BTS overtakes Justin Bieber’s longest dominance record on Billboard’s Social 50 chart

(Big Hit Entertainment)

SEOUL — K-pop superstars BTS defeated Justin Bieber this week to become the longest-running artists atop Billboard’s Social 50 chart, the American pop magazine said Tuesday.

“A long-standing record on Billboard’s Social 50 chart has been broken, as BTS spends its 164th week atop the list dated Feb. 8,” besting Justin Bieber’s 163, Billboard said on its website Tuesday (Korean Time).

According to Billboard, the Social 50 is powered by data tracked by music analytics company Next Big Sound and ranks the most popular artists on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Wikipedia.

The chart’s methodology blends weekly additions of friends, fans and followers with artist page views and engagement.

BTS first landed on the chart in October 2016. The boy band has stayed atop the listing every week since July 2017.

This made BTS the first artists ever to top the nine-year-old chart for both 100 and 150 straight weeks.

“For the Feb. 8-dated ranking, BTS didn’t rest on its laurels to snag the No. 1 record. The K-pop boy band was up in nearly all chart metrics, led by a 69 percent jump in Facebook page likes and a 29 percent boost in Twitter mentions,” Billboard said, quoting Next Big Sound.

BTS is gearing up to release a new album, “Map of the Soul: 7,” on Feb. 21. Ahead of the new album, the band prereleased a single from the record, “Black Swan,” which debuted at No. 57 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Feb. 1. (Yonhap)