A month ago, BTS released the most anticipated album of the decade, and nobody knew what to expect. It’s been close to four years since their last group album, and ARMY has been through multiple solo eras, countless content, and a long and quiet period of waiting for the day that BTS reunites as one.
But the biggest question was never about whether or not BTS will come back again as a whole. That was a given already written in the stars. The big question was what would their comeback be like? What shape would it take, and what direction did they plan on taking for their sound? In ARMY spaces, there was a lot of faith put into BTS, but at the same time, there was a lot of noise and doubt outside of these spaces.
One month in, and the answer is clear. You can see it in the charts, in the streaming platforms, in the tour stages, in the millions of people that tuned in for their comeback, in the thousands of new fans that stepped through the doors of the Magic Shop, and in the thousands of ARMY that celebrated their first tour day in the pouring rain inside and outside of Goyang Stadium.
BTS came back with ARIRANG, the biggest and most phenomenal album of their career.
‘Swim’ was a lowkey song to lead the album with. There was discussion amongst the boys on whether or not they should choose a more exciting sound to promote the album with, but in the end, BTS didn’t want to stray away from their message. It was a song about moving forward at your own pace, and simply showing a love for life. This message was vindicated. ARIRANG debuted number 1 on the Billboard 200, with ‘Swim’ taking the top spot in the Billboard Hot 100 for three consecutive weeks, making BTS the first group in 13 years to achieve such a feat. Even here in New Zealand, ARIRANG debuted at number 1 in the Aotearoa Top 40 Albums chart, and had ‘Swim’, ‘Body to Body’, ‘Hooligan’, and ‘FYA’ take the first four spots in the Aotearoa Hot 40 chart.
BTS really is just built that way, as Jimin puts it! And ARMY always has a way of showing their love and support.
ARIRANG’s success, of course, is also attributed to the record as a whole. Opening hard on hip-hop for the first five tracks, BTS pays homage to their roots of hip-hop, but this time as the mature and creative music veterans that they’ve grown up to be. You can tell that they entered this era with confidence and their heads held high. This is evident especially on ‘Hooligan’, where they also seem to have referenced their Dark & Wild era from long ago.
The second half of the album pivots to more pop and vocal-leaning tracks, opening with ‘Swim’. Among these tracks, it’s hard to choose which are the fan favourites. Songs like ‘Normal’, ‘Like Animals’, and ‘they don’t know ‘bout us’ have had their own moments in the spotlight, and they resonate with ARMY and casual fans alike because of the message they bring.
‘Normal’ opened up to BTS’s vulnerability and their thoughts about fame. ‘Like Animals’, while subject to different interpretations, held a theme of freedom versus restraint. And ‘they don’t know ‘bout us’ was a tad bit darker, as they sang about how anyone says anything about them without truly having an idea of who BTS is.
Then, on the 3rd of April, the deluxe vinyl of ARIRANG dropped and contained a hidden track titled ‘Come Over’, an even more vulnerable song of longing and bittersweet reunions, and almost comes off as an apology for being gone for so long.
ARIRANG ends on a positive note, with ‘Into the Sun’ being a track that looks forward to the future. And the future sure looks bright, because not even a month in, and ARIRANG became the most streamed album in Spotify this year. This really is the new, refined, and improved BTS 2.0 that showcased their identity and their roots.
The real comeback stage happened just a day after ARIRANG dropped. For the first time in nearly four years, BTS performed together for a historical performance at Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square, a site of genuine historical weight in Korean culture. And this choice was not accidental. Gwanghwamun Square was an extension of ARIRANG, with the seven Korean men representing their culture around the world, but at the same time claiming their heritage on their own terms. And this was livestreamed by Netflix globally, with over 18 million viewers tuned in that night.
The ARIRANG content didn’t end there. A week later, Netflix dropped BTS: THE RETURN, which was a documentary about how the album was made. The director Bao Nguyen looked at this documentary through the lens of the myth of Odysseus, a story of someone who leaves for a journey and what this journey meant when they came back. Here, we watch BTS be honest with themselves in the song writing and producing process, in the most unfiltered they can be. They’re exhausted, frustrated, and face creative lumps, but we also see how they eventually make decisions. And we see their brotherhood in action.
Now, BTS has officially embarked on their world tour, probably the biggest tour of the year, with ARMY from all over the world flying all over the world just to get the chance to see them. Even fans without tickets gathered outside Goyang Stadium for the first stop, listening from the outside, and patiently waiting for the day they’ll get to watch BTS upfront.
For the ARMY that stayed through the enlistment era, the solo eras, and held the fandom together during a time when none of the members could be available, the past month has been a kind of confirmation. BTS is back, with a full-group album, holding their honest selves and their identities forward. Records have been broken, records that they themselves held, and opened the biggest tour in K-Pop history.
This comeback started with a question: What is your love song? For BTS and ARMY, this was ARIRANG. This is what the past month showed. The longing, the waiting, and the love shared through the language of music.
This is what ARIRANG is all about.
