Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.
“Normally, life of K-pop artist is really short, but luckily, our life has extended. The pressure is that we have to decide what to keep and what to change, but for those kind of question, no one knows… We’re doing lots of experiments just trying to find out what makes us special and what makes us BTS,” said BTS leader Kim Namjoon in documentary “BTS: The Return.”
No one knows what to do about BTS. Since their debut in 2013, the band has become one of the most famous K-pop acts in history and one of the most influential artists in this last decade. BTS’s popularity has ushered in a golden age of Korean culture gaining influence in the West. Korean music, cinema, cuisine and even trends are suddenly popular, acclaimed and cool. With that rise, however, comes immense pressure.
Public scrutiny has followed the group since they announced a break in 2022. Fans and critics alike widely expected BTS to disband when they decided to pursue solo projects during a staggered mandatory enlistment period. And despite having roughly two months to create “ARIRANG,” the album faced impossibly high expectations, with Slate calling the project the “comeback of a lifetime.”
Personally, even as a huge fan of the group eagerly awaiting the band’s concerts at Stanford Stadium May 16-19, I expected to be let down. I feared this would be another album by multi-millionaires who slowly ran out of steam and inched out of touch with their fanbase of, well, non-millionaires. I was grateful to be proven wrong.
With “ARIRANG,” the group’s 5th studio album released on March 20, BTS proved they still have the chops to create great songs, even on a time crunch, but while the group’s command of rhythm and ear-worming melody speaks for itself, the lyrics — ironically — do not.
“SWIM,” the album’s first single, stands in stark contrast to the rest of the album. Whereas most of the tracks lean heavily into the band’s early sound: heavy, gasping, sometimes gravely rap interspersed with vocal licks and infectious riffs, “SWIM” is measured and subdued.
It opens with moody, near-cinematic synths that shadow laidback rap verses and an even more languid melody. It’s pop perfection for rainy days and slow walks, and for BTS — known for their cutting, energetic verses and truly mind-boggling choreography — making “SWIM” their lead single was deliberate. Immediately, fans understood that this was a new chapter for BTS, and that they wouldn’t necessarily sound the same as before.
“SWIM” is also entirely in English. In fact, three of the 13 songs on this album contain no Korean at all, despite the band having only one of their seven members fluent in English. BTS is one of the most ludicrously famous groups in the world. The question of how to stretch the band’s music to match both their personal cultures and the cultures of an increasing number of Western fans is perplexing, precisely because the group is at the forefront of their peers. There are no references to look at.
Frankly, I don’t mind that there are a few fully English songs on this album because the tracks remain sonically excellent, and I refuse to tell BTS how to be Korean artists on a global stage. After all, I’m hardly qualified.
“Body to Body,” “NORMAL” and “Aliens” are BTS at its best. The lyricism the band has become known for comes through potently, as the songs tackle the members’ longing to play boisterous concerts again, how the epic highs and lows of stardom distort reality itself and the vitriol they’ve received as rising stars breaking into the western market, respectively.
Expertly produced and composed, with enough ear candy to get stuck in your head for hours, these tracks have quickly become my favorites for their unwillingness to choose a lane. Each delivers thoughtful, cutting lyrics that will keep English teacher fans occupied for weeks — while crafting delectable thousand-layer cakes of vocals, harmonies, sound-effect hits and rap. Listeners also got glimmers of their experiments on solo projects shining through, which is something I’m looking forward to seeing more of in future projects.
“No. 29” features mostly silence after the sound of a bell, and it marks a distinct change in the album from rap-heavy to melody-reliant songs, as if a changing of the guard, while the rap line steps back and the vocal team steps forward in driving the album. The bell is the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok, an artifact cast in 771 AD that takes the duration of the track’s length to fade to complete silence.
While “LIKE ANIMALS” and “Merry Go Round” both remind me of songs on the band’s quarantine album “BE” — with lilting, melodic, sometimes haunting vocals atop a driving and comforting beat — other tracks veer more experimental.
The album’s last track, “Into the Sun,” delivers a similar morose-yet-longing-yet-laid-back vibe but uses a vocoder to give the singers’ vocals a robotic quality, save for the last roughly 30 seconds. The result is a futuristic sound that has bitterly divided fans in disparate Twitter takes. It’s BTS’s last swing at pushing its sound to remain interesting and fresh in an album defined by a refusal to get comfortable or play it safe.
Like many Stanford fans, I snatched my tickets to see BTS performing at Stanford Stadium in a heartbeat. And “ARIRANG,” with its daring, energetic tracks ripe in potential for stunning performances — has only raised the bar.