[Today’s K-pop] BTS wins 2 iHeartRadio awards

BTS received two awards from the 2021 iHeartRadio Music Awards held in Los Angeles on Thursday, local time.

The artists’ digital single “Dynamite” was given the best music video award and their fandom Army was named as the best fan army. This is the second time they won best music video after last year’s “Boy With Luv” and the fourth time since 2018 they won best fan army.

Big Hit Music’s performance director Son Sung-deuk won the favorite music video choreography with “Dynamite.”

The septet was the only Asian musician to be invited to the music award's festival last year.

BTS released its second English song “Butter” on May 21 and landed at the top of iTunes’ top song chart in 101 regions and added multiple Guinness World Records with the number of streams and views for its music video. It is putting out an EDM version of the single later on Friday.

Seventeen’s Wonwoo, Mingyu talk about love in upcoming single

Wonwoo and Mingyu of Seventeen have kicked off the band’s “Power of Love” project with their unit single “Bittersweet” that comes out on Friday.

The two, although both are mainly rappers for the band, teamed up as a duo to demonstrate their vocal abilities through this new digital single. It is more solemn than the band’s signature bright and upbeat tracks, and has a “more mature appeal,” Wonwoo said.

“After writing ‘Why did love become love?’ for the lyrics, I started to have a lot more thoughts. The words make you keep thinking and every time the answer’s different,” Mingyu said.

They both had a hand in writing the lyrics. Mingyu zoomed in on the moment when one has to choose between love and friendship, while Wonwoo summed up the song as a bittersweet moment of youth.

As for featuring artist Lee Hi, Wonwoo explained that the singer popped up in his mind while making the chorus and thanked her for gladly accepting the offer.

NCT Dream keeps sweeping charts with 1st LP

NCT Dream ranked No. 1 on the United World Chart with its first studio album “Hot Sauce,” according to Media Traffic’s latest tally.

The site gathers sales and streams from around the world and the boy band’s LP came at the top of the global chart. The band has picked up six trophies so far with the lead track of the same title on weekly television music shows in Korea.

The album was released on May 10 and sold over 2 million units in 16 days. It topped all major local charts in Korea as well as on iTunes’ top album chart in 37 regions, Oricon’s weekly album chart and Billboard Japan’s top album sales chart.

On Thursday, the band announced that it will put out an animated version of its title track in collaboration with the makers of “Baby Shark,” featuring characters of Pinkfong. The seven members of the group will be featured in an episode of the show, which will be available in English and Korea, wearing costumes and fighting dinosaurs they run into after a crash landing.

EXO to promote new album in VR exhibit 

A digital exhibition marking the release of EXO’s upcoming special album “Don’t Fight the Feeling,” will be launched on June 15, according to SM Entertainment.

The label has joined hands with telecoms company LG U+ for a virtual reality exhibit that consists of six themes so that fans can enjoy the album in a new way. A series of content, including photographs and videos that have not been shared before, would also be part of the free exhibit.

The veteran idol band has been dropping teaser photographs of each member -- under the theme of eclipse of the moon -- since this week starting with Xiumin and D.O. It also included promos of Lay, who has mostly been working in China. Lay is said to have participated in the new album and in shooting the music video for the title track.

The album will be unveiled on June 7.

By Hwang You-mee (glamazon@heraldcorp.com)