BTS picked up three American Music Awards nominations on Tuesday, including artist of the year, as the group adds another major award-season marker to a run that has kept it near the top of the charts. The nominations also put BTS in two additional categories, best male K-pop artist and song of the summer.
The artist of the year nod is BTS's second in the category since the group became the first Korean act to win the award in 2021. This year's ceremony is set for May 25 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and will air live on CBS and Paramount+.
The song in the summer race is “Swim,” which was named among the contenders less than a month after its release. The track reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated April 18 and stayed in the top five for a third consecutive week. Five additional tracks from the album “Arirang” also landed on the Hot 100: “Body to Body,” “2.0,” “Hooligan,” “Normal” and “Fya,” bringing the album's total to six Hot 100 entries.
That chart showing sits alongside a wider streak of dominance. “Swim” has topped both the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. US charts for three consecutive weeks, while 13 tracks from “Arirang” remained inside the top tiers of those rankings. BTS also held No. 1 for three weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the Artist 100, the album sales chart and the digital song sales chart. The three-week run at the top of the Billboard 200 marked the first time a group had led the chart for three consecutive weeks since 2012, when Mumford & Sons opened at No. 1 with “Babel.”
“Arirang,” released March 20 as BTS's first full-group album in more than three years, has turned the nominations into part of a larger commercial surge. “Swim” carries a message of perseverance in the face of adversity, and the campaign around it now stretches from radio-friendly visibility to major award recognition, with Las Vegas next on the calendar.
