BTS vs. One Direction: Who Had More Top 10 Hits?
BTS and One Direction aren’t American groups, however, they did gain massive followings in America. This raises an interesting question: Which group became more successful on the American charts? Here’s a look at how many top 10 hits each group had on the American charts — and which group was more critically acclaimed.
Did One Direction ever have a No. 1 hit?
One Direction became a huge smash in America, inspiring everything from Anna Todd’s After to millions of pages of fan fiction. In addition, each member of the group managed to have at least one hit as a solo artist. However, they never achieved one major career milestone: a No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. However, six of their singles reached the top 10, specifically “What Makes You Beautiful,” “Story of My Life,” “Best Song Ever,” “One Thing,” “Drag Me Down,” and “Perfect.”
How BTS performed on the charts
So how did BTS perform on the American charts? So far, they also notched six top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100: “Boy With Luv,” “Fake Love,” “ON,” “Dynamite,” “Savage Love,” and “Life on Top.” The latter three singles reached the No. 1 spot on the chart. Clearly, BTS are performing better on the charts.
Did ‘Rolling Stone’ prefer One Direction or BTS?
Which artist is performing better with the critics though? This is harder to measure. However, we can look at how one famous magazine reacted to them.
Rolling Stone is one of the most renowned music publications in the world. It released a list of the best boy band songs. One Direction’s highest-ranked song on the list if “What Makes You Beautiful” at No. 5. No. 4 is BTS’ “Moon.”
What Rolling Stone said about ‘Moon’
The magazine’s review said “BTS have turned into the world’s biggest group, yet they did it all their way — by totally defying the clichés of how the music business is supposed to work. To conquer America, the K-Pop heroes didn’t compromise their sound or their ideas; they didn’t even bother trying a lame crossover hit in English. All they had to be was themselves. ‘Moon’ is from BTS’ latest blockbuster, Map of the Soul: 7. It’s their version of that classic boy-band staple: the love song to the fans. The music is spacey guitar pop, and Jin sings about how the audience is his Earth, while he’s just the moon that revolves around it, orbiting and shining. Jin pledges his devotion, even switching into English for choice lines like ‘All I see is you’ and ‘All for you.’”
Which boy bands ‘Rolling Stone’ preferred to BTS and One Direction
Three other boy band songs beat both One Direction and BTS. They are, in order from lowest to highest ranking, the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” New Edition’s “Candy Girl,” and NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye,” and The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” BTS beat One Direction on the charts — but The Jackson 5 beat them both on Rolling Stone’s list.
