BTS are winning hearts the world over – but we are still wary of language diversity

In 2017, Toni Watson was busking on the streets of Byron Bay. A couple of years later, using the moniker Tones and I, her song about that experience would become the world’s most played track.
Dance Monkey has now been streamed a billion times. It was the most popular track last week in Israel, Malaysia and Switzerland and has been in Spotify’s top ten in over 50 markets.
Yet, this kind of global chart success is largely confined to English lyric hits. Despite the changes to music access, pop songs lag behind other industries in globalisation – particularly in terms of the language in which they are sung.