BLACKPINK x BTS
K-Pop superstars BLACKPINK and BTS. twitter.com/BLACKPINK and Facebook/BTS 방탄소년단

KEY POINTS

  • BLACKPINK and BTS joined the ranks of most viewed artists on YouTube
  • Most of the artists on the list hailed from genres of K-Pop and Reggaeton
  • BLACKPINK and BTS surpassed the likes of The Weeknd and Taylor Swift

Some of the biggest names in K-Pop have made it to the top of YouTube's most-viewed artists list.

On Tuesday, Statista unveiled a list of the most-viewed music artists on the platform, with most coming from the genres of K-Pop and Reggaeton. Ranking second is one of the biggest female K-Pop acts in the world, BLACKPINK. This group accumulated about 3.24 billion and is only bested by Colombian singer Karol G.

Before the list dropped online, Rosé, Lisa, Jisoo and Jennie already earned the coveted title of having the most-viewed music channel on YouTube by a group, collecting about 30.15 billion views. They took the crown from Maroon 5, who previously held the Guinness World Record title.

BLACKPINK is also the most subscribed YouTube channel for a band, the first-ever female K-Pop group to reach No. 1 on the United Kingdom's album charts, and the first female K-Pop group to top the album charts in the U.S.

Some of its most viewed videos on the platform include "DDU-DU DDU-DU" with about 2.1 billion, "Kill This Love" with 1.8 billion, "Whistle" with 864 million and "Pink Venom" with 740 million, among others.

BLACKPINK recently concluded its successful "Born Pink" world tour, which sold out 66 out of 66 shows. The tour became one of the highest-grossing tours by a female group, with a revenue that peaked at $163.8 million.

BTS, for its part, only ranked No. 5 on the list next to Bad Bunny and Shakira. It was able to attract 2.39 billion views on YouTube. However, it's unclear if this number included the views on BANGTANTV, as the channel has about 21.36 billion views across all its videos.

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Its chart-topping singles, "Dynamite" and "Butter," also broke several Guinness World Records on YouTube. "Butter" had the most viewers during its premiere in 2021, drawing a whopping 3.9 million concurrent viewers. But both tracks did become the most-viewed YouTube music video in 24 hours.

Though the Grammy-nominated group is currently on a hiatus, it is still at the top of its game, with fans — known as ARMYs — worldwide waiting for its comeback, hopefully by 2025. Most recently, all seven members — RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook — renewed their contracts with their longtime label, BigHit Music.

Other big-name musicians on the Statista list include The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, Anuel AA, Bizarrap and Feid.

BLACKPINK
BLACKPINK at the BST Hyde Park in London. twitter.com/BLACKPINK