One label, three boy groups: Big Hit Music's twelve-year lineage

BTS, TXT, CORTIS. Six years apart, every time. And in spring 2026, the senior two are sitting next to each other in the Billboard 200 Top 5.

BTS ARIRANG (March), TXT 7th Year (April), CORTIS GreenGreen (May). Three Big Hit Music boy group comebacks in one spring

01The six-year pattern

If you line up Big Hit Music's boy group debuts, the rhythm is almost suspicious. BTS arrived in June 2013. Six years later, in March 2019, TXT debuted, and right after their first comeback the seniors visited the rookies on camera. Six more years after that, in August 2025, CORTIS arrived. The gaps aren't accidental. They're the closest thing K-pop has to a generational handover, mapped out by one label across more than a decade.

What makes the pattern interesting is what each generation actually did with its window. BTS didn't just chart. They became the most globally recognised K-pop group of all time and topped the Billboard 200 seven times. TXT debuted into a label that already had global infrastructure, and used it to land their own number one in 2023 with The Name Chapter: Temptation. CORTIS, the youngest of the three, debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200 with their first EP. That's the second-highest entry ever for a K-pop group's debut album.

TXT's The Name Chapter: Temptation, the album that made them the fifth K-pop act ever to top the Billboard 200

02Martin was already part of the family

Most rookie K-pop boy groups arrive with their members as fresh faces. CORTIS arrived with their leader already credited on songs by four of HYBE's biggest acts. Martin, who turned 17 the year CORTIS debuted, had quietly been writing and producing inside the HYBE ecosystem since 2024. By the time he was officially announced as a CORTIS member in July 2025, his name was already on TXT's Deja Vu and Miracle, ILLIT's Magnetic, LE SSERAFIM's Pierrot, and ENHYPEN's Outside.

Martin, CORTIS's Korean-Canadian leader, who was credited on TXT and ILLIT songs before he ever performed as an idol himself

James, the oldest CORTIS member, has a similar back catalogue. He's credited on TXT's Deja Vu and Miracle alongside Martin, and on ILLIT's Magnetic. He danced as a backup for Jung Kook's Seven live performances. So when CORTIS arrived under Big Hit Music in August 2025, two of their five members were already inside the family tree. They didn't have to introduce themselves to the HYBE ecosystem. The ecosystem had been building them for years.

03The Mic Drop cover, on purpose

In December 2025, four months into their career, CORTIS performed a cover of BTS's Mic Drop at KBS's Music Bank Global Festival in Japan. It's the kind of move that, on paper, looks like just another rookie tribute. In context, it's bigger. Mic Drop is one of the songs that helped break BTS into the American market a decade earlier. Choosing it as a cover wasn't about copying. It was a younger generation acknowledging exactly which doors had been opened for them, and by whom.

By the time the cover happened, CORTIS already had their own credentials lined up. Color Outside the Lines had debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200, the second-highest entry for a K-pop debut album in history. They'd swept the rookie awards at MAMA, the Asia Artist Awards, and the Golden Disc Awards. They'd just been announced as the first Korean boy group to perform at an NBA All-Star Game. The Mic Drop cover wasn't a rookie group reaching upward. It was a rookie group reaching back to mark the line.

04BTS and TXT, Top 5 in the same week

The reason this episode exists right now, specifically, is that something extremely rare is happening on the US chart. BTS released ARIRANG in March 2026, their first studio album as a full group in nearly six years. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 641,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, the largest opening week by any group since the chart began calculating units in 2014. It then held the top spot for three consecutive weeks, the first album from a group to do that since Mumford & Sons in 2012.

While ARIRANG was still in the Top 10, TXT released 7th Year: A Moment of Stillness in the Thorns and debuted at number 3, their eighth Top 10 entry on the Billboard 200. The album also opened at number 1 on Billboard's Top Album Sales chart, making TXT the first K-pop artist ever to score nine number ones on that chart. For one week in late April 2026, TXT held number 3 and BTS held number 4 on the same Billboard 200. Two Big Hit Music groups, sitting next to each other in the Top 5. CORTIS, with their second EP GreenGreen arriving on 4 May, is on track to be the next Big Hit Music boy group on the chart.

05Why this lineup is unusual

K-pop labels run multiple groups all the time. What makes Big Hit Music different is the deliberateness of the spacing. SM Entertainment ran NCT and aespa concurrently, expanding sideways. JYP launched Stray Kids and ITZY in roughly the same window. HYBE's other sub-labels (BELIFT LAB, KOZ, Source Music) each operate one group at a time. Big Hit Music is the only K-pop label that has taken six full years between every flagship boy group launch and let each generation breathe before introducing the next.

The pattern feels old-fashioned in the best way. BTS got to dominate the conversation for the entire 2010s before TXT was even introduced. TXT got six years to build their own identity, fanbase, and Billboard history before CORTIS arrived. CORTIS, in turn, isn't being treated as a junior side project. They debuted with a Republic Records deal in the US, an NBA All-Star booking, and a Billboard 200 chart entry their senior labelmates would have killed for at the same career stage.

5인 시상식 단체컷 (2025 MAMA / AAA / Golden Disc 4관왕)

CORTIS swept the major rookie awards in their debut year. MAMA, the Asia Artist Awards, and the Golden Disc Awards

06What the next year looks like

BTS just opened the ARIRANG World Tour with their first US show in four years, an invite-only Spotify event at Pier 17 in New York where they performed three new tracks for a thousand fans in the cold. TXT's Stick With You from 7th Year has been picking up music show wins, with their comeback showcase performance still circulating online. CORTIS's RedRed dropped on 20 April as the pre-release for GreenGreen, hit number one on YouTube's Trending Worldwide chart the next day, and started running through the Korean music shows that same week. For the first time in K-pop history, three generations of one label's boy groups are all in active promo cycles in the same six-month window.

If KQ's two boy groups in EP.01 felt like a label drawing one line on purpose, Big Hit Music's three generations feel like a label drawing the same line three times. ARMY checks on MOA, MOA chats up COER, and somewhere in there, a Mic Drop cover does a lot of quiet work. It's been twelve years since 2 Cool 4 Skool. The line is still being drawn.