BTS member Jimin surprised fans on New Year’s Eve by dropping his debut solo single, “약속 (Promise),” exclusively on SoundCloud. According to Hits Daily Double, the track broke the platform’s record for the most opening day streams with 8.5 million.
Forbes reports that “Promise” shatters the record previously held by Drake’s “Duppy Freestyle.” Last May, the Pusha-T diss track recorded 4.9 million first day streams.
The record was set thanks to the K-pop group’s devoted fanbase, known as BTS Army, which tracked the song’s total streams on a Twitter account dedicated to BTS' SoundCloud statistics:
Hits Daily Double reports that South Korea was responsible for the most streams, followed by the US, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan. In addition, “Promise” spent 48 hours at No. 1 on SoundCloud’s Top 50 and New & Hot charts. To date, it has racked up more than 15 million streams in four days.
“Promise” has been popular on Genius, too. The track’s Romanization and English Translation lyrics pages have both sat in the Top 20 of the Genius Top Songs chart since its release, garnering more than 50,000 pageviews each, while the original song page has accumulated another 33,000 pageviews.
2018 was a banner year for BTS. In May, the group’s Love Yourself 轉 ‘Tear’ album became the first K-pop album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and the follow-up, Love Yourself: 結 ‘Answer’, allowed BTS to top the chart once again just four months later.
Last year, BTS' frequent collaborator DJ Swivel broke down the making of “Euphoria” on Genius' series Deconstructed:
Jimin isn’t the first BTS member to find success outside of the group. In October 2018, RM’s mono. project peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard 200.
Listen to the single above and read all the lyrics to Jimin’s “약속 (Promise)” on Genius now.
