The 2025 American Music Awards (AMAs) delivered one of the most anticipated wins of the ceremony, as South Korean global K-pop phenomenon BTS claimed the prestigious Artist of the Year award for the second consecutive year, outperforming some of the biggest names in Western popular music to solidify their standing as the world’s most popular musical act. The seven-member group, which includes RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook, edged out A-list competitors Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Bad Bunny, and Lady Gaga to take home the AMAs’ highest honor, the latest in a string of career milestones following the band’s highly anticipated return from an extended break earlier this year.
After pausing group activities in 2022 to allow all members to complete South Korea’s mandatory military service, BTS made their full group comeback in March 2025 with the release of their fifth studio album *Arirang*, and quickly launched a $1 billion world tour that has broken venue attendance and revenue records across every stop. Beyond the top Artist of the Year prize, the group also added a second AMA to their 2025 collection, winning Song of the Summer for their *Arirang* lead single “SWIM”. In a testament to the growing global influence of their Korean label, fellow labelmates Katseye took home New Artist of the Year in the same ceremony.
Other notable winners from this year’s AMAs included “GOLDEN”, the breakout viral single from the hit animated film *K-Pop Demon Hunters*, which claimed the award for Song of the Year, while Sabrina Carpenter won Album of the Year for her project *Man’s Best Friend*. For the Song of the Summer category, BTS also defeated additional high-profile nominees Harry Styles, Tame Impala, and PinkPantheress to secure the win.
Unlike many major music awards where winners are selected by industry panels, the AMAs structure its voting process entirely around public participation: nominees are shortlisted based on commercial performance metrics like streaming and sales, but the final decision rests entirely on fan votes cast through the official AMAs website and social media platforms. This format makes the awards a de facto test of a star’s global fan base mobilization — and no fandom has a longer or more proven track record of coordinated engagement than BTS’s dedicated fan community, known universally as ARMY, an acronym for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth.
With millions of devoted members spread across dozens of countries, the decentralized ARMY network has long been cited as the core engine behind BTS’s unprecedented meteoric rise from a small South Korean hip-hop act to a global cultural phenomenon. ARMY regularly organizes coordinated online campaigns to boost the group’s streaming numbers, flood radio stations with song requests, and sell out stadium tours in minutes, demonstrating a level of dedication unmatched by most other fan communities worldwide.
Accepting the award on behalf of the group, BTS leader RM, 31, centered his acceptance speech on gratitude to the fandom that delivered the win. “Armys, we did it once again! Since this is a fan-voted award, our biggest thanks and gratitude, as always, go to Armys all over the world,” he told the ceremony audience.
Critical reception to BTS’s comeback album *Arirang* has been largely positive, with BBC music critics hailing the project as a “genuine return to form” that rekindled the creative fire that drove the group’s earliest global successes. Speaking during the acceptance, member J-Hope, 32, echoed RM’s thanks to fans for embracing the group’s new work. “We’ve had such an overwhelming response to this album. Honestly, thank you for embracing *Arirang* and every single song on this album. We’re so grateful,” he said.
Member Jimin, 30, also thanked fans for their ongoing support through the group’s world tour, which is currently traveling across North America. “Thank you for following us on tour and showing us so much love in every city. And to all the Armys who always support and love us, thank you. We love you,” he added.
The record-breaking world tour is scheduled to wrap in June 2025 with a series of homecoming shows in Busan, South Korea, timed to coincide with the 13th anniversary of BTS’s original debut in 2012. For the group, the back-to-back Artist of the Year wins at the AMAs, one of the most watched mainstream music awards in the United States, confirms that their global popularity has only grown stronger in the years since their initial hiatus, cementing their legacy as one of the most successful musical acts of the 21st century.