Selling out Wembley is no mean feat.

But selling out Wembley in 90 minutes? Well, the Spice Girls unsurprisingly managed snapped-up-in-minutes sales with their comeback announcement last year. The Oasis reunion, should the Gallaghers ever kiss and make up, would no doubt break records.

And as anyone who has suffered the agonising five-second-loop screen refresh for Glastonbury tickets can attest, it happens there.

Image: BTS are also celebrating their first UK number one album. Pic: officialcharts.com

But there aren't many acts who can get bums on 70,000-plus seats, let alone have them signed up within an hour and a half of going on sale.

Step forward BTS, the K-pop super stars who are breaking records and seemingly taking over the world.

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Also known as the Bangtan Boys, they are a seven-member group – Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook – formed in 2013.

Last week, they became the first ever Korean act to score a UK number one album with Map Of The Soul: Persona. It also became their third Billboard number one album in less than a year.

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The last group to achieve this? The Beatles.

BTS have also been named among Time's 100 most influential people of 2019, alongside Rami Malek, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift.

And despite adding a second Wembley date due to the popularity of the first, if you want to see them there in June it's going to be tricky (or quite expensive).

South Korean pop band Blackpink have beaten YouTube records with their latest single
Image: Blackpink are another South Korean band breaking records

But do they live up to the hype?

In her review of Map Of The Soul: Persona, NME's Rhian Daly praised the band for setting the bar "intimidatingly high".

"As they continue to break records and defy expectations, BTS' metaphorical (and already palatial) home is only going to get bigger. Map Of The Soul: Persona is proof of that, and finds them setting the bar intimidatingly high – for fellow K-pop artists, ones across the globe, and themselves."

The Guardian's Alexis Petridis wasn't as convinced by the album, saying that "anyone outside of the BTS Army might struggle to grasp what differentiates them from the rest of 2019's pop landscape".

While modern K-pop (Korean pop) grew in the 1990s, the genre's popularity has grown exponentially in the past few years, no doubt helped by social media and the online presence it has afforded its stars. (BTS have in excess of 17 million followers on Instagram, and were apparently the most tweeted-about celebrities in the world in 2018).

It is now a $5 billion industry. While the English language has always dominated chart hits, it seems now that when it comes to lyrics, the barriers are coming down.

In fact, K-pop has been cited for in turn boosting interest in the Korean language; according to the Modern Language Association, the number of students learning Korean in US universities rose by almost 14% between 2013 and 2016 – despite an overall decline in most other languages.

Thanks to some serious earworm hits, killer dance moves and rainbow-bright videos, K-pop has become a global phenomenon, riding the wave, known as hallyu, of South Korea's booming cultural economy.

And BTS are not the only stars making headlines.

Earlier this month, South Korean girl group Blackpink became the first Korean group to perform at Coachella (watched by Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin/ Bieber, no less) and also broke the YouTube record for thRead More – Source

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