There are very few bands in the world capable of dragging this Zombie out into the world again, but BTS is definitely one of them. So here I am, with a few rambling thoughts on a comeback I didn’t realize how badly I needed until it hit me with all the force of a raging typhoon.
It’s been more than a week now, since BTS made their long-awaited comeback with their fifth full-length studio album, Arirang, and though I know the interwebs are already flooded with about a zillion different opinions on the album, I couldn’t help but feel the time has come for me to share my thoughts as well. Not so much because I think what I have to say is all that important, or even relevant, (Because let’s be real here, how many people out there even know this little blog of mine even exists anymore? Or perhaps the real question is, do people even read blogs anymore???) but because I feel like if I don’t at least attempt to let out some of the feelings I’ve been feeling over the past week, my heart may actually explode!
With the release of Arirang, their Netflix concert live-streamed from Seoul, their NYC Spotify performance, their double appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, their appearances on a number of interviews and variety shows, including Epik High’s Epikase and Hot Issue Ji, and the release of their Netflix-exclusive documentary, BTS the Return, BTS made their global comeback in a way that only BTS could. Which means that not only have we been blessed with what is easily one of the best BTS albums ever recorded, but we have SO MUCH CONTENT available to keep our little ARMY hearts happy for a very, very long time. And that’s a good thing because seriously, have you looked at the world lately? Having a reason to smile every time I sit down to doom scroll is such a glorious relief! I’d honestly almost forgotten what it was like to feel anything other than endless rage, day in and day out, so to feel joy again, after so long, is like taking a big breath of fresh air on a warm “Spring Day”, after enduring endless months of gray, frozen winter. (Eh, eh, see what I did there? ㅋㅋㅋ)
It’s having this feeling of “Euphoria” (sorry, couldn’t help myself) back again that’s making it hard for me to understand why anyone might be less-than-thrilled with BTS’s Arirang. Have people so quickly forgotten what it was like, living in a world where you didn’t have Jimin’s smile on standby, there to brighten up your day, anytime you needed it? Or what it was like to listen to RM & Suga discuss their music and to actually feel how much thought and sheer passion they put into their work? Maybe some people aren’t really digging their “new” sound, but seriously, isn’t having BTS back in your life on a daily basis enough?
Of course I have to put “new” in quotation marks because honestly, any day-one ARMY will tell you that Arirang is every bit as much “BTS” as every other album they’ve ever released. Heck, I would argue that it’s even more so because it feels to me that they’re not only embracing who they are as individuals, but also who they are as both Koreans and global icons. There’s a level of maturity to Arirang that albums like O!RUL8,2? could never reach, but that’s because the members of BTS aren’t the same people they were 12 years ago. Just as I’m not the same person I was 12 years ago and, odds are, neither are you.
The members of BTS have lived lives none of us will ever understand, they have experienced things none of us will ever experience, and they have chosen to step back into this ridiculously insane life as global superstars, because they recognize that the music they make isn’t just music. It’s a message, of hope, of encouragement, of understanding, of solidarity, and most importantly, love. If you take time to really listen to Arirang, to look up the lyrics you don’t understand, to sit with them and the message therein, you begin to understand that there’s so much more to this album than a collection of killer tracks, it’s not just music, it’s a baring of the soul.
Which, again, is why I have to wonder at so many of the negative comments I’ve seen regarding this album. “It’s not Korean enough.” “It’s not BTS enough.” “It’s too pop-y.” “It’s not pop-y enough.” “It’s got too much English.” This list of complaints goes on and on and on and every time I come across one, my reaction is the same because, seriously!? BTS was gone for four years and the second they come back the only thing some people can do is complain about how it doesn’t meet their limited expectations and dares to challenge their personal understanding of who BTS is? For the love of Jimin’s jams!
Being an American, I can’t speak to the depth of Korean authenticity BTS has imparted in their album on any sort of personal level, because again, I’m not Korean. But that doesn’t mean that information isn’t out there, for anyone willing to look. There are plenty of Korean content creators, who have shared some truly interesting and insightful context for this album and I have thoroughly enjoying hearing their thoughts on everything from the history of “Arirang” (as in the folk song itself) and its inclusion in “Body to Body,” the resonance of the Sacred Bell of Great King Seongdeok which is featured in “No. 29”, the social significance of “Aliens” lyrics, and so much more. There are so many layers of “Koreaness” to this album that to say otherwise just feels so wrong. For anyone interested, I’d recommend taking just a couple of minutes to check out the National Museum of Korea and posts by creators like Jinwoo Park on Instagram. I’m not kidding when I say Park Jin Woo’s posts alone have inspired a whole new level of respect for BTS, their vision for this album and its execution. It’s really quite fabulous!
