“Map of the Soul: 7”: An Extremely Long Album Review
Hello!
I originally wrote this review thread of BTS’s new album Map of the Soul: 7 on Twitter over the course of two weeks. It ended up being 15,000 words long, but that wasn’t the plan. My original goal was to write a quick thread during a late-night train ride from New York to D.C. This explains why the reviews got so much longer as I kept going.
I sought to analyze and contextualize the lyrics within BTS’s discography and history while also talking about the music and production itself. I’m not a professional music critic (though I did cover music as a staffer at the East Bay Express once upon a time), nor am I the most educated ARMY. One inherent weakness of this song-by-song approach is I don’t talk enough about the album as a whole, but I tried to do some of that in each review. Because I was writing this semi-informally, I started getting sentimental and personal. I also came away with a deeper appreciation of a beautifully complex record that deserves more serious engagement and analysis in the mainstream.
Lastly, I used @doyou_bangtan’s English translations for every song, except for “UGH” and “Outro: Ego,” for which I used @doolsetbangtan’s work. Much thanks to them, and to the translation community as a whole, for all their brilliance, hard work, dedication, and generosity.
And thank you for reading.
— Lenika
1. INTRO: PERSONA
“The superhero I wished to be, I think I’ve really become him now”
This song is two minutes and 51 seconds of pure RM. Ever the musician-philosopher, he starts out by asking a question he knows he’ll probably never be able to answer and proceeds to try to answer it anyway by staging a Socratic dialogue with himself — or, more accurately, with his various selves.
Fittingly, the song samples “Intro: Skool Luv Affair,” which begins with a skit in which RM, Suga, and J-Hope do something similar — each attempting to answer a single question “What is Bangtan’s style?” in his own way until RM interjects to declare that Bangtan’s style is “hip hop.”
The song, which is a propulsive introduction to the record, is indeed hip hop, but it’s also rock — it’s got this driving electric-guitar riff that seems to chase RM’s as he raps almost without taking a breath. His voice is the track’s most powerful instrument; he stays studiously with the beat, ever the conscientious and self-controlled leader, as he slips effortlessly between Korean and English.
It’s almost as though RM were given a prompt — write a song about what having a “persona” means to you — and he delivered a perfect musical essay about the joys and perils of creating and living behind a mask. Yes, the lyrics are dense, but they feel human and organic and genuinely searching. The words have soul. It’s telling that, in response to a question about who he is, he answers with what he wants to do. He is his own ambition and desire, embodied.
“The ‘me’ that I want to be,
the ‘me’ that the people want
The ‘me” that you love
and the me that I craft”
2. BOY WITH LUV FEAT. HALSEY
“You, the star that makes the trivial things not trivial at all”
The record’s first OT7 song is a bright, poppy, candy-colored, sweet (pick your cliché), synth-filled bop with a bouncing bass line. If the previous song, “Intro: Persona” was a deliberately solipsistic endeavor, “Boy With Luv” turns outward. Where RM barraged himself with his own questions, in this song, Jimin begins with a stream of queries for the listener. “How’s your day?” “What makes you happy?” He’s an eager student — almost a schoolboy — ready to learn. No wonder the title invokes the innocence of older songs such as “Boyz With Fun” and “Boy in Luv.”
I love the Korean title for the song, which translates as “A Poem for Small Things,” because “Boy With Luv” does feel like an ode to things often dismissed as frivolous. Love is the act of paying attention to the little things about someone, and it is the act of caring about the little things that matter to someone. This track gets a romantic and airy lift from the “oh my my my”s and “oh ah oh ah oh ah”s. It’s a breezy, openhearted poem for ARMY that references the thrill of “falling for” someone (“You got me high so fast”), and of realizing how large and important you can grow in another person’s eyes.
But the lyrics don’t take this external adoration and affirmation at face value; in his verse, J-Hope treats such praise with thoughtful distance. “Everyone says that I, once so small, have become a hero / I say that stuff like ‘destiny’ was never mine to begin with.” The gestures at humility, these attempts at self-checking, return with RM’s verse: “I’ll just come out and say it, There were times in which I unknowingly became arrogant.” He then draws on a lovely metaphor, saying that “with the wings of Icarus that you gave me, I’d fly not to the sun, but to you” — rather than chasing the fire and the light, up into the atmosphere where the air is thin and doom is certain, he wants to fly to a place of safety and comfort. He wants to go — where else? — to that place which has become his home.
“Your pain is my pain”
3. MAKE IT RIGHT
“In an eternal night with no glimmer of the end, you were the one to gift me the morning”
The third song builds on some of the themes established in “Boy With Luv” : the disbelief at having become someone’s “hero”; the choice to accept that mantle and responsibility; the decision to traverse great distances for the love object. There are gorgeous falsettos and harmonies in this song from the vocal line; the song itself is…very Ed Sheeran!…but BTS take it and make it their own, particularly with the rap verses. It’s a very radio-friendly single, one that I, like many people, far prefer to the version with Lauv.
I don’t have quite as many thoughts about this song as I did about the last couple, but I did want to talk about the imagery of the sea and the desert that BTS often comes back to in their lyrics. I’m thinking particularly about “Sea,” the hidden track on Love Yourself: Her. BTS are, it’s no understatement to say, obsessed with the duality of these two types of environments — the arid nothingness of the desert and the watery everythingness of the sea — and how they illustrate the dissonance of looking at what they started out with (nothing) versus what they have now (everything).
“Crossing deserts and seas in a wide, wide world, I wandered fruitlessly.”
4. JAMAIS VU
“I blame myself for not having been perfect”
“Jamais Vu”!!!!! She always deserved more attention!!!! The first subunit track, which features J-Hope, Jungkook, and Jin, takes its title from the French word for the misperception that something that’s familiar is being experienced for the first time. (Think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which RM says is his favorite movie.) You don’t need to know what the lyrics mean to grasp the longing and regret in the trio’s voices. There’s a futile circularity to the relationship being described.
Sonically, this ballad is all about the layered vocals, with the other instrumentation kept to a relative minimum for BTS. I appreciate that the lyrics feel specific to the members singing — the song begins with Jin and Jungkook, two of Bangtan’s biggest gamers, using an extended gaming metaphor. They sing about wanting to reload a relationship after having lost, of being able to try again. The song invokes the notion of a shadow, however briefly, and draws on the theme of equivalence that surfaced on “Boy With Luv” (“my pain is your pain”): “Even if my shadow grows larger, my life and yours is an equal sign. / So my remedy is your remedy.” These references to symbiosis, to interdependence, are constant in BTS’s lyrics.
“Even if it’s repeated countless times, I’ll still run once again.”
