>"Map of the Soul: 7 embodies the key to BTS’s success: emotion, sincerity, and an ARMY of fans."
"In 2012, Rolling Stone published a list of the 10 K-pop bands most likely to make it big in the US. Achieving significant US fame was a newly attainable, if still distant, milestone for South Korean pop groups thanks to the 2000s’ tremendous exporting of South Korean culture overseas — a trend known as Hallyu, the Korean Wave. Rolling Stone’s list, which appeared two months before Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” included groups like Big Bang, Girls’ Generation, and 2NE1 — the greatest bands of what’s generally thought of as the “second generation” of pop groups to emerge during K-pop’s rise to international prominence."