Songfacts®:

• Released on August 21, 2020, when people worldwide were going through tough times because of COVID-19, this explosive disco-pop song finds BTS looking to spread some joy.
  
  Shining through the city with a little funk and soul
  So I'ma light it up like dynamite
  
  RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, V, Jimin and Jungkook are looking to set the world alight with their music and positive energy.
• J-Hope told USA Today: "We're in this situation that we have, what is it that can lift me up? The conclusion is always going to be music and dance that lifts me up so I've been trying to listen to music, I've been to write music, dance and that's what I've been doing to cope with the situation."
• "Dynamite" is BTS' first song as a lead artist released completely in English, following in the footsteps of their 2018 Steve Aoki collaboration, "Waste It On Me." RM told USA Today when they first listened to the demo, its English lyrics and vibe couldn't be bettered, so they thought why not keep it that way.
  
  He added that the most difficult part was stepping out of the comfort zone of singing in Korean and getting the English pronunciations right. It was a "fun hard," RM noted.
• Jimin's lines on the pre-chorus allude to the disco inspiration of the track:
  
  Disco overload, I'm into that, I'm good to go
  I'm diamond, you know I glow up
  
  BTS is the latest act in a string of acts in 2020 to take inspiration from '70s and '80s disco music. Others include Dua Lipa, Doja Cat and Miley Cyrus.
• London artists David Stewart and Jessica Agombar wrote the song. The pair also release music as two-thirds of the DJ/production trio Mad Teeth.
  
  Agombar was previously a member of the girl group Parade, which had a UK Top 10 hit in 2011 with "Louder."
  
  David Stewart (not the Eurythmics co-founder of the same name) has toured with the likes of Status Quo and Simply Red, and spent five years on the road with singer/rapper Example.
  
  Stewart and Agombar's other songwriting collaborations include Jonas Brothers' "What A Man Gotta Do" and Hailee Steinfeld's "I Love You's."
• The pastel-infused music video has a throwback '70s Los Angeles look as we see the K-Pop titans throwing moves alone in various sets before delivering choreography across an array of glossy, Technicolor backdrops.
• The "Dynamite" video broke the YouTube 24-hour viewing record with 101.1 million views, superseding Blackpink's visual for "How You Like That," which clocked 86.3 million hits in the first 24 hours.
  
  The track also set the record for biggest music video premiere when it garnered over 3 million concurrent viewers on YouTube. BTS again usurped their fellow K-pop stars Blackpink, whose "How You Like That" visual achieved 1.65 million simultaneous viewers within minutes of its release.
  
  BTS broke their own records in May 2021 when their music video for "Butter" clocked up over 3.9 million concurrent views after it premiered on the platform and garnered 108,200,000 views within 24 hours.
• BTS became the first Korean band to debut at #1 on the Hot 100 when "Dynamite" claimed the top spot on the September 5, 2020 tally. The K-Pop superstars' previous best chart-placing had been the #4 they achieved in February 2020 with "On."
• Jessica Agombar explained to Billboard the first seed of the song was, "It needs to be explosive," then explosive became "Dynamite." She added: "It wasn't a particular lyric, it was a bundle of ideas: explosive, fireworks, dynamite, party, fun, energetic, worldwide takeover."
  
  After checking all the enthusiastic fan tweets from the ARMY, Agombar concluded they "just had to match the energy of everything surrounding BTS. It was less a line than a feeling. The BPM had to be quick, we have to have horns. It has to be uptempo."
• BTS recorded "Dynamite" separately from the other BE tracks and originally intended it to be a standalone single. They eventually included it as the last song on the album so they could go out with a bang.
  
  "We haven’t been able to do a concert in quite a while, but we would have the encore and fireworks as the beautiful conclusion to every concert," RM explained in a press conference. "We wanted to have a positive and hopeful end conclusion to this album through 'Dynamite.' We wanted to put it as a finale, like the fireworks at the end of a concert."
• BTS became the first K-pop act to receive a Grammy nomination when "Dynamite" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 2021 awards. It lost to "Rain On Me" by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande, but BTS performed the song on the show from Seoul.
• Despite being released back in the summer of 2020, "Dynamite" was Apple Music's most-streamed song of 2021. Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" came in second place and Ariana Grande's "Positions" in third.
• In the first episode of the second season of Emily In Paris, Emily's friend Mindy Chen (played by Ashley Park) acquires a job as an emcee at a drag bar. She gets on stage and, wearing a gender-bending costume, performs "Dynamite" to a rapturous reception.
• "Dynamite" was the best-selling digital song of 2020 in the United States with 1.26 million sales. It was the only song that year to exceed 1 million downloads.
• BTS performed "Dynamite" as part of the very first World Cup final halftime show, held in New Jersey on July 19, 2026. There was so much star power on the field and so little time that BTS were limited to less than two miuntes. Other performers included Shakira, Madonna, Justin Bieber and The Muppets. Spain won the match, defeating Argentina 1-0.
  
  BTS changed two lines in the lyrics for the occasion:
  
  "King Kong, kick the drum" became "King Kong, kick the ball"
  "Ice tea and a game of ping-pong" became "Ice tea, and a game of football"