5. DIONYSUS
“The arts is also alcohol, after all; if you drink, you get drunk, fool.”
For my own sanity, I will not dig into the bottomless Greek mythology allusions here! I’m not an expert, and plenty of people have done great analyses elsewhere! This is the hype song of the record thus far, after “Intro: Persona.” To be honest, when I first heard “Dionysus,” I didn’t love it; it was the sort of heavily produced, rap-rock-ish track that I don’t gravitate toward. The sections didn’t seem to fit together well. The track could be shorter.
My feelings about this song changed a lot after watching a slew of stage performances. Holy shit. The aspects of “Dionysus” that had felt like weaknesses to me — the overload of sonic elements, the overproduction — somehow made it ideal for an epic live performance with impressively demanding choreography. (Thinking of that clip of the members slumping over unable to breathe or move as soon as the 2019 MMAs stage ended.) The aim of the song is to disorient, to recreate the feeling of losing control, and it achieves that in part through the manipulated vocals and overwhelming percussion. There are basically no moments of aural repose here and only two modes: loud and louder.
Only BTS would create a party song about getting wasted and then be like, Actually, if you think about it, enjoying very good art is kinda the same thing as getting wasted. Sure it is, Bangtan! Of course this is a song that intersperses calls to take shots with phrases like “the torment of creating” and “the scoldings of society.” My favorite part of “Dionysus” is Suga’s verse, not just because of his absurd flow, but also because of the lines, “Born as a Kpop idol and reborn as an artist / Reborn again as an artist, reborn again as an artist / What does it matter, whether I’m an idol or an artist, cheers.” This feels like something of a mission statement for BTS these days. Yes, they talk about themselves as artists, but they don’t see that identity as necessarily at odds with being idols. Other people might get pressed about the distinction, but not them.
“A new record is a fight, a fight with one’s self.”
6. INTERLUDE: SHADOW
“Try smiling — what’re you hesitating for? Wasn’t this the kind of thing you were hoping for?”
Deep breath in. Loud exhale out. Okay.
If “Dionysus” was the Bacchanalian celebration, “Interlude: Shadow” is the comedown, the hangover, the day-after. The conceit here is simple. Suga raps and sings about flying and falling, about reaching heights and depths. The title fits not only with the series’ broader Jungian concept, but also with an idea that Suga has fixated on for some time now: the notion that the brighter a light gets, the dark its corresponding shadow is. The thought might feel oppressive, but it’s also perfectly natural — like how when one side of a seesaw goes up, the other side comes down. Or how when you press the key of a brown piano, a sound rings out.
The song samples “Intro: O!RUL8,2?” a track that feels antithetical in some ways to “Shadow.” Yes, both talk about dreams; both display an empathy for one’s younger self, but “O!RUL8,2” revolves around what might be seen as easy, aspirational platitudes about life. “You only live once.” “Take chances and never regret.” “Shadow,” meanwhile, is all about having followed that advice and still feeling haunted by regret, by the fear that you’ve made the wrong choice. Where “Persona” saw RM having a lively, productive debate with himself about fame and the identities he’s created, “Shadow” sees Suga confronting his aggressive, darker self.
“Shadow” starts with the sound of a tape change, much like “Seesaw” did, signaling that a new act has commenced. Suga begins by hypnotically reciting a list of dreams; he wants nothing short of the entire world. He repeats the same intro in two slightly different ways: The first time, he sounds bored, as though the incantation holds no more power for him because he has achieved all of these things. The second time, Suga’s voice is a little louder and more urgent; he sounds like a young performer hyping himself up before going onstage to face the bright lights (think of the opening of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”). Suga plays around with his flow a lot in the following verse, in ways we’ve never quite heard him do before.
Then comes the chorus, which — to my delight and surprise — sees him singing. His voice refracted through an Autotune processor sounds fearful and pleading: “Don’t let me fly, don’t let me down.” I love when pitch-altering is done thoughtfully for powerful emotional effect, and I think that’s what Suga, Ghstloop, and El Capitxn accomplished when producing the track. Keep in mind also that this is the second solo in a row in which Suga sings for a significant portion of the track. His progress as a vocalist over the last seven years has been incredible.
The final act is when shit goes from very good to fucking great. Suga repeats the list from the intro again, only this time, ominous synths start blaring and closing in claustrophobically. The beat changes, and then Suga’s “shadow” starts rapping in a distorted, demented voice. He sounds angry and taunting, but the content of his words isn’t so terrifying. This alternate self is simply demanding surrender and acceptance: “I’m you and you’re me…you’re me and I’m you…we’re you, we’re me.”
These lyrics made me think of the 2019 Bangtan Attic from last year’s Festa. At one point, the question of possessing various selves comes up; I think Jimin broaches the topic. I remember Suga’s answer distinctly: Rather than getting worked up about having many different faces he presents the the world, he normalizes this practice, pointing out that this is something literally everyone does for the most banal of reasons. No one is the exact same person around everyone. All of our selves are still “us.” It was fascinating to see him dramatize this existential battle in song form, and arriving at a conclusion that suggests not defeat, but having — however painfully — reached a place of wisdom.
“The more lights that burn upon us, the more shadows there have to be.”
7. BLACK SWAN
“Not one song touches my heart, I scream a soundless scream”
There’s no way around it. The first time you listen to this song, it’s kinda a sexy bop. The second time you listen to it, after reading the lyrics, you’re crying in the club.
I’ve commented before on how impressive I think it is that “Black Swan,” to the casual, non-Korean-speaking listener, sounds like a gleaming-black, emo-rap-infused pop groove with its “nah nah nah”s and “yeah yeah yeahs.” But as soon as you read the lyrics (YES, THE LYRICS MATTER!), “Black Swan” is crushing. It’s a dirge dressed up as a dance track. The song is a eulogy for the love of one’s craft — imagine a dancer whose body moves out of habit rather than ecstasy. The audience might not realize it, seeing only beautiful movement and utter control, but the dancer feels that creeping rot in every vein. The lyrics, pulsing with a sense of depletion and exhaustion, read at times like a horror story: There are violent waves, a monster grabbing at one’s ankle, soundless screams, dreams of drowning.
Probably the biggest error I made when listening to this song was mishearing “film it now” as “feeling me now.” It was confusing! And hence why it sounded like a sexy bop. “All the moments become eternities…film it now, film it now.” I interpreted this line through the lens (no pun intended) of BTS constantly being followed by cameras. All the discrete moments — a nap on a couch, snack time, a car ride, a workout session — get recorded and catalogued and broadcast and consumed voraciously, enduring as part of the formless mass of Forever. This constant stream of images is one byproduct of BTS’s fame (as are the merchandising and brand ambassadorships). Film it now. Record this — for yourself and for us, even if it means us sacrificing a piece of ourselves to you with each click of the digital shutter. What, then, about the music?
