BTS's 'SWIM' Becomes First K-Pop Group Song on Apple Music's 2026 Best Songs List

BTS has added another first to a comeback year full of them. The group’s ARIRANG title track ‘SWIM’ has been named to Apple Music’s global ‘2026 Best Songs’ list, making BTS the first K-pop group ever to place a song on the year-end playlist, which selects 100 songs that defined the year.

Star News reported the news on November 11, noting that ‘SWIM’ also appears on three of Apple Music’s ‘2026 Best Playlists’: A-List Pop, Viral Hits, and KPOPWRLD. The placement caps a year in which the song has already collected major honors in Western pop music.

Apple Music praised the comeback behind the song, writing that BTS’s ‘ARIRANG’ return “was a moment K-pop had long awaited” and that “years of built-up anticipation came to fruition in a meaningful return.” The platform added that the group “redefined the flow of K-pop in 2026.”

‘ARIRANG’ itself is still charting. The album sits at No. 62 on the Billboard 200 dated November 14, its 33rd week on the chart, after debuting at No. 1 on April 4 and spending three consecutive weeks at the top. It also ranks No. 24 on Top Album Sales and No. 30 on Adult Contemporary.

‘SWIM’ climbed five places to No. 28 on the Billboard Global 200 this week and holds No. 14 on the Global Excl. U.S. chart. Album track ‘NORMAL’ also appears on the Global Excl. U.S. chart at No. 114.

Released on March 20, ‘ARIRANG’ is BTS’s fifth full-length album and the group’s first together in three years and nine months, following the members’ military service. ‘SWIM’ debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 4 and spent 20 weeks on the chart, while reaching No. 2 on the U.K. Official Singles Chart.

The song’s trophy case already includes Song of the Year at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards in September and Song of the Summer at the American Music Awards, and it passed 1 billion Spotify streams on October 24 — the first song released in 2026 to reach the mark. A copyright lawsuit filed over ‘SWIM’ in July was withdrawn on November 4.

BTS takes the ‘ARIRANG’ era back on the road next, opening the Southeast Asia leg of the BTS WORLD TOUR ‘ARIRANG’ in Kaohsiung on November 19, with 15 shows across five cities including Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Jakarta.