Jimin's 'MUSE' Becomes the First Korean-Language Solo Album to Hit 4 Billion Spotify Streams

On May 17, 2026, 668 days after its July 2024 release, BTS member Jimin's second solo album 'MUSE' surpassed 4 billion streams on Spotify — becoming the first Korean-language solo album in history to reach that threshold. The Jimin MUSE 4 billion Spotify milestone is a record built without the structural advantages that most comparable streaming benchmarks carry: not a group project with multiple members' fanbases pooling streams, and not an English-language album with native access to the platform's most-served markets. It is a Korean-language record, by a solo artist, that has found a global audience on the scale previously reserved for pop's most dominant English-language releases.

The 668-day window matters as much as the milestone itself. Most records of this magnitude accumulate over years, sustained by playlist placements and algorithmic tail that gradually extend a song or album's commercial life. MUSE arrived in July 2024 as a second solo project from a member of the world's most-streamed group — and then stayed. The album's performance on Spotify's Weekly Top Songs Global Chart and its consistent presence in territory-specific charts across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Western markets reflects not a single spike but sustained listener return: the definition of a catalogue record rather than a launch-window record. Reaching 4 billion in under two years places MUSE among a small group of albums globally that can claim that kind of sustained engagement.

The broader context for the milestone is Jimin's own streaming footprint, which had itself become one of K-pop's most notable statistics before MUSE's album total even crossed 4 billion. As of May 12, 2026, Jimin's personal Spotify profile had accumulated over 6.8 billion total streams from 22 pure solo tracks — a figure achieved without collaborative credits inflating the count. No other K-pop solo artist had reached this figure from purely solo material alone, placing the 4-billion album milestone within a broader solo streaming narrative that is, by any measure, without precedent in the genre.

'Who,' the lead single from MUSE, is the specific track that drives the album's streaming longevity. By the time the album crossed 4 billion on May 17, 'Who' had become the first track by an Asian solo artist to surpass 2.3 billion Spotify streams — reached 581 days after its July 19, 2024 release. Its Billboard Hot 100 run of 33 weeks stands as the longest charting period for a K-pop male solo track on that chart. What makes the 'Who' data particularly significant is its implied audience diversity: a 33-week Hot 100 run cannot be explained by a single market or a concentrated fanbase deploying co-ordinated streaming. It requires genuine passive listenership — the mark of a song that travels beyond the fan infrastructure that launched it.

The first solo album, FACE, established Jimin's credentials as a soloist — 'Like Crazy' from that record became the first K-pop male solo song to top the Billboard Hot 100. MUSE built on that foundation by going further in duration: a second album that sustained itself on the charts longer than its predecessor, in the Korean language, suggests that his international audience is not purely responding to the English-language accessibility of 'Like Crazy' but to something that functions across both. The 4-billion threshold is the most precise metric yet for what that cross-language reach actually looks like in streaming data.

FACE arrived in March 2023, during BTS's period of staggered military service. MUSE followed in July 2024 as Jimin's second album and first full Korean-language project. Together they sketch a solo career that has moved with unusual confidence across two installments — building critical and commercial momentum in sequence rather than holding for a guaranteed-success reset. The structural logic is visible in hindsight: FACE as an introduction to what a Jimin solo project could sound like, MUSE as an expansion into what it could become when given more space and a fully Korean-language framework. The 4-billion milestone is, in part, a reflection of that cumulative artistic investment.

Within the broader BTS solo landscape, Jimin's milestone lands alongside Jungkook's own endurance record — 'Seven (feat. Latto)' reached 150 weeks on Spotify's Weekly Top Songs Global Chart in May 2026 — in a way that reframes what K-pop solo output can mean in streaming terms. Both records speak to the same underlying shift: that the most commercially powerful K-pop soloists are now building catalogues that behave like Western pop standards, sustaining engagement long after the launch cycle ends. MUSE at 4 billion is not just a solo Jimin record. It is evidence of what K-pop's streaming maturity looks like when its biggest artists are allowed to develop as long-term individual acts.