When the song first debuted, many people commented on the heavy vocal processing that made the individual members’ voices at times indistinguishable from one another. Yes, this might have been done for purely stylistic reasons, but I like the interpretations that this was done more for symbolic reasons. Where Suga’s voice was AutoTuned in “Shadow” to great emotional effect, I think the purpose here was cerebral. BTS has long been one of the rare idol groups that genuinely celebrates its members’ individuality, but the guys are nonetheless part of a single entity. What must it feel like to RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook to constantly lose their borders and to bleed into one another? (Even the “7” on the album cover design comprises 7 different sevens, overlaid on one another, just as the seven members’ lives are all stitched together.) Though uncanny at times to listen to — especially for fans who pride themselves on being able to easily distinguish between voices — “Black Swan” is one of the album’s true gems and a piece of pop genius.
“In the deepest depths, I saw myself”
8. FILTER
“Please look at me now”
“Filter” said, “lol you thought that ‘Black Swan’ was the sexy bop? Hold my body rolls.” Jimin’s Latin-pop-inspired solo song continues the grand BTS tradition of making alluring tracks that are actually about something sad or fraught. It also features, to my ear, some of Jimin’s best and most interesting vocal work. Bighit’s communications team weren’t lying when they wrote that this song would show different sides of the singer-dancer. I’m used to breathy Jimin, but not deep-voiced, throat-y Jimin. (Okay. Yes.)
Over three minutes, Jimin turns up the heat until you don’t realize you’re about to pass out. He puts on a desirous, enticing voice, performing the very idea he’s singing about — turning himself into whatever the listener wants. Over a finger-picked guitar, he holds out promises like gold coins: “I’ll take you to a completely new world.” He embraces the role his fans have assigned to him and that he has assigned himself: “Cutie Sexy Lovely.” He openly acknowledges the duality that he’s capable of: “I get cuter the more you look at me, crazy cute.”
The lyrics also do some sly visual criticism; Jimin sings from a place of self-awareness and power, but also from a place of vulnerability. He is aware of the gaze imposed on him and of how little control he has over it at times. There’s a strain of desperation to his voice and to the words he whispers: “You’re the one that made me” and “I’m going to be new each day for you.”
@poursomesuga had a great interpretation of how Jimin yells “brand! new! filter!” in the penultimate verse (though honestly I think this applies to any time he says “pick! your! filter!” too): “The delivery of these words sounds like an advertisement, a commercial, a tagline on a billboard. like jimin is presenting himself as a product for mass consumption, and we are here to BUY.” And we are, aren’t we? This goes for any member, any idol group, for many other celebrities. They traffic in art but also in personas. Even if fans are never able to possess these artists, they can use them as a sort of gauzy veil, a filter to place over their lives to see the world in new or more special ways. This is true, of course, for BTS themselves, who are never quite seen clearly for who they are, but through the projections of their fans and through the characters they in turn project. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Filter” is at the top of my list of solo songs for Map of the Soul: 7 — it’s different than anything BTS has ever made, it’s perfectly suited to Jimin’s voice, the production is fantastic. It didn’t need to also have profound lyrics embedded with a nuanced critique of fame and perception — but, of course, it did.
“We’ll become a new ‘us’”
9. MY TIME
“Why am I the only one in a different time space?”
“My Time” was one of the last solos on Map of the Soul: 7 that I came around to really enjoying — tracks like “Filter” and “Inner Child” and “Interlude: Shadow” took up more real estate in my mind and heart. If you had asked me to hum a bit of “My Time,” even after 10 album listen-throughs, I couldn’t have done it. As often happens with records I spend time with, a switch flipped, and I suddenly felt alienated from how I used to feel about the song, when I thought it was just OK.
To be sure, “My Time” doesn’t — can’t — displace “Euphoria” as my favorite Jungkook solo, for two simple reasons: 1) “Euphoria” is one of the all-time best BTS songs and one of the first I loved before getting into the group and 2) it doesn’t try to replace “Euphoria.” It’s a totally new thing, stylistically and thematically. The trap-influenced R&B track stands on its own and offers the slightest peek at what Jungkook at this stage in his career can accomplish vocally. It’s a progression from “Begin” and “Euphoria,” a deeply personal expression of maturity and introspection.
“My Time” begins much in the same way that “Begin” did. (N.B.: I’m doing the thing that critics shouldn’t do, which is conflate the speaker in a song with the singer, but it’s safe to say this song is intended to be read autobiographically.) “Begin” starts with Jungkook talking about his age, in retrospect: “When I was 15 years old, I had nothing … the world was too big and I was small.” “My Time” kicks off with him looking to the future but using similar language: “24, I feel as though I’ve become an adult faster than anyone … a world too big for that boy.” (Jungkook turned 24 this year, in Korean age, though I suppose 24 can be the number of hours in a day, too).
Where “Begin” was essentially a song of filial love, and “Euphoria” was a more straightforward song of romantic love, “My Time” sees Jungkook looking closely at himself. He confronts confusing and painful feelings — the kinds of feelings he’s alluded to in interviews and in last year’s Bangtan Attic conversation where he said, essentially, that Jungkook of BTS shines bright, but that Jeon Jungkook the person is insignificant. (Yes, that was the sound of millions of ARMY hearts shattering into fine dust around the world.) In “My Time,” he sings, “At times, when I’m suffocating, I push my hat down and keep running” and references the frightened boy within him: “like a child who’s lost their way.” “My Time” is a song about isolation and disconnection (“Why am I the only one in a different time space?”) punctuated with declarations about a young man wanting, someday, to find his time.
One line that has stuck with me is, “My life has been a movie all the time,” which Jungkook sings in English. When I first heard the track, I thought he said “My life has been a movie out of time.” I like both versions. Out of time fits with the theme of the song, in which Jungkook talks about living on a different plane than others, about his clock running at a different speed. But the correct lyric leads to a few interpretations. His life is, indeed, movie-like — it’s unbelievable, unreal, surreal. It’s like a dream, in a good way. His life, also, is heavily documented via the cameras that surround BTS. Hours and hours and hours of footage exist of Jungkook transforming from a shy high schooler into an unspeakably talented and hardworking 23-year-old who is, in many ways, the face of the world’s biggest musical group. You could make many movies of Jungkook’s life (as his hyungs did for the DJ Swivel remix of “Euphoria”).
