LAS VEGAS, NV – MAY 20: Member of musical group BTS attends the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM … [+]
The No. 1 bestselling song in America this week comes from South Korea, as V’s “Christmas Tree” proved to be too popular to beat. The tune arrives in first place on Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart, the weekly ranking of the cuts that actually sold the most copies (which is different from, say, the Hot 100, which includes other forms of consumption) with 23,500 copies sold, according to MRC Data.
“Christmas Tree” marks the first No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart for BTS member V, and as he conquers the tally, he joins a very small group of artists from South Korea who have managed to land the bestselling track in the largest music market in the world.
V is just the fourth South Korean musician to hit No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart, and he’s not just in fantastic company, he now sits alongside some very familiar faces.
The first South Korean artist to make it to the top spot on the Digital Song Sales chart was Psy, whose “Gangnam Style” led the charge back in September 2012. At the time, the tune was taking over the world as an inexplicable and inescapable earworm, and he broke a glass ceiling when the cut rose all the way to the summit.
It would be half a dozen years before another South Korean musical act would find their way to the No. 1 spot on the Digital Song Sales chart, and that name has gone on to become one of the most successful of all time on the list. BTS dominated the tally in 2018 with “Fake Love,” which would turn out to be the first of many leaders. So far, the septet has pushed nine different titles to the penthouse on the Digital Song Sales chart, the most among all groups.
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Just two weeks before V’s historic success, one of his bandmates also earned his first No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart, becoming just the third act from South Korea to do so. BTS’s own Suga debuted his single “Girl of My Dreams,” a collaboration with late rapper Juice WRLD, ahead of every other track in late December 2021.
