Billboard on March 7 said BTS was its "Greatest Pop Star of 2020" on its website. (Screen shot from Billboard's website) 

By Lee Hana

K-pop juggernaut BTS has been named "Greatest Pop Star of 2020" by Billboard.

The U.S. magazine on March 7 said the group was the top act last year on its list of "The Greatest Pop Star by Year: 1981-2020" on its website. 

On the basis for selecting each year's top act, Billboard said that "while chart success is an essential factor, pop stardom carries too many intangibles to be judged solely on any combination of numerical calculations."

"[This list is] the answer to the question, 'Could you have lived through this year without having an opinion on this artist?'" 

Describing BTS's rise to superstardom, Billboard said that "until the last few years, the colorful world of Korean pop was a genre that was on the periphery of the American pop mainstream," adding that the group "heralded the genre's true U.S. breakthrough, and became the greatest pop stars of 2020."

Saying the boy band "dominated in the livestream and virtual space" despite the COVID-19 pandemic, it said BTS's first English-language single "Dynamite" shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, making the group the first K-pop act to earn a Grammy nomination.

"It's impossible to ignore that BTS is the first Asian artist to appear on this list alongside undeniable, no-questions-asked English-language superstars," Billboard said. "BTS made it harder for U.S. audiences to deny not only the group's own supreme superstardom, but also K-pop's much-deserved place in mainstream music."

Over the past decade, Billboard crowned Adele (2011), Rihanna (2012), Miley Cyrus (2013), Beyonce (2014), Taylor Swift (2015), Justin Bieber (2016), Ed Sheeran (2017), Drake (2018) and Ariana Grande (2019) as the greatest pop acts of their respective years.

hlee10@korea.kr