South Koreans, however, weren't blown away. The single debuted at number 84 on Korea's government-sponsored Gaon Music Chart.
At the time, boy bands EXO, Big Bang and SHINee dominated the K-pop charts. And while those groups sometimes referenced hip-hop in their songs, they tended to have a more clean-cut image and sing pop songs about romance. In EXO's 2013 hit "Wolf," for instance, the band members howl and compare themselves to an animal who has been tamed by an alluring woman.
But BTS, who were then all aged between 15 and 20, had something else that set them apart: they had been developed by start-up label Big Hit Entertainment, not one of the big three record companies -- SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and YG Entertainment -- which formed in the late 1990s, when K-pop was starting to take off.
To dominate South Korea's ultra-competitive, $4.7 billion K-pop industry, those labels had established intense pop factories that found and developed talent to form money-making groups.
6년 전 BTS"그들의데뷔를 발표했다 비디오 뮤직.더 이상 드림"6월 2013년에, 미국이 그들 K-팝의 성공 이야기 잘 보지 못 했던.