This line also, for some reason, makes me think of his work as a director with Golden Closet Film. Yes, Jungkook is preternaturally gifted at various artistic pursuits, but his interest in filmmaking seems almost like a way for him to assume control over the way his life is recorded and presented. He turns the camera outward, studying hotel rooms and elevators and car rides and dance practices and craft-services tables and sunsets and his brothers. He films with the gentleness and urgency of someone who can’t, on some level, believe that this is his life and who refuses to take his experiences for granted, who wants to present his own version of how he sees things. I realize that this is a lot of projection on my part, but these are the connections “My Time” sparks for me. I’m not so arrogant as to insist that my experience of the songs on this album can be divorced from my feelings about the group and from the thoughts they’ve shared with listeners in the past.
Last thought: The choreography for “My Time” will be absolutely bonkers, and we are not ready.
“Am I living this right?”
10. LOUDER THAN BOMBS
“You and I feel all things together, the sadness and pain. It’s most definitely not by chance.”
The next OT7 new song on the record, “Louder than Bombs,” is the sonic equivalent of a blue-black ocean that seeks to hug you and drown you. BTS does some of its most interesting vocal work on the album here, whether via ghostlike harmonies, low-pitched serenades, or slightly demonic distortions (particularly by the rap line). Co-written by Troye Sivan, the song also features some of the Map of the Soul: 7’s most striking imagery and intriguing lyrics. “Baby I’m nothin’er than nothin’ …. but you say I’m somethin’er than somethin’,’” RM raps. The cacophony of the bombs they sing of contrasts with “the hushed sadness of yours” and “the quiet sea of mine.” “No matter what I do, turns out I’m rolling in filth,” goes one particularly bleak line from Suga, who contests the claim by some that his “pain is hypocrisy.” As with most BTS songs, “Louder than Bombs” comes with a sliver of optimism: “I want to tell you that the darkness, yeah, exists anywhere, don’t be afraid … we’ll shine,” goes one line that calls back to “Mikrokosmos.” (I miss her!)
I’m sure others noticed this, too, but J-Hope singing, “Where’s my way?” perfectly foreshadows his closing track, “Outro: Ego.” The song also works well as a direct prelude to “ON” — which is lyrically similar, though musically very different. “Louder than Bombs” has plenty of pointed references to pain, to martial metaphors, to an all-consuming “darkness,” and to music being a weapon wielded in the face of suffering. I don’t have much else to say about this track other than it’s a gorgeous and mesmerizing OT7 piece that wouldn’t have been out of place on Love Yourself: Tear.
“It’s now become so distinct, that unfamiliar shadow within those cheers.”
11. ON
“This beautiful prison that I entered with my own two feet”
I think about the first eight seconds of “ON” a lot: An organ-esque synth shudders to life, people murmur somewhere in the middle distance, a rhythmic clapping rings out. It feels like church is about to start. Only instead of receiving a sermon from the pulpit, the congregation itself — comprising BTS and an implied collective of fellow believers — rises to its feet.
Where “N.O.” — the companion song to “ON” from the EP O!RUL8,2? — was about teenagers vs. adults, with BTS as the avatars for a generation of oppressed kids, “ON” sets up a different “us vs. them” dynamic. Curiously, the lyrics here are egocentric; the defining pronouns of the song are “I” and “my.” But the way the track is otherwise constructed tells a different story. The warlike drumbeat, the battle-cry chorus, the gospel-choir vocals all suggest the ethos of the song is fundamentally communal. (The two music videos bear this idea out: The “Kinetic Manifesto” relies on a cadre of tightly choreographed dancers and marching-band formations; BTS is shown as part of this larger organism. And the second video deploys some Exodus/Promised Land imagery that decenters the members’ individual characters.) If “N.O.” is an anthem of resistance that emerged from the specific context of BTS’s School Trilogy, then “ON” is a song of acceptance that doesn’t sacrifice its predecessor’s spirit of defiance.
Bring it on, bring the pain on.
Rain be pourin’, sky keep fallin’
“ON,” the ostensible culmination of BTS’s long musical journey up to this point, is broader in its message than “N.O.” A more critical listener might even say that the lyrics are frustratingly vague. “Can’t hold me down ’cause you know I’m a fighter” calls to mind lesser songs with anodyne messages, but the line is stronger as part of a whole. Jimin opens with, “I can’t understand what people are sayin’ / which of them I need to match my beat to,” inverting the seductive promise at the heart of “Filter.” V sings about rousing himself from sleep in a new city, confused about where he is: “Perhaps Seoul, or New York or Paris / Having gotten up, my body sways. RM completes the rest of the pre-pre-chorus verses: “Look at my feet, look down / This shadow that resembles me / Is the thing swaying in fact this guy / Or is it the end of my toes,” he growls. It’s a frightening, Kafkaesque portrait of depersonalization, of being alienated from one’s own body and surroundings. “There’s no way it’s not scary / There’s no way everything’s okay,” RM admits before proclaiming, “Together with that black wind, I fly.”
The pre-chorus is about giving oneself over to the madness with nothing more than a casual, cheery, “hey na na na!” (Gonna jump into this swirling whirlpool of suffering? Hey na na na!) The crescendo builds to my favorite line in the song: “This beautiful prison that I entered with my own two feet.” Imagine: The two feet that feel as though they are no longer yours. The two feet that cast grotesque shadows before you. The prison of light that a black-swan dancer chased by his shadows feverishly enters and then escapes. The gilded cage. The perfectly polished bell jar. The most baroque of horrors.
“ON” features a chorus that might feel cheesy or generic in isolation. (As it did to me when I heard just the TikTok teaser.) The vocals are almost robot-like and the production is unnecessarily maximalist. You can’t even tell it’s BTS. But it’s an effective call to arms, one whose excesses are tempered by the stylistic choices made throughout the rest of the song. When J-Hope’s verse comes in, it feels like a crucial shift. He raps almost lazily, dancing loosely around the heavy trap beat (the chorus-to-second-verse transition here also resembles that of “Outro: Ego”): “It’ll all become my very blood and flesh … That is my oxygen and light in the darkness … Even if I fall, I rise again, scream.” Suga slips into his verse seamlessly, repeating the last lyric and calling to mind the overlapping rap-line hand-offs in “Young Forever”: “Even if I fall, I rise again, scream … Even if my knees reach the floor, as long as I’m not buried, it’ll just be another thing of the past.” (Whew, the resurrection imagery here!) When Suga yells, “Win no matter what!” he hearkens back to his “Shadow” lyric, “I wanna go win.”
