It’s proving to be a record-breaking weekend for BTS.
The group’s new single, “Butter,” has officially racked up the most opening day streams in Spotify history with 20.9 million unfiltered global streams and 11.042 million filtered global streams. This pushed the anthemic, disco-infused “Butter” ahead of the platform’s former debut record holder, “I Don’t Care” by Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran (10.977 million). On the overall Spotify global chart, “Butter” came in at No. 2 after Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U,” which ranks by total filtered global streams.
BTS also reached the most YouTube views within 24 hours for “Butter,” besting their own record that was set with the 2020 single “Dynamite.” “Butter” reached approximately 113 million views by midnight ET on Friday, and also set a new all-time record for the biggest YouTube music video premiere, with more than 3.9 million concurrent viewers.
This all comes ahead of BTS’ debut performance of “Butter” at Sunday night’s Billboard Music Awards. The group will perform the song remotely from Korea. BTS has already won three pre-telecast awards, which were announced Sunday morning. BTS took home the awards for top duo/group, top song sales artist and top social artist, the last of which is fan-voted. BTS is also up for top selling song for “Dynamite,” which will be announced during the telecast. Also nominated in that category are Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth for “I Hope,” Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion for “WAP,” Megan Thee Stallion for “Savage” and The Weeknd for “Blinding Lights.”
During a press conference on Friday, BTS spoke to the importance of their Billboard Music Awards performance and nominations.
“The Billboard Awards are of course a very significant, important, and meaningful stage for us,” Suga said.
“The fact that we were nominated in four categories is not easy, of course. It’s a great honor,” Jungkook added. “It’s been a year since ‘Dynamite’ was released, and I think this shows that the song is still being loved by a lot of people, and that makes us really happy.”
The Billboard Music Awards air tonight on NBC at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT.
