BTS' Jungkook renews Billboard records ahead of solo debut

Despite official debut on July 14 with digital single "Seven," Jungkook has already had solo success

BTS' Jungkook performs during the band's concert "Yet To Come" in Busan in October 2022. (Big Hit Music)

BTS' Jungkook continues his record-setting streak on Billboard's global charts as he gears up for his solo debut this month.

The US music publication's latest chart release on Saturday showed Charlie Puth's Jungkook collaboration, "Left And Right," hit No. 179 on the Billboard Global US Exclusive chart that day, marking its 38th week on the chart.

This extends Jungkook's own record of longest streak by an individual K-pop singer on the song chart.

He also renewed his record on Billboard's Digital Song Sales chart with "Euphoria" last week.

Returning to the list a year after it hit its 91st week in June 2022, the 2018 song soared to No. 6 last week and retained its status as the longest-charting song by a K-pop soloist on the chart.

The BTS vocalist's songs have been rebounding on the global charts after rumors of new release in July.

On Friday, the group's agency Big Hit Music confirmed that Jungkook will release his first official solo single, "Seven," on July 14, taking his first leap as a soloist musician.

The agency unveiled the promotion schedule for "Seven" on Sunday, which showed Jungkook will officially publish his self-written songs "Still With You" and "My You" on the global music platforms on July 3. The two songs were each made available for free in 2020 and 2022, respectively, on SoundCloud.

The music video for "Seven" will come out at 1 p.m. on July 14, along with the song, the timeline showed. It was recently reported that actress Han So-hee may be starring on the music video but Big Hit Music refused to comment on the matter.

Online cover image of Jungkook's solo single "Seven." (Big Hit Music)

Jungkook said a solo album was also in the making.

"I worked hard to show the direction of my music, the colors and my vocals that I haven't been able to properly address before with the song, so please don't be so disappointed that it's a single. I'm also working on an album," the singer during a livestream broadcast with fans on Friday following the agency's announcement.

Jungkook has shown he can achieve musical success independent of the rest of BTS for some time.

Before his appearance on Charlie Puth's "Left And Right" which peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, he made the same chart with "Stay Alive," a soundtrack for BTS' web-comic series "7 Fates: Chakho."

And in 2020, although under BTS' name, he entered Hot 100 with his solo song "My Time" from the band's seventh LP "Map of the Soul: 7."

In November, he sang the official soundtrack for 2022 FIFA World Cup, "Dreamers," which became the first World Cup song to top Billboard's Digital Song Sales chart. It also topped the iTunes chart in 102 countries around the world.

He recently scored a Guinness World Record as the fastest K-pop solo singer to garner a billion streams on Spotify.

By Choi Ji-won(jwc@heraldcorp.com)