What really elevates the chorus for me are the lines that immediately precede it: “Find me and I’m gonna live with you” and “Find me and I’m gonna bleed with you.” This notion of shared pain is what establishes the sense of collectivity at the core of this song, and it puts “ON” in conversation with much of BTS’s oeuvre. Bangtan are like mirror-neuron pop artists; the empathy in their lyrics have been essential to their appeal from the beginning. This is, after all, a group that put out a record titled You Never Walk Alone, four simple words have taken on a life of their own for millions of listeners. Though “ON” is full of grim references (blood tears screaming darkness pain rain prison black wind), it’s also a declaration that the only way to survive is with one another.
In his bridge, Jungkook delivers the congregation’s manifesto as the instrumentation around him melts away. His words float heavenward, like a prayer. “Where there’s pain of mine, let me breathe. My everythin’, my blood and tears, got no fears I’m singing’ ohhh.” As he pushes for the higher notes, like a wax-winged Icarus choosing the sun rather than the safety of land, his voice strains, revealing a certain amount of fear that contradicts his words. The bridge, the song’s “killing part,” is at once powerful and vulnerable — or powerful because it is vulnerable. The confidence that propels “ON” isn’t macho hubris or sneering arrogance or performative bravery. It’s the confidence of seven men who’ve come to view their shadows as old friends. These aren’t the words of children pretending to be less afraid than they are in the face of the world’s many monsters. That’s just not who BTS is anymore.
12. UGH
“Tens of thousands of reasons to get angry. Good-intent, ill-intent, they are all the same.”
Nothing makes me as sad that I don’t speak Korean fluently quite like a rap-line diss track. So here’s where I express my eternal gratitude to the fan-translation community for all the heavy lifting they do for the rest of us. I wish I could dig more deeply into the lyrics and the wordplay here with my own interpretations, but my capacity is limited! (Of course, the translations matter for every song, but especially so for tracks like these.)
“UGH” is more like the angry child of “Ddaeng” and “Cypher Pt. 4” than the offspring of “Outro: Tear.” Like “땡,” “욱” is onomatopoeic: As @doolsetbangtan writes in her translation notes for this song, “욱” is used to refer to the sound of vomiting. On many levels, “UGH” is more visceral than “Ddaeng” was — the earlier song is a masterclass in Korean-rap wordplay — but what both songs have in common, beyond the blending of traditional Asian sounds and modern trap elements, is that you don’t actually need to understand everything to grasp the underlying message. “Ddaeng” is defined by the dancing woodwinds and by the nonchalant delivery of J-Hope, Suga, and RM, but you can tell they’re eviscerating someone. It’s telling that the hardest verse on “Ddaeng” is the quietest: RM begins his part by lowering his voice to just above a whisper. (My favorite part of the “Prom Party” live performance is how, when his verse begins, the screaming crowd suddenly goes silent so they can hear him.)
Meanwhile, “UGH” is defined by anger and disgust. The entire song is the rap line basically screaming and retching! It’s great! The production incorporates both gunshot sound effects and a gunshot beat, directly referencing BTS’s earlier eras and the “bulletproof” part of their name. The cold and chaotic nature of the track allows the rap line to do some weird and fascinating stuff both in their individual verses and as a group, contorting their voices in fury or mockery, singing with a drawl, barking threateningly in unison. The object of their anger is anger — but empty or malicious anger. In contrast to the anger of a sea of faceless haters, the rap line’s anger is righteous. “Anger? Sure, it’s necessary / When something burns, it’s with purpose … But, this is human waste, not anger.” Their wrath is directed at anger that “drives someone else into pain,” that makes “someone else hopeless,” that “costs someone else’s life.” Suga opens by rapping at bullet-speed, alternately growing, whining, and yelping to set the tone of a song that finds a dozen different little ways of conveying the multidimensionality of the trio’s disdain. RM takes up his verse with perfect timing, adopting the delivery of a teacher giving a lecture and spitting his lines with crisp enunciation. J-Hope’s excellent verse after the chorus does what it so often does, offering a tempo check, slowing things down and teasing the listener with a singsong-y flow, as his voice creeps upward in volume before exploding.
The finale of the song sees the rap line taking on the personas of critics who think celebrities should tolerate hate and abuse simply because they’re rich and famous. Suga and J-Hope adopt cartoonish voices that call to mind Danny Brown’s abrasive, jester-like delivery style, as all three burst into taunting “AHEM”s (에헴s). Yes, I am imagining stadiums of 50,000 people going apeshit and screaming “AHEM! AHEM! AHEM! AHEM!” It’ll be a different sort of frenzied energy than “Outro: Tear” unleashed during the last tour, but it’ll be no less cathartic.
In conclusion: This song GOES THE FUCK OFF. Bangtan faced their firing squad. The bullets rained down. Still, they stand.
“If you made me do it, I would endure it all.”
13. ZERO O’ CLOCK (00:00)
“When the second hand and the minute hand overlap, the world for a very brief moment holds its breath.”
There are two mini-reviews I can give for this song. Here is the first:
If “Ugh” was an amphetamine pill, “Zero O’Clock” is a sleepy glass of whiskey. The gunshots from the last song still ring in the ears as a trembling guitar comes in, heavy with reverb and creating an aura of spaciousness. Of loneliness. Jungkook audibly sucks in air before sighing his way into his verse; a spiritual exhaustion is palpable and matches his words: “I can’t bring it in me to move / though it feels as though it’s already late.”
When Jimin joins — “rattling speed bumps are all over” — he is louder, the delivery of his words a little more staccato and energetic to match the beat. V’s velvety voice blankets the rest of the verse, weighted with something that reads as regret. As soon as he sings “열두시,” the beat falls away — almost like a second hand that has ceased its ticking — and the song pauses. “Will something change? I doubt it, but at least this day will end,” Jin continues, his falsetto melding with a delicately strummed guitar.
The chorus is beautiful in its simplicity: “And you’re gonna be happy, and you’re gonna be happy.” The words, as so many lines in these songs do, carry different meanings. They’re not naive declarations of hope or comfort, but a quiet prayer said in one’s head — an invocation spoken with a degree of empathy for oneself, but only in this split second that doesn’t need to be shared with the rest of the world. The lyrics carry an undercurrent of a slightly different sentiment: Please let me be happy.
In this song, Jimin’s voice is sumptuous and pleading, stripped of the sensuality of “Filter.” Though V’s voice has a natural melancholy to it, he also bends it to show how sadness can easily give way to other emotions — fear, happiness, frustration. The peak of the song sees Jungkook (emotionally not vocally) stumbling to a finish line before collapsing at the feet of Jin and Jimin (I think!), who stay standing for him and harmonize into the stratosphere: “That I’d be a little happier, yeah.” “Zero O’Clock” is an incredible vocal-line song to follow “The Truth Untold,” which is one of my all-time favorite BTS songs, and one that stood out to me on my first-ever listen-through of Love Yourself: Answer. The beauty of that song is undeniable. But “Zero O’Clock” is a masterpiece in its own right — a far more intimate and psychologically resonant song.
