BTS’s hit song “Butter” crowned “Most downloaded digital song in the U.S.” by MRC Annual Report
BTS’s global mega hit song “Butter” became the most sold digital song in the U.S. in 2021. This is the group’s achievement for the second consecutive year following “Dynamite” in 2020.
According to the 2021 Annual Report released by MRC Data on January 6 (hereinafter referred to as the 2021 MRC Annual Report), BTS‘s digital single “Butter,” which was released in May last year, was downloaded about 1.89 million times,ranking No.1 on “TOP DIGITAL SONG SALES” chart. MRC Data released an annual report based on data analyzing music-related figures and trends such as sales of real albums (CDs, LPs, etc.), digital downloads, and audio streaming in the United States from January 1st to December 30th, 2021.
According to the report, as digital music sales declined every year, only one song had more than 1 million downloads in 2021, following 2019 and 2020. The number of downloads of “Dynamite,” which topped the “Top Digital Song Sales” chart in 2020, was 1.26 million, and “Butter” was the only song that exceeded 1 million downloads in 2021.
Not only “Butter” but also “Permission to Dance” and “Dynamite” were ranked third and sixth, respectively, in the 2021 Top Digital Song Sales rankings. In addition, BTS’s collaboration with Coldplay, “My Universe,” ranked seventh. As a result, BTS has as many as four songs in the top 10 of the “Top Digital Song Sales” chart.
The 2021 MRC Annual Report highlighted the achievements of K-pop, which did well in the U.S. last year, by saying that BTS has topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the second consecutive year and had three songs at the top of the Hot 100 in 2021 alone.” “Butter” ranked first in “Hot 100” for a total of 10 weeks, and “Permission to Dance” in which Ed Sheeran participated in and “My Universe” in collaboration with Coldplay also topped the “Hot 100” chart.
U.S. music media outlet Billboard also stressed in an article analyzing the 2021 MRC Annual Report that BTS is the group with the most sold digital music in the U.S. for the second consecutive year.
According to Billboard, BTS sold a total of 1.03 million physical albums (CDs) last year, ranking first as the “artist who sold the most albums in 2021.”
