by Billboard chose BTS Jin’s ‘The Astronaut’ as the K-pop song of the year.
On December 20, Billboard, an American music media outlet, announced ‘The 25 Best K-Pop Songs of 2022: Staff Picks’.
Jin’s solo song ‘The Astronaut’ was ranked 14th. With the highest ranking for a male solo artist, Jin once again proved his popularity, stardom, and musical talent.
Billboard said, ‘2022 was a time when K-pop artists expressed themselves vocally, thematically, and artistically as they had before, and it undoubtedly paid off well enough.’ He highly evaluated K-pop, which is gaining popularity.
Billboard’s digital director Joe Lynch said, “With ‘The Astronaut,’ Jin made his first solo entry into the HOT100.” He then gave a high evaluation of Jin’s achievements with the impression that “Jin, who has come together again through collaboration with Coldplay, soars into her celestial orbit with this beautiful and romantic song.”
The solo song “The Astronaut,” in which Jin participated in composing and writing the lyrics, received favorable reviews and praise from domestic and foreign critics and media outlets. For example, critic Kim Jae-ha, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, picked Jin’s “The Astronaut” as the best K-pop song of 2022, and was ranked the highest among her Asian solos in the “100 Best Songs of the Year” by Rolling Stone, a prominent American music media.
In the US Billboard Digital Song Sales year-end chart, it ranked 58th with less than a month’s data, demonstrating its mighty brand power, and Japan’s Vilv also ranked as the only K-pop solo artist in the year-end top single sales.
Jin is receiving expectations and attention from all over the world for his high-quality composition and lyric writing ability, broad musical spectrum, ability to digest various song concepts, and vocal skills known by nicknames such as ‘Silver Voice’ and ‘Belting King.’