Which brings me to my second review:
As I begin to write this part, I already feel the tears in my eyes. They’re unbidden, but they come when I read the lyrics of “Zero O’Clock” on their own terms and when I listen to Jin, Jimin, V, and Jungkook sing them. Maybe the tears came for you, too.
When I first read these lyrics, I recognized the exact feeling they were describing. Days when you’re sad for no reason, when the body’s heavy, and it looks as if everyone other than you is busy and working hard to get ahead. There doesn’t need to be a diagnostic label attached to this state of mind, but for me this is what depression feels like. Depression hurts and it is lonely and it tells you that everyone else is doing fine and is normal and is not only making it through life but also thriving, and oh god why can’t you be like them? Why are you a broken person? Why are you like this? Anxiety and depression feed these thoughts into your head every day to the point where it feels strange when the thoughts aren’t there. I am doing okay now, but during my worst times — when simply living felt like something my body was doing out of habit, without the cooperation of my mind — I, too, “would lie in bed ... think whether it was my fault, an unsettling night.” And stare at the clock and wish that things could one day be different without totally believing they could be.
What I didn’t realize at the time, and what this song illustrates with a brilliant clarity, is that the silent, tortured negotiations we have with ourselves in these moments are signs of strength. “Will something change? I doubt it. But at least this day will end.” This line makes me think of how time, each second, each minute, becomes something that you must overcome as well as something that anchors you. Each moment is a chance for things to change, but also another moment when things might stay the exact same. Time is a promise and a prison. “Zero O’Clock,” I think, understands that. For me, years of suffering panic attacks taught me that a second can feel as long as a lifetime when your nervous system is self-immolating; but each second that passes is also a second closer to the relief waiting at the end. “Zero O’Clock” speaks to the truth of these feelings — and to feelings that are not necessarily rooted in any sort of anxiety disorder or mental illness — with nothing short of compassion. This is a song where the members sing to themselves, and to us, “And you’re gonna be happy / and you’re gonna be happy / Just like the settled show, let’s breathe as if it’s the beginning.”
In my worst times, the possibility of someday being unweighted and free seemed remote. And yet. Somewhere in the short-circuiting synaptic tangle inside my skull, a part of me imagined a world in which it could happen. In which the clock could strike midnight and I’d hold my breath and when I exhaled, I’d be happy.
“When this song ends, a new song will begin.”
14. INNER CHILD
“I can taste the biting air of that summer’s day, the sounds of the gray pavements which felt so cold.”
Still crying from “Zero O’Clock”? Keep those tears coming — it’s time for “Inner Child.” While you grab your tissues, I just want to pause and acknowledge the stylistic range on display on this record thus far. Compare “Boy With Luv” and “Black Swan.” Then listen to “UGH” right next to “Jamais Vu.” Or “Filter” next to “Dionysus.” The last quarter of this record only pushes the boundaries even further.
When I heard the opening notes of “Inner Child,” I smiled instantly and involuntarily. The warm notes of an electric piano and twinkling synths suggest reflection and nostalgia lie ahead; the melody is sepia-toned. V’s dulcet voice rises over a tenderly plucked guitar; he is speaking to his younger self. “Us back then, we had a really hard time, as we looked up at those sky’s stars so very far away.” A dream out of reach. “You back then, you don’t believe in the galaxy. But I’ve seen it, that silver galaxy.” This song contains some of the most beautiful lyrics on an album filled with beautiful lyrics (both RM and V were involved in writing). I can only imagine how gorgeous this sounds in Korean. When V sings, I see in my mind’s eye a smaller version of him, one who scrunches his nose in disbelief or whose brows crease with skepticism at the thought that this galaxy can one day be his.
“Inner Child” is one of the few new songs on Map of the Soul: 7 that doesn’t have a trap beat to it or that doesn’t rely on percussion much at all. After listening to this track 422,000 times, I’m still struck by the wise decision to boost V’s voice in the mix, along with the backing vocals, and not allow the driving drumbeat to provide the momentum for the chorus. “Inner Child” has a slightly religious quality to it; it beckons at something deep and private within the listener. The production is mellow; the track radiates a halo of innocence and doesn’t load up on sonic elements that could easily wring more emotion from the listener. (For some reason, this song brought to mind for me Beyoncé’s “XO” — I can’t fully explain it, perhaps it’s because of the soaring singalong nature of the chorus and the way the lyrics speak about enduring love and the transience of time). Though it resists many arena-rock tropes, “Inner Child” is designed to be performed in a stadium full of waving lights and thousands of voices singing the refrain as one: We gon’ change.
As I’ve noted before on Twitter, I’m so happy that Tae has a solo like “Inner Child.” His voice is made for neo-soul grooves like “Singularity” and “Stigma,” so it was exciting to hear him in this new mode with a grandiose pop song that otherwise feels close in spirit to “4 O’Clock” and “Winter Bear.” The way that V sings “We gon’ change” makes it sound like part-mantra, part-warning, and part-reassurance. Never mind that we know he has a reputation in real life for being sweet and patient and playful with kids; his delivery alone exudes concern and love for the child he used to be, and who still exists in some part of him today: “You just need to see my galaxies, You just need to be hit by those stars. I’ll give my world to you.” (Damn, those lyrics.)
By the time the climax of the song arrives, you’re still not quite ready for how he addresses himself: You’re my boy, my boy, my boy. This image of him as a father, or even an older brother, extending such comfort to his younger self — you’re mine, I’ll take care of you, I won’t let anything bad happen — is devastating. BTS has spent much of their musical career writing and singing songs about youth and the pains of growing up. But here we have V inhabiting, fully and affectionately, the role of an adult whose job it is to soothe. It’s one of the most memorable moments on this entire album.
Remember the reaction video of BTS watching their debut stage? After the cringing and self-mockery and joking were over, Suga and Jungkook talked about what they’d tell their younger selves — that things are tough but if you hang in there, one day you’ll be huge superstars, you’ll visit the UN headquarters, you’ll top the Billboard charts. “They’re gonna freak out if you say that!” Jungkook pointed out. V sat quietly smiling, looking on as they had this conversation. I like to think he was remembering baby-faced Taehyung — a big boxy smile concealing uncertainty and fear, wondering what lies ahead — and knowing all that awaits him. I like to think V was imagining what it would be like to gather every galaxy he could find into his arms, go back in time, and give everything to that child.
“It’ll be okay, for the me of today is doing okay.”
15. FRIENDS
“Hello, my alien.”
Ah yes, another song for crying. I love to suffer.