As for those who choose to be upset over the musical styles BTS chose to showcase with this album, I’m not even sure what to say. Day-one ARMY know that BTS started out as a group of baby thugs who thought hip-hop meant rockin’ big chains, truly tragic hair (sorry, RM), and a big tough-guy attitude. (See 2 COOL 4 SKOOL’s “We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2”, for reference.) The fact that they chose to use the first half of Arirang to remind us that hip-hop, in all its forms, is and always will be the very foundation of the group, is something that makes my day-one heart so freaking happy, I’m almost at a loss for words. Almost.
To those who first discovered BTS during their more pop-centric, colorful, “Dynamite,” “Butter,” “Permission to Dance” days, I can understand why tracks like “Hooligan,” “Aliens,” and “2.0” might throw you off a bit, but these tracks and this style aren’t new. They’re just the group’s latest take on a style that’s been evolving since their debut. I’m sure I’m not the only early-ARMY who remembers the last time BTS took a trip to LA to hone their craft. Surely someone out there remembers what we got as a result? Dark & Wild still ranks as one of my top favorite BTS albums and for good reason. Anytime these guys go to LA to work, they come home with a friggin’ masterpiece!
As to the amount of English used in Arirang, to quote my children, “Be so for real right now!” Having spent the better part of two decades listening to non-American artists, I can tell you that any international artist who wants to increase their global reach knows that adding English lyrics is an absolute must. HYBE management knows this (they said as much during the documentary) and so English lyrics were used, not to overshadow the Korean, but to ensure that its reach went as far as possible. Because, as should be abundantly clear, singing a song with English lyrics doesn’t automatically negate the culture from which it originates. You think One OK Rock is any less Japanese because they release albums filled with songs in English? Of course not! The very idea is preposterous and so is the notion that BTS is somehow less Korean because they’ve given us songs in English. The use of English is just one more point of proof that BTS understands who they are and what is expected of them. To be a global phenomenon you have to connect to a global audience and like it or not, English is one of the ways an artist can ensure that connection.
Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I’m not here to tell anyone that they’re right or wrong. I’m just here to apply my personal artistic and creative literacy to an album that has been on repeat since its release over a week ago. (Sometimes having a neurospicy brain that likes to hyperfixate isn’t such a bad thing!) For me, Arirang is everything I wanted in a BTS comeback album and so much more. It’s got enough high-energy, hip-hop tracks to make my Dark & Wild-loving heart happy but it’s also got a depth and range that absolutely blows me away. Being a long-time lover of BTS’s slower tracks (“Save Me” and “Lie” still somehow manage to make my heart do the strangest things), loving songs like “Swim” and “NORMAL” has been so easy. “NORMAL” makes me weep everytime it plays, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like having such a sweet reminder to just keep swimming, even when life feels too big and overwhelming, is exactly what the world needs right now. But for me personally, it’s “Like Animals” that has completely stolen my heart.
It’s no secret that as much as I love K-pop, rock is the music of my soul. So the very first time I heard “Like Animals,” my soul wept. This song is like nothing I ever dreamed BTS would release but it’s everything I needed. The impact of a power ballad should never be underestimated but one that floats somewhere between late-90s grunge and early-2000s emo, with its transitions from clean acoustics into this grungy, distorted, wailing guitar… Oh be still my wildly beating teenage heart!
To say I love this song would be such an understatement. But it’s not just the melody that has soul weeping, it’s the lyrics as well. As someone who has spent too much of her life being forced to live a box of preconceived ideas of who and what I should be, who has spent the better part of the last decade fighting to tear myself out of that soul-crushing box, and who has only in the last couple of years begun to explore what life can be now that, for the first time in my entire life, I’m free to be who and what I want, I can tell you, this song hits hard and deep. To be invited to “eat this life until your heart is full” after being starved (for years) of all the beauty and goodness this life has to offer, and to be reminded that there are so many others out there, just as free and “untamable” as you are now, who are happy to welcome you into the fold, so to speak… How does one even begin to describe what that feels like? It’s overwhelming in all the best ways, which is probably why I have such a hard time listening to this song without bawling my eyes out.
To say I love Arirang feels like such a gross understatement. It’s such a fantastic piece of art that brilliantly displays the many facets of BTS and there isn’t a single track I don’t love, for one reason or another. Every time I listen to it, I find something else to love and I couldn’t be more grateful to BTS willingly stepping back into a role they could have just as easily walked away from. After all, how many K-pop groups have enlisted in their military service and then faded quietly into oblivion? To understand the weight they were picking back up by returning as BTS, and make the conscious decision to step back into that life couldn’t have been easy. I have the utmost respect for each and every member of BTS and I am eternally grateful to them for making this comeback. Not only does having them back give me new reasons to smile every day (I had seriously forgotten how much fun their social shenanigans could be), but I’ve got a brand-new album on repeat that is straight-up “FYA!” (Yeah… I went there.) For the first time in a long time, the sun seems to be shining just a little bit brighter and my heart is full, all because BTS is back, baby, and with any luck they’ll be giving ARMY reasons to smile for a long, long time!