Introduction

 We've all heard the same when a new product comes out. "This burger is the new Big Mac." "This horror movie is the new Psycho." The product usually never makes it as popular as the item it's compared to but in music one compassion keeps coming up. Saying that BTS is the new Beatles. It makes sense at a surface level, their bands promoting positivity in their music and are reaching huge international success. But is this comparison fair?

The Beatles first started as a duet with members John Lennon and Paul Mcarthy. The two self-taught musicians met George Harrison in the early '60s. In 1691 they meet their manager Brain Epstein who got them signed to Parlophone where they met Ringo Starr. Together they formed the Beatles and recorded the song "Please, Please Me". Throughout 1931 they grew in popularity in Britain and "In the fall of that year, when they belatedly made a couple of appearances on British television, the evidence of popular frenzy prompted British newspapermen to coin a new word for the phenomenon: Beatlemania." Eventually, their popularity grew out of Britain and reached the world market. In 1965 the Beatles started to adopt a more Ballad style with songs like "Yesterday" as well as rock. In 1966 The Beatles stopped live performances to focus on studio recordings. In 1968 they formed their own label Apple Corps. and released Abby road the next year. Due to creative differences, the band disbanded in the spring of 1970.

BTS started to form in 2010 when the first member, Kim Namjoon "RM", the leader, and one of the rappers. signed to join BigHit after being discovered. Min Yoongi "Suga" and Jung Hoseok, "JHope" was signed as a rapper and a dancer respectively and the band was originally planned to be a hip-hop group. After the plans were changed the vocalist line Kim Seokjin "Jin", Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung "V", and Jeon Jungkook were either scouted or auditioned for BigHit. The group debuted in 2013 with their first album Dark & Wild with their first single No More Dream. They started to receive recognition for what was expected for a band from a small company. The band has received praise for its use of mixing genres.

The bands do sound very similar. The Beatles Beatlemania is similar to Hallyu, of the Korean Wave, a term used to describe how Korean media, usually K-pop or K-dramas, is spreading to western markets. They have received recognition in the west with "They are the first K-pop group to win a Billboard Music Award, present at and be nominated for a Grammy, sell-out stadium shows in the U.S., and they were also named one of Time’s most influential people of 2019." However, there are huge hurdles BTS had to overcome to reach this fame. They had to overcome Xenophobia in the Western Market, they have people disregard the music because of their target audience, and there's a lot of thing The Beatles can do but BTS can't due to Korean standards of Kpop Idols.