Global Beatles Day: Is BTS Bigger Than The Iconic UK Band?

Global Beatles Day is celebrated annually on June 25, and it is when people sing along to the band's classic hits such as "A Hard Day's Night," "Help!" and, of course, "Hey Jude."

For the millions of fans of the Kpop group BTS, however, the pop stars could be compared to the iconic British band that is The Beatles.

It is no denying that BTS has reached impressive milestones since the group made its debut in 2013. Its loyal fanbase (known as the Army), is largely to thank for its global success, as the group has been highly regarded as a game-changer in the world's music industry.

Beatles fans may wonder what the Korean boy band has in common with the Fab Four. For one, BTS was able to crack into the United States mainstream market, similar to what The Beatles did during the peak of their success, South China Morning Post reported.

Despite the differences in their eras, both groups successfully started a large following in the U.S. -- an achievement that has always been very challenging for artists as far as the music industry goes.

The Beatles themselves earned millions of fans around the world, a fandom collectively known as Beatlemania, which continues to prosper and support the group despite the band's breakup in the 1970s. According to the BBC, the Fab Four still has millions of fans around the world even though the band split up nearly 50 years ago.

Similar to the Beatles, BTS owes its success to its fanbase as well.

“BTS’ success [wouldn’t] have happened without the support of the Army,” the Korean idol columnist Mimyo wrote. “Army members are loosely connected, but as a group, they are passionate because of their solidarity with their idols. And they all use the same online [social media] platform – Twitter.”

Although it is difficult to objectively measure which of the two groups is more iconic, some continue to make statistical comparisons between the two.

Next Big Sound, a New York-based company that provides music analytics, reported that BTS fans on Twitter largely outnumber the current Beatles followers, with 36.79 million tweets mentioning BTS compared to 23,331 mentioning the Beatles.

Of course, Twitter isn't the be-all and end-all in measuring any artist's success. Despite having fewer tweets mentioning the band, The Beatles had 21 top songs that reached the Billboard Chart -- greatly outnumbering the number of BTS songs that have reached the said chart.

Nevertheless, The Beatles remain and will most likely continue to remain one of the most beloved groups in the history of music and rock & roll, and BTS seems to be making good progress in following in their footsteps.