The Billboard “Hot 100” chart is a notoriously difficult chart for K-Pop acts to chart on, given that the criteria is based on sales, online streaming, and radio airplay in the United States. As the K-Pop music genre has become more popular globally, more songs have made it onto the chart in recent years, but it’s still an impressive accomplishment to make it onto the chart at all, let alone make it into the top 10 or at #1!
The first K-Pop song to make it into the “Hot 100” was “Nobody” by Wonder Girls, which they accomplished back in 2009 with a peak at #76. Between then and 2017, only PSY and CL ranked on the chart until BTS had their first song enter the top 100 with “DNA”, which peaked at #67.
To date, only four K-Pop groups have had more than one song enter the “Hot 100”, not including work done by soloists in their respective groups.
The group with the most, unsurprisingly, is BTS, who have had 27 of their group songs rank on the “Hot 100”. If you add their soloist songs too, the number leaps up to 51, which is an incredibly high amount! Eight of these songs have made it to the #1 position: “Savage Love”, “Dynamite”, “Life Goes On”, “Butter”, “Permission to Dance”, “My Universe”, “Like Crazy”, and “Seven”.
Up next is BLACKPINK, who have had 9 of their group’s songs make it on the chart: “DDU-DU DDU-DU”, “Kill This Love”, “How You Like That”, “Ice Cream”, “Lovesick Girls”, “Pink Venom”, “Shut Down”, “Kiss and Make Up”, and “Sour Candy”. Four of their solo songs have also charted, bringing the total number to 13, and their highest-charting song is “Ice Cream” which peaked at #13.
NewJeans comes in third with 5 of their songs already making it into the top 100, despite being such a young K-Pop group! Their songs are “Ditto”, “OMG”, “Super Shy”, “ETA”, and “Cool With You”, with their highest-ranking song “Super Shy” peaking at #48.
Finally, TWICE is the last group with more than one song to make it into the “Hot 100”, with 2 of their group songs ranking on the chart: “The Feels” (which peaked at #83) and “Moonlight Sunrise” (which peaked at #84).
Here’s how fans are reacting to this list of successful K-Pop groups on the Billboard “Hot 100” chart.
It will be interesting to see which other K-Pop artists end up ranking high on the “Hot 100” in the future!
