On Wednesday (July 29), the seven members of BTS posted to their individual Instagram accounts a short, identical and pointedly undramatic statement: They will not submit their music for consideration at the upcoming 69th Grammy Awards. They shared their hope that “music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language.” No category was named and there was no mention of past Grammy experiences. BTS’ management company HYBE later clarified that this is “not a company-wide boycott” and neither the group nor the label asked anyone else to follow.
The restraint is telling as BTS have long expressed their admiration and respect for the Grammys as an institution. This is not an artist reacting to a snub, but rather BTS recognizing the importance of making a statement before history repeats itself.
In July 2019, the MTV Video Music Awards announced a new category, best K-pop, arriving after a period during which BTS had rewritten YouTube’s record books without a single nomination to show for it. At that point, BTS had already broken the record for the most-watched music video within 24 hours on the platform, with “IDOL” garnering 45.9 million views in August 2018, and it went on to become the fastest music video that year to surpass 100 million views on YouTube. Those stats put BTS squarely alongside artists like Eminem, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, all of whom already had multiple wins at the VMAs in long-standing categories like video of the year for both Em and Swift, while Grande had two wins for best pop video.
