BTS, Olivia Rodrigo battle on the Billboard music charts

Top: BTS; BelowL Olivia Rodrigo's album cover.

When was the last time you saw two Asian and Asian American acts battle it out for top of the music charts? How about, never?

It's an historic tossup between BTS and Olivia Rodrigo in determining who had the best week on Billboard's music charts.

BTS' new single, "Butter," sung in English, took over the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, knocking Rodrigo's "Good 4 U" down a peg to No. 2.

The 7-member K-pop group became only the seventh artist to earn their first four Hot 100 No. 1 in less than a year, joining the likes of The Beatles and Mariah Carey, according to Billboard. BTS also had four of their songs debut at No. 1 in only nine months

However, the Filipino American singer/songwriter also has the No. 3 record, "Deja Vu." In addition, unheralded "Traitor" debuted at No. 9. All three of her songs from her debut album "Sour," which debuted at the No. 1 spot in the Billboard 200 chart for albums. In fact, all 11 of the album's songs are in the top 30, including Rodrigo's first hit "Driver's License," that held the No. 1 spot for a record-setting eight straight weeks.

Thanks to her three top 10s this week, Rodrigo makes history as the first artist to achieve  three songs in the Hot 100's top 10 simultaneously from her first album.

The race to the top has generated a brewing rivalry between the fans of the Korean pop group who has been around for 10 years and amassed a huge fan base calling itself the "Army," and the 18-year old Filipina American who was a virtual unknown prior to "Drivers License" exploded onto the charts in January this year. She is so new, her fans haven't even adopted a name for themselves. 

Fanning the budding rivalry was a article released in Korea that offended the Army because it teased that it would be about BTS but turned out to be click-bait for Rodrigo. BTS fans perceived the tactic a cheap and offensive way of getting the attention of Korea's music fans and began attacking Rodrigo online.

On June 2, the Army's ire was redirected towards Billboard, the source for the controversial article.