BTS's V's "Sweet Night" Continues To Garner Attention From Radio Stations And Shows Worldwide

Three months after it was first released as part of the OST for Itaewon Class, BTS‘s V‘s solo song “Sweet Night” has seen a revival of commercial and popular success on a global scale.

According to myTuner Radio, a radio platform available and accessible as both an app and as a web streaming service, V’s solo song “Sweet Night” has seen an increase in air time during the weeks before and after BTS’s 7th anniversary and FESTA 2020 festivities. myTuner Radio shared reports made on June 16 that show significant spikes in listenership worldwide, including in the United States, South America, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and Asia.

Released earlier this year as part of the OST for Itaewon Class, the song received great praise shortly after its release. “Sweet Night” eventually went on to become the most successful Korean solo song, reaching #1 on iTunes “Top Songs” Charts in 88 countries, passing the record previously set in 2012 by PSY‘s “Gangnam Style.”

From left: Park Seo Joon from “Itaewon Class” and V

The song has presently received more chart attention even months after its original release. It’s become the first Korean OST to become #1 on the UK’s Channel FM radio station. It’s been rated in the top 5 songs in both Spain and Portugal and has been broadcast on several contemporary and top-40 radio stations in the United States.

“Sweet Night”‘s popularity has also spread to other countries and continents. Major radio stations in Chile, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Paraguay, and Uruguay have all given the song air time and even places in their weekly top-40 charts.

There are still additional countries that have given the song radio air time and have seen it charted on them. Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and Taiwan have all seen the widespread success of “Sweet Night” soar.

Radio executives and music critics everywhere are especially impressed by this worldwide radio time and charting. “Sweet Night” has shown unprecedented success and popularity, rivaled only by PSY’s “Gangnam Style” and some of V’s other solo songs, including “Inner Child,” which recently also hit the #1 spot in iTunes charts around the world. As a foreign performer, and a non-English speaking one, it’s been a bit of a shock for some to see how successful “Sweet Night” and other songs by both V and BTS have been, but the shock has been welcomed nonetheless.

“Sweet Night” is a song that is especially meaningful to V. Not only did he perform the song, he also composed wrote, and produced the song himself. It’s an indie-pop-type ballad about conflicting feelings about love. V sings about how he still wants to be loved and wanted by another and that he wants to pull them closer to him. Those messages are countered by the chorus, where V sings about how that might never be able to happen.

How could I know one day, I’d wake up feeling more. But I guess I had already reached the other shore. Guess we’re like ships in the night.

—V

The song’s lyrics match the feelings of the show’s main characters perfectly, but it’s the final line of the choruses about being ships in the night that are particularly heartbreaking. It’s a phrase that first arose in poetry in the 1800s, and describes a brief but intense meeting of two people who are destined never to meet again. They’re just like two ships in the night—they’re on a course that will cause their paths to cross for only a short time, but during that time, they can exchange the most intimate of moments and feelings. However, those ships have to keep on sailing, and as they continue on their respective courses, they become destined never to cross paths again.

V’s song’s story is one that is masterfully created and even more magnificently performed, and one that has shown the power to endure the passing of time. There’s no way of knowing the future trajectory of this beautiful song, but going off the previous history of both this song and V himself, we know that both are destined for nothing but continued success.

Check out V’s solo song “Sweet Night” below: