BTS, NCT, and More: Genius Korea Selects the Top Boy Groups of 2020

By Alexa Lewis Jan 04, 2021

As the year 2020 was slowly coming to a close, Genius Korea started sharing the results of their Year-End Korea Chart. Take a look at who made it to their top boy groups of 2020 list!

According to Genius Korea, their list is compiled by their community moderators. All of the groups mentioned were active in 2020 and takes into account the total page views of an artist and their concurrent page views via lyric searches on Genius.

Unsurprisingly, BTS sits at number one on this year-end list. With the success of all their releases this year, it is not hard to see why. Back in Feb. 2020, BTS dropped "Map of the Soul: 7", with the lead singles "Black Swan" and "ON". The album is the best-selling album in South Korean history and is the first album since the Gaon Chart's inception to be certified quadruple million. The album was also the biggest Billboard 200 debut in 2020 at the time and made BTS the fastest group to earn four number one albums since The Beatles.

(Photo : BTS Twitter)

In Aug. 2020, BTS dropped their first all-English single "Dynamite", a song meant to spread hope in these uncertain times. The song debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it BTS's first number-one hit single in the United States and the first time an all-Korean act had a number-one single in the country. "Dynamite" earned BTS their first-ever Grammy nomination for "Best Pop Duo/Group Performance" at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards. They got their second number-one hit with their remix of Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo's "Savage Love (Laxed - Siren Beat)".

In Nov. 2020, BTS released their fifth studio album, "BE", with the lead single "Life Goes On". The aforementioned single debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it the first pre-dominantly Korean-language song to do so. Additionally, seven songs from "BE" charted in the Billboard Hot 100.

(Photo : BTS Twitter)

The second group mentioned by Genius Korea is NCT. 2020 was truly a huge year for NCT; a year where their popularity skyrocketed. Earlier in Jan. 2020, NCT 127 released their second studio album "Neo Zone" with the lead single "Kick It". In April 2020, NCT Dream released their fourth EP "Reload" with the lead single "Ridin". In June 2020, WayV released their first full-length album "Awaken the World" with the lead single "Turn Back Time".

(Photo : NCT Twitter)

While NCT's respective sub-units all saw amazing musical releases this year, it is their large-scale project, NCT 2020, that made headlines. Back in Sept. 2020, SM Entertainment announced that they would be launching NCT 2020, a comeback that involved all the current members of NCT and two new additional members. Their albums "Resonance Pt 1" and "Resonance Pt. 2" combined members of their various sub-units on one album. "Resonance Pt. 1" garnered more than 1.12 million pre-orders, making it NCT's first million-seller album.