BTS’ new single “Butter” was released on Friday 21 May and wasted little time in becoming the biggest song debut in Spotify history. The hugely anticipated disco-pop track notched up 11.042 million global Spotify streams on its first day, breaking the platform’s opening day record, which was previously held by Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” (10.977 million on 10 May 2019).
“Butter” debuted at No 2 on the global Spotify chart overall, behind Olivia Rodrigo’s smash-hit “Good 4 U” (12.192 million), which has topped the global chart since Monday.
“Butter” has rewarded BTS with their best single-day Spotify performance by a huge margin. Their previous highest came last summer with the peppy Dynamite, which debuted with 7.778 million global and 1.824 million US Spotify streams.
The K-Pop superstars’ success is not limited to Spotify either. Over the weekend, YouTube confirmed that the official music video for “Butter” has set a new all-time 24-hour record of 108.2 million views, surpassing their own 101.1 million view record for “Dynamite” in the first 24 hours. The band now holds the No 1 and No 2 record spots on YouTube’s All-Time Top 24 Hour Music Debuts.” “Butter” is the second song, after “Dynamite”, to be performed entirely in English by the group, whose first language is Korean.
But fans with a preference for physical products aren’t overlooked. Butter will be released on a limited edition 7″ single and cassette single.
The massive-selling South Korean pop sensations performed “Butter” for the first time at the Billboard Music Awards on May 23. At the high-profile awards, BTS were nominated for Top Social Artist, Top Duo/Group, Top Song Sales Artist, and Top Selling Song. In the end, the group took home all four awards. For the fifth year in a row, BTS was nominated for and won Top Social Artist. This year, they were nominated for the fan-voted award alongside BLACKPINK, Ariana Grande, SB19, and SEVENTEEN.