I’ll admit that I didn’t foresee a VMin subunit song on this record. I thought that after “Jamais Vu,” we’d get Minimoni + Taegi or Yoonmin + Vmon. But even though we’ll probably never get a Yoonmin track (no, “Tony Montana” doesn’t count because they never recorded it!), I can’t be mad, because this album gave us the 95z love anthem, “친구.” It is physically impossible to dislike this song. I’ve consulted all the experts and they agree with me. This is the musical equivalent of a slice of warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Perfectly sweet, a little mushy, entirely wholesome. Feels like home.
“Friends” may be the purest song BTS has ever released. “친구” puts some of the heavier subject matter of 7 aside, for just a moment, to celebrate the inimitable bond that Jimin and V have built over the last 9 years. Born a few months apart, they’re same-age friends and the closest pairing in Bangtan. Look: These two are positively disgusting in how much they adore each other. They had zero qualms about running into each others’ arms and tumbling together in the snow in the latest Bon Voyage; their hilarious bike-and-horse adventure was a highlight of the season. I say all of this because you cannot fully appreciate or write about this song without understanding the basic contours of V and Jimin’s friendship.
Now that that’s out of the way … the song! Jimin and V’s voices sound nothing alike, but they complement each other so well here, underscoring the fact that they grew close despite coming from different worlds (“Me from the moon, you from a star”). They don’t hide the fact that they often fought (“One day, bffs, another, enemies”) and likely still do at times. The lyrics are filled with such specific details about their shared history, about each other: “Just like your small pinky.” “I remember us in our school uniforms.” “The dumpling incident.” “You, who I met when soaked with sweat.” (Note: I am clasping my hand over my face every two seconds as I type these words.)
I love how child-like the duo’s vocals are on “Friends”; they sound as though they’re constantly on the verge of bursting into laughter about some joke only they would get. The various production choices — the cheerful horns, the clapping effects, the tuneful strings, the use of a full-on choir for the last 50 seconds — take you on an emotional journey. The song doesn’t sound complicated, but it’s remarkably effective at making you feel as though you have peered into their chests and discovered that they share a heart.
Every time I listen to “Friends,” I hold my breath a little when V whispers, near the end, “Hey, Jimin, 오늘” as a champagne bottle pops. It’s a genius little detail that makes this song. Together, Jimin and V build to a climactic promise: “Rather than the obvious words of thanks, you and me, let’s make sure that tomorrow, we don’t fight.” The final minute of the track then reaches a new level, when they start to sing, “Stay! Hey! You are my soulmate!” They didn’t need to say “soulmate” — we knew already — but the fact that they did is everything. The group vocal composition, and the complex harmonies, are gorgeous here; if you haven’t listened closely and truly heard Jimin’s runs during this part, please go back and do so. The song leaves you on a dizzying high; it’s an exuberant finale.
The sentiments expressed on “Friends” are nothing new. Jimin and V are perhaps the most sensitive and emotionally open members, especially with each other. (Tae in particular is known to cry, and when he starts he can’t stop.) So I’ll end by recalling the finale of Bon Voyage Season 2, which aired in 2017. In the episode, the boys are on a boat; they’re there to read heartfelt letters they wrote to one another. Tae had to write his for Jimin, and when his turn comes he’s nervous. “I just wrote my heart down,” he says, as a preface. “Writing you this sincere letter is making me cringe, but I’m trying to go on. Please understand.”
His voice steadies as he talks about how “we woke up, put on uniforms, went to the same school. We ate together, went to practice, and got back to the dorm. Then we’d talk at night.” “After six such years,” Tae tells Jimin, “you’re now my dearest friend…the only one who laughed and cried with me…You listen to my concerns and like me though I’m lacking. Let’s walk a road of happiness. Love you, buddy.” As soon as Tae finishes, tears flood his eyes and his face turns red. The members applaud his letter and his words. Visibly moved but shy, Jimin responds, “Those who watch us, they might say that I only tend to Taehyung and not him [to me].” The camera cuts to a still-crying Tae as Jimin continues, “But I actually learn a lot from him. He makes me feel good and touches my heart often. That’s when I’m grateful to have Taehyung as my friend.”
And now, as his soulmate.
“Someday, when the cheers die down, please stay by my side.”
16. MOON
“I didn’t even have a name before I met you”
I’ll start with the obvious — “Moon” is a fun, sweet song. Along with “Friends,” it’s the cutest track on Map of the Soul: 7. By this point, the record has hit its stride with a run of songs focused on reconciling with the darkness while also remaining deeply personal. “Moon” is a song of stunning humility; it almost feels small compared to the epic ballads of “Epiphany” and “Awake.” These earlier songs are designed to be showstoppers, leaning into Jin’s intimidating stage presence and vocal prowess.
Meanwhile “Moon” sounds like a lighthearted track you’d encounter on an OST. This song didn’t stand out much on my first listens, which was a little bit of a disappointment; I wanted Jin to knock me over with his voice. It probably didn’t help that the song came after “Zero O’Clock,” “Inner Child,” and “Friends,” which are three of my favorite tracks on this album. Having listened to 7 all the way through so many times now, though, I’ve come to appreciate what “Moon” offers to the record and what a lovely work it is on its own. I also like the fact that it’s so different from Jin’s previous solos. He could’ve gone a more comfortable route with an “Epiphany Pt. 2” — or even something gentler like a “Tonight Pt. 2” — but instead he gave listeners a track that shows his voice in an unexpected context. Some critics have called 7 disorganized because of how different each song sounds, but the genre diversity (and the way the members get to play with so many musical styles) is one of the album’s strengths.
“Moon” is a song addressed to ARMY, in the vein of “2!3!” and “Boy With Luv” and “Mikrokosmos.” Cosmic symbolism is a mainstay of BTS’s discography and Jin, who’s credited as one of the writers, uses an extended metaphor about the moon and earth and stars. The more I listened to the song, the bigger it started to feel — the “ooooh-woooo-oooh” vocals at the beginning and throughout, the way the percussion holds back for the first verse before dropping in, the force of Jin’s voice in the chorus. In his review for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield wrote that “‘Moon’ is a fantastic guitar nugget that could pass for the Smiths,” and though I didn’t hear it at first, I absolutely can now (there’s something “The Boy With the Thorn in His Side”–esque to the song, sonically if not thematically). The poppy guitar on “Moon” is so distinct from how the instrument was used on “Inner Child” and “Filter” and “Intro: Persona.”
