Friday, December 6, 2024

KPop Band BTS Sees New Single “Permission to Dance” Denied with Alarming Poor Sales, Fans Reject It

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I am not a BTS expert. But I know when fans aren’t excited or motivated.

That seems to be the case with the latest single dropped for summer by the KPop Korean boy band.

Their “Permission to Dance” has been denied. The single is number 1 right now on iTunes after a Friday release. But according to Buzz Angle/Alpha Data, total sales through Saturday night were just under 70,000 copies. Most of that came from streaming.

That’s an anemic number compared to BTS’s “Butter,” released two months ago. “Butter” is up around 900,000 plus in sales, a fifth of that from paid downloads and CD singles. “Butter” was a massive hit and still is. But “Permission to Dance” has been snubbed by the hardcore BTS corps.

Is it just overload after “Butter” was spread over everything in its path? Or has BTS changed sounds with “Permission” only to alienate fans? The latter is likely as the group– now owned by marital scandal plagued Scooter Braun — is being accused of going mainstream for Western marketing purposes.

“Permission to Dance,” unlike past BTS singles, is written by Ed Sheeran, Steve Mac, Johnny McDaid, and Jenna Andrews. That’s a very generic pop committee. It could have been recorded by a dozen different acts, which is very much the case these days with a lot of songs. They’re auctioned off to the highest bidder. So BTS won the auction but lost the audience.

What’s very telling is that right now there’s no sign of BTS on the Z100 playlist or bestsellers. The biggest pop station in the country, owned by I Heart Radio, is devoid of all BTS mention. And the singles chart, which is usually ballot-stuffed by BTS fans, is remarkably quiet. We’ll keep an eye on this change in BTS fan devotion.

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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