Grammys Continue to Spark Outrage After Recently Deleting All BTS-Related Posts
On the 29th of last month, BTS announced through their official social media accounts, using the names of all seven members, that they would not submit any music for the 69th Grammy Awards, scheduled to take place in February next year. The move was seen by industry insiders as an indirect criticism of the Recording Academy's newly established category, "Best Asian Pop Music Performance." The new category targets K-pop, J-pop, C-pop, and other forms of Asian pop music, and requires songs to contain at least one Asian language of their lyrics to be eligible for nomination. However, the fact that the category was announced only around two months before the submission deadline, combined with the fact that the main tracks on BTS' new studio album, ARIRANG, are primarily performed in English, sparked controversy: "Was this rule deliberately created to target BTS?" BTS expressed their hope that "music can be heard and loved as music itself, rather than bein...