Am Samstag startet die Band ihr Comeback. Es wird ein Entertainment-Event der Superlative, das sich von Südkorea über Europa und die USA um den gesamten Erdball entfaltet – und ein neuer Höhepunkt der K-Pop-Maschine.

Thousands of police prepare to deploy to South Korea’s capital ahead of K-pop’s most anticipated comeback

Seoul has stepped up security ahead of BTS’s huge comeback concert on Saturday, which more than a quarter of a million fans are expected to attend, with authorities raising the terror alert in the area and preparing to deploy thousands of police to the capital.

South Korean president Lee Jae Myung warned at a cabinet meeting this week that “the issue is safety” and urged heightened vigilance by the interior ministry and emergency services to prepare for every possibility. He described the concert as an important occasion to reaffirm the country’s global cultural standing.

I used to be embarrassed by my teenage fandom of the Korean boyband. Now I look back at that version of myself with so much softness

When I heard the surprise news that BTS are releasing a comeback album, it pulled me back into a past version of myself, one that was all-consuming in its obsession but equally marked by shame.

At the ripe old age of 14, I had mastered the art of lowering my screen brightness and switching tabs to hide my shameful secret from any passerby or seat-sharer.

Aastha Agrawal is a writer, illustrator and multidisciplinary creative based in Naarm. Find more of her work at enchantedclub.net

The 26-year-old dominates in Manchester, landing the night’s biggest prizes as Rosé, Wolf Alice and Mark Ronson also take top honours

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Olivia Dean was the big winner at the 2026 Brit awards, taking home awards for artist of the year, pop act, song of the year for her Sam Fender duet Rein Me In, and album of the year for The Art of Loving.

In less than a year, Dean has leaped to the forefront of British pop thanks to The Art of Loving, her second album. With songs that get to the heart of the joys and frustrations of casual modern dating, she is enormously relatable, while her sophisticated and cosmopolitan songcraft, deftly finessing styles such as bossa nova, trip-hop, neo-soul and jazz together, has given her an unusually broad and cross-generational appeal.

Booking system freezes and screens crash amid rush of fans trying to secure tickets to 21 March free concert

Tickets for BTS’s comeback concert in central Seoul were snapped up almost immediately on Monday night, with authorities expecting an estimated 260,000 fans to descend for the K-pop group’s first full performance in nearly four years.

At one point, more than 100,000 people flooded the booking website when sales opened at 8pm for the free concert at Gwanghwamun square on 21 March, causing screens to crash and booking systems to freeze.

As the film’s megahit song Golden looks likely to sweep everything in awards season, its singer Ejae explains why she’s ready to step out from behind her animated alter ego

‘The directors were crying, the producer was crying, and I thought: Oh my gosh, this is an incredible musical world.” It was February 2025, and Ian Eisendrath was conducting an orchestra through the final flourishes for the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. He knew that the team had built something special – “but I never thought it would be like this,” he laughs, marvelling at what came next.

Mere weeks after its release in June, the animated film – about Korean girl band Huntr/x who battle soul-hungry demons through song – became Netflix’s most-watched title ever. The film’s soundtrack, a fleet of emotionally charged, devilishly catchy hits crafted by real K-pop heavyweights, became a platinum-rated phenomenon all its own.

As the superstar K-pop boyband prepare for their first album in three years – after its members completed their military service – we count down the best of their toothsome pop

At the start of their career, BTS were marketed as a cross between a Korean idol band and a blinged-out rap act: “Our life is hip-hop,” offered band member Suga early on. No More Dream is actually far tougher-sounding than you might expect: the vocals growl, the backing blares, the double-bass sample that drives the intro is great.

The top categories are stacked with quality, from Bad Bunny to Kendrick Lamar, Chappell Roan and K-pop hits – but here are the artists who most deserve to triumph

Bad Bunny – DTMF
Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild
Doechii – Anxiety
Billie Eilish – Wildflower
Kendrick Lamar & SZA – Luther
Lady Gaga – Abracadabra
Chappell Roan – The Subway
Rosé & Bruno Mars – APT.

Claudia Sheinbaum sent a diplomatic letter requesting more shows, after a worldwide scramble for tickets

Huge demand to see K-pop septet BTS has led the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to formally request of her counterpart, the South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, that he help arrange more concerts in Mexico.

“Everyone wants to go,” Sheinbaum said at her daily morning press conference on Monday, adding she had sent a diplomatic letter to South Korea’s Lee seeking more concerts.

As the band prepares to tour, economists say pent-up global demand could reshape how concerts boost city economies

Move over, Taylor Swift. Her Eras tour was the highest grossing in history, sparking an estimated $5bn in direct consumer spending across the US. But now another musical phenomenon is preparing to sweep through North America – and economists expect it will generate tens of billions of dollars in economic activity along the way.

K-pop sensation BTS will embark this year on their largest tour yet, spanning 34 regions across five continents, ending a hiatus due to mandatory military service that lasted almost four years.

The title is loaded with meaning for all Koreans, and will give fans globally an insight into the folksong culture that shaped the world’s biggest K-pop group

BTS announced their long-awaited comeback and world tour this week, with their first full-length album in nearly four years set for release on 20 March.

On Friday, the K-pop group revealed its title – Arirang – a choice that carries profound emotional weight for Koreans. So what does it mean, what is its significance for the Koreas, and why did BTS choose it?

South Korean president Lee Jae Myung had his work cut out, picking up his drumsticks alongside Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi, a former heavy metal drummer

If international diplomacy is as much about tone as substance, the leaders of South Korea and Japan seem to have nailed it.

In a scene few anticipated, South Korean president Lee Jae Myung and Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi spent the last moments of a crucial summit seated behind matching drum kits in matching blue uniforms as they bashed out hit song Golden from Netflix’s K-Pop Demon Hunters and BTS’s Dynamite.

Both industries dominate the world but now face fundamental transformation and uncertainty at home

South Korea’s entertainment dominance appears unshakeable. From BTS conquering global charts to Parasite sweeping the Oscars in 2020 and Korean dramas topping Netflix, Korean popular culture has never been more visible. Exports driven by the country’s arts hit a record $15.18bn (£11bn) in 2024, cementing the country’s reputation as a cultural superpower.

But inside South Korea, the two industries that helped build the Korean Wave – cinema and K-pop – are now experiencing fundamental transformations, with their survival strategies potentially undermining the creative foundations of their success.

Big K-pop stars and a teen-skewed subtext aims this squarely at a particular audience but this fantasy never really levels up

Starring the actor (Ahn Hyo-seop) who voiced the lead boy-band bad guy in KPop Demon Hunters, and one of the singers (Kim Ji-soo, also known mononymically as Jisoo) from real-world girl-band Blackpink, this Korean sci-fi-fantasy feature feels very skewed towards the young on all counts. Superficially, it appears to be about a guy named Kim Dok-ja (Ahn) who finds that the web novel he’s been following for years is turning into reality. That means the whole world becomes gamified, as if everyone has been turned into players compelled to kill to survive, while plagued by CGI monsters and puckish digital dokkaebi (demons) which explain things when the rules change.

But under the surface, this film is really about being popular, coping with traumatic childhood experiences such as being forced to beat up your best friend, getting a pimple, and building up enough gumption to tell authority figures – older people, your boss, the author of the book you’ve been a fan of for ages – that they suck.