AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS: BTS, first Asian band to win Artists of the Year

US: South Korean band BTS had a huge night at the American Music Awards. They not only won the highly coveted ‘Artist of the Year’, they also picked up the Best pop song of the year and Best duo or group. Significantly, BTS are the first Asian musicians to pick up the main award in an otherwise white-washed US pop industry.

Accepting the Artist of the Year award, their third visit to the podium on the night, 27 year old leader RM, and the only member who speaks fluent English, said that “this whole thing is a miracle”.

It’s been nearly two years since BTS has performed in front of a live audience at all, a fact that hasn’t managed to deter the group’s continuing ascent. Towards the start of the show, BTS joined Coldplay for an energetic performance of “Seriously, we will never take this for granted. Four years ago, we had given this first-time-ever TV live performance at this AMAs stage for ‘DNA’ (the song has recorded over 1.3 billion views on YouTube since its debut). We were so excited and nervous at the time”.

“It’s been a long and amazing ride since then, but nobody could have ever bet on the odds of us standing here receiving this award.”

The band’s Best Pop song award went to their single “Butter” which spent 10 weeks this year at the #1 spot on the Billboard Singles Chart, another breakthrough achievement by the band of 7 members who have steadily broken through music’s bamboo curtain since they debuted in 2013.

Having struggled their way up the gruelling K-Pop (Korean pop music) ladder, BTS always had their eye on winning an AMA or, heaven-forbid, a Grammy (they were nominated for a 2021 Grammy but didn’t win their category for Best Song “Dynamite”.)

They kept busy during COVID doing online concerts and crafting 2 English-language pop bops – “Dynamite” and “Butter”. These have been the only English-language songs the band have recorded, besides a Steve Aioki collab “Waste it on me”. In the past month they’ve also released a collaboration with Coldplay “My Universe”, which is in Korean and English. - YAHOO NEWS