On (song)


"On" is a song by South Korean boy band BTS. It was released the same day as the band's fourth Korean-language album , for which it serves as the second single. A version featuring Australian singer Sia was also released and features on the digital and streaming version of the album.

Background

The band themselves organized the collaboration with Sia, according to Big Hit Entertainment.

Composition

In the key A minor in a tempo 106 beats per minute, the song was written by Antonina Armato, August Rigo, Julia Ross, Krysta Youngs, Melanie Fontana, Michel Schulz, Pdogg alongside J-Hope, RM and Suga of BTS.

Promotion

On February 19, it was announced that the band would release a 30-second video teaser of the lead single on TikTok, 12 hours ahead of the official release of the song on February 21. The day after the song release, a Commentary Film was released showing the work UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music's Bruin Marching Band directors and team members had in the production of some of the songs in the album, and the essence of BTS' message.
The band performed the song at the main concourse of Grand Central Station on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on February 24, 2020, for what has been called "one of the most high-production episodes" of the show. They also appeared in the Carpool Karaoke segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden.

Commercial performance

"On" debuted at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming BTS's highest-charting song in the country. It also debuted atop the Billboard Digital Songs Sales chart, selling 86,000 copies in its first week and selling four times as many copies as the number two song, "My Time", also by BTS.

Music videos

The first music video, dubbed "Kinetic Manifesto Film: Come Prima", was released on February 21, 2020, in conjunction with the release of the single and the album. It shows BTS, World of Dance Season 2 champions The Lab, and the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps performing the choreography near the Sepulveda Dam, adding a dance break that is now continuously used for promotion.
It is the seventh most-watched online video in the first 24 hours, and the fifth most-watched YouTube video in this period of time; it gained 46.5 million views in this time frame.
The second official music video was released on February 28, 2020 at 0:00 KST. Within minutes of its release, the video became the biggest YouTube premiere of all time with 1.54 million concurrent viewers, a record that was later surpassed in June 2020. The video reached 10 million views in one hour, surpassing the record held by "Boy With Luv" as the fastest Korean video to achieve this. The video includes references of various films and television shows, mainly The Maze Runner; other references include those to Bird Box, The Handmaid's Tale, The Lion King, Game of Thrones, Narnia, and Dolittle. The video also includes a reference to the Biblical stories of Noah's Ark and Adam and Eve. The music video garnered 43.8 million views on its first day, surpassing Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" as the seventh most-viewed video on YouTube in the first 24 hours. After a number of fans on social media accused YouTube of removing millions of views from the video, presenting "a real-time tracker" as proof, the video-sharing platform responded via Twitter that the vanishing views are the result of verifying if those are real or bot-generated.
In the video, RM is shown in front of a ruined boat with many different animals surrounding him and the boat; Jin rescues an injured dove—which he later revives—from a war-torn battlefield; Suga stands in a middle of a cult; J-Hope is inside a forest filled with broken trees as Jungkook's dying body lies behind him; Jimin is near a boy with a drum; V takes a blindfold off a little girl; and Jungkook is seen running from a prison wearing thorned handcuffs. In front of V, a stone gateway opens to reveal a rock that resembles Pride Rock in The Lion King. Everyone except Jungkook arrives at the gates, while Jungkook removes his handcuffs and blows into a conch shell before the video cuts to a fortified base where BTS performs the dance break as meteors fall down around them. Trees around the rock began to shape into place, and Jungkook finds the group as they ascend the rock. The video ends with the text "No More Dream" that fades into only "Dream".
The making of the second video was released on March 2, 2020.

Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes of Map of the Soul: 7.

Accolades

AwardDate
Weekly Popularity AwardMarch 2, 2020
Weekly Popularity AwardMarch 9, 2020
Weekly Popularity AwardMarch 16, 2020
Weekly Popularity AwardMarch 23, 2020
Weekly Popularity AwardMarch 30, 2020