Thirty-Nine Billion…Yet the Artistry
As of mid-July 2024, BTS’s songs have accumulated 39,880,785,654 streams on Spotify. Their music video for Dynamite has 1,852,952,520 views on YouTube. Billions. Descriptions of BTS’s success almost always use capitalistic terminology of sales, streaming, awards, and chart placement; these numbers will continue defining them as artists of a generation. This financial success is celebrated by their ARMY because these achievements allow BTS members the freedom to pursue their musical vision, together and separately in their solo work. However, BTS’s artistic accomplishments exceed the language of capitalism; it is their artistry that provides a more evocative and long-lasting way of describing their impact.
BTS’s discography to date can be divided into eras, in release order: “Pre-Debut,” “School Trilogy,” “Youth Trilogy,” “Wings,” “Love Yourself,” “Map of the Soul,” “BE,” “Butter and Permission to Dance,” and “Proof.” Most of these eras contain thematic cohesion across multiple albums and eras. Their almost 200 songs are part of a years-long arc of storytelling and keywords across varied musical genres and visual media, including music videos and VCRs (pre-prepared videos shown during interludes of their concerts).
Echoing lyrical references, keywords, and images extend throughout their entire discography, complement each other, and build story, layer upon layer, including in members’ solo albums. The cohesion of this storytelling ecosystem is intricately prepared and planned. This approach provides reference points across their oeuvre, including through material which might not be considered “artistic” in the traditional sense, such as interviews and in their Lives, where they talk to their fans intimately, thoughtfully, and freely about their artistry.
There are many instances of how they bring about this complexly envisioned artistry, including in their use of vivid nature metaphors and imagery. As only one example, desert and ocean themes are present in both their first and most recent albums. In RM’s spoken word hidden track, “Skit: On the Start Line,” on their first album, 2013’s Too Cool 4 Skool, he says: “Even after I debut, a different ocean and a different desert will be waiting for me. But I am not a bit afraid. Because what has shaped me now are that ocean and that desert I once saw through.”
These desert and ocean images provide a throughline for their stage performances and music videos, all the way up to their latest album, 2022’s Proof, where the visual design of the title track video for Yet to Come (The Most Beautiful Moment) echoes the blues and ochres of the ocean and desert. The music video begins as Jungkook walks atop a desert sand dune with audio of wind and ocean waves playing gently in the background. This imagery arises again as the video ends, with ocean and seagull sounds and BTS members reenacting a beloved scene from their Spring Day music video, awash in the colors of the ocean and desert.
There are many more examples of the carefully nurtured artistic vision throughout the work of BTS and we will explore them in other essays. History will be kind to BTS’s success. Discussion may perhaps always begin with statements on economic achievements, but it is their poetic lyrics, creative stage performances, story-telling ecosystem, visual genius, and other aspects of their artistry which will be their most long-lasting contributions to humanity’s winding journey toward loving and making sense of the world through art.
— Kim
