[TECH AND FINANCIAL]
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South Korean band BTS are set to reunite after completing their military service, fuelling excitement about a new album that ***ysts hope will reinvigorate K-pop, one of the country’s biggest cultural exports.
Five members of the band — RM, V, Jimin, Jungkook and Suga — were discharged from military service this month, joining the two whose service ended last year. “Thank you for your patience,” Suga wrote in a social media post, vowing to “try our best to repay the love you have given us”.
“I will quickly make an album and return to the stage,” RM, the group’s leader, said on his discharge.
The boy group’s reunion comes at a critical time for the K-pop industry. Korean pop music album sales fell 17 per cent last year, according to Circle Chart, a South Korean music information website, sparking concern that the genre’s popularity may be waning following a slew of scandals.
“The return of the most influential K-pop idols will help create another wave of Korea’s soft power and will have a positive impact on exports of the country’s other consumer-facing industries,” said Jeong Kwang-woo, an independent ***yst and former fund manager.
Since the group’s debut single in June 2013, BTS has released a series of hit songs including “Dynamite” and “Butter”, becoming the first K-pop act to top the Billboard album charts in 2018 and to receive a Grammy Award nomination.
But the group has been in hiatus for the past two years as the band members completed their 16-month mandatory military service.
Shares of Hybe, the band’s label, have surged 57 per cent this year on expectations of a comeback. Hybe has said BTS will return as a group but the timing is “still under discussion”. Each of the group’s members has pursued solo projects during their break.
“Even during their military service, the BTS fandom kept growing,” Im Soo-jin, an ***yst at Daishin Securities. “New boy bands like the Stray Kids, Seventeen, Enhypen, partly filled the vacuum, but they have failed to replace BTS.”
With solo concerts scheduled for J-Hope and Jin this year, many fans expect the band to go on tour and release an album early next year. Jin will start his first world tour with a domestic concert on Saturday.
Jeong suggested it would not be long before BTS’s return to the top of the charts. “BTS is the K-pop icon. They made K-pop a genre and an industry.”
Despite a recent dip in album sales, Jeong said interest in K-pop remained strong, referring to the Netflix animated fantasy drama K-pop Demon Hunters. “K-pop remains hot. But the quality of their next album will be the key for BTS to continue their success.”
A do***entary about BTS’s devoted legion of followers, known as ARMY, will be released next month, showing how the group’s supporters helped push them towards global stardom.
One such fan is Mimi Kim, a 38-year-old South Korean housewife who attended a concert by the band in 2019, a day before her wedding ceremony.
“I am so excited that they will be reunited soon,” she said. “Two years have p***ed so quickly.”
[NEWS]
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