'Life Goes On' Hits 600M Views, and Jungkook Directed the Video

BTS's Life Goes On music video passed 600 million views on YouTube at 12:34 a.m. KST on July 12, Big Hit Music confirmed, nearly five years after the video first appeared in November 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That longevity is characteristic of the group's deeper catalog, which has continued accumulating views well into the members' military service period.

The song was the title track of BTS's seventh mini-album, BE (Deluxe Edition), and carries a particular production footnote: member Jungkook served as director of the music video, one of the earlier examples of a BTS member taking a behind-the-camera role on a major release. The video depicted the members performing in an empty venue, a deliberate reference to the conditions of that era, when large-scale fan gatherings were suspended worldwide. The mood it captured, quiet and interior rather than celebratory, gave the song a different kind of staying power from BTS's more high-energy releases.

On the same day, NewJeans' Right Now crossed 100 million streams on Spotify, according to their label ADOR. As of July 10, the track had logged exactly 100,054,018 plays on the platform. It is the group's 16th song to reach the nine-figure mark on Spotify, a count that reflects both the volume of NewJeans releases and the consistency with which their catalog has performed internationally.

Right Now was included on Supernatural, NewJeans' Japanese debut single released in June 2024. Built around a drum-and-bass rhythm structure, the track sat alongside the title song on domestic charts at the time of release, a relatively uncommon outcome for a B-side. The drum-and-bass influence, still a minority genre choice in mainstream K-pop production, gave the track a distinct texture that apparently translated well to repeat listening, which is ultimately what Spotify's stream counts measure.

Both milestones arrived on the same morning, though they represent different platform logics: YouTube views accumulate through discovery and replay over years, while Spotify streams tend to cluster closer to release before settling into a slower long-tail pace. That Life Goes On is still moving at scale in 2025, and that Right Now crossed 100 million within roughly 13 months of release, speaks to how differently catalog depth and release cadence operate for each act at this stage of their careers.