When I said earlier that “Moon” a song of stunning humility, it’s partly because of lines such as, “Everyone says I’m lovely, but my sea is in fact pitch-black.” Jin’s public persona, one which he has lots of fun with any time he’s on camera, is that of “Worldwide Handsome.” He preens and throws kisses and smolders at the camera. He leans into the praise he gets for his looks without ever seeming to take himself too seriously. So it’s interesting to see him flip that dynamic, downplaying his own worth and flattering the listener: “The one that’s truly lovely is you,” “It’s all I can do, to simply gaze at you,” “I didn’t even have a name before I met you.” Reading these lines on their own, they seem excessive — the praise is effusive, the same sentiment repeated in different ways. But it’s also the sort of adoration that Jin, as an idol, receives constantly; the effusiveness of those compliments doesn’t have to detract from their sincerity.
There’s a reason why celestial metaphors are so popular in love songs — they seek to transcend the impermanence of human life, to gesture at something elemental and pure, to invoke a scale greater than our minds are capable of comprehending. But the lyrics in “Moon” are intimate, too: “Suddenly I wonder whether you’ll also be looking at me now, if even my painful scars will all be caught by you.” This reference to insecurity doesn’t feel disingenuous; the image of a glorious moon, only made more winsome by its craters and shadows, shyly addressing its earth overflows with pathos.
When I think of Jin — as a singer, a dancer, the hyung of Bangtan — and how he tends to conduct himself with fans, I realize his approach to being a celebrity fits perfectly with this song. Jin, along with maybe Yoongi, are fairly private. This isn’t to say they aren’t as genuine with fans, but they seem to keep more of their inner selves, well, to themselves. (I loved that their short vacation logs from their 2019 break were from the same fishing outing, but shot from a slightly different perspective; I was glad that they didn’t seem to share more of their private time than they wanted to.) And unlike Yoongi, who gets extremely raw in his lyrics, Jin finds different, clever ways of connecting to the audience in his songs.
“Moon” communicates love and closeness with a slight detachment — via the moon-earth conceit — that feels healthy and real. Yes, a moon is attached to the planet it orbits, but the distance that exists between the two is essential. The two can only “know” one another from afar; the earth sees the moon because of the light it reflects from a neighboring sun. The awe that the earth (fans) feel when beholding the moon (Jin) is made possibly because of the space in between, not in spite of it. “I’ll make sure to be by your side / in the dark, dark night,” Jin sings, and it’s a beautiful sentiment. “Rather than using any other words or words of thanks, I’ll make sure to be by your side” (This idea is similar to one we just heard in “Friends,” where the singer tires of the insufficiency of words and offers a promise to act instead.) The gravity that holds the moon and its earth together is invisible (and, in some cases, ephemeral), but it’s profound and undeniable. Such is the gravity that holds BTS and ARMY together.
The last thing I’ll say is that “Moon” is a perfect song for Jin because it speaks to the modesty with which he conducts himself in the group — despite being the eldest member, the one who cares for his dongsaengs in the ways that each needs, depending on his personality. He lets himself slip into the role of someone orbiting, when he could very easily seize his place as the sun. Instead, he often chooses to reflect the light of his brothers, working hard on his own as someone who came to the group with no singing or dancing experience. He has talked openly about how difficult it was to get to the level of the other members — about spending hours in the practice room only to see little or no improvement and then returning to the practice room again the next day and trying all over again. RM may be the leader of the group, but Jin is its soul. His outsized personality and model looks and dad jokes and “Worldwide Handsome” bit all make him “Jin of BTS,” but even more crucial is the way he choses to circle, to be by his brothers’ sides. The ways in which, “in the dark, dark night,” he quietly pledges, “I’ll watch over you.”
“You gave me love and now you’ve become my reason”
17. RESPECT
“Ayo, SUGA!”
This song is Namgi to its bones. Of course a subunit comprising the two most senior members of Bangtan would come out with something as throwback as “Respect.” The track is old-school hip hop all the way, complete with record scratches, a soul vocal sample, and a call-and-response structure. When I heard this song, my mind flicked back to “Her,” “Moving On,” “Rain,” and “If I Ruled the World.” “Respect” has a similarly laidback feel as the last Namgi collab — last year’s “All Night,” featuring the late rapper Juice WRLD — though it’s looser sonically. Both members do a combination of rapping in a fairly stripped-down way, some playfully AutoTuned singing, and enthusiastic ad libs; they serve as each other’s hype men. Unsurprisingly, the production here by Suga, Hiss Noise, and El Capitxn is top-notch.
“Respect,” as RM has confirmed, is based on a conversation that he and Suga had two years ago; apparently the recording was completed in one go. Does this, honestly, surprise anyone? The fact that Namjoon and Yoongi would be so intuitively in sync as to only need a single chance to get this song right?
I’ll admit, the meaning of this song doesn’t come so easily to me. Maybe it’s a translation thing or maybe it’s because “Respect” is about RM and Suga fumbling their own way toward a definition of the word and coming up empty-handed. What seems most important to me, though, listening to this song, is that they’re fumbling together. Throughout the track, each tries to ask the other what respect means, only to get a non-answer like, “I don’t know too well either, brotha, how would I know?” and “Dude, I’m asking because I don’t know.” Again and again, they admit their bemusement to one another, seemingly comfortable with not knowing and with an open-ended inquiry.
When I first read the lyrics, I misunderstood them (I thought it had more to do with their relationship). While “Respect” isn’t as obviously personal and intimate as “Friends,” it shows Namgi looking at the world and sharing their bewilderment with one another. Because they have each other, they’re never alone. I imagine them having conversations like this when they were back in their early dorms. “AYO SUGA,” RM begins this song, just like he began in “Moving On” (in the latter track, he continued, “I remember how we came here together three years ago, when you and I used to fight all the time.” The personal history is inextricable from any song they do together.) “Respect” makes references to other earlier songs, too: “I hope your life would flourish with honor and prosperity / I hope your life would be accompanied by eternal blessings” recalls the chorus from Agust D’s “So Far Away,” while “Money, fame, forward, forward” brings to mind the “Epilogue: Young Forever” line “Dreams, hopes, forward, forward.”
In classic Namjoon fashion, RM tries to understand the word by breaking it down into its component parts and going back to its Latin definition: “Re-spect: as the word itself says, it’s to look again and again.” He then tries to locate the deeper meaning in the modern usage of the word: “If one keeps looking at another, their flaws can be seen / But that one wants to keep looking, despite all that / means that it’s necessary to have complete faith in that someone.” He hedges a little: “And so, I can’t speak of it easily — it’s immeasurable, the weight and depth of it.” It’s the same highly intellectual, musician-philosopher approach we see from him time and again, including in “Intro: Persona.”
In his verse, Suga doesn’t try to analyze the word itself, nor does he try to envision some sort of moral hierarchy like RM does (when he said that respect “ranks over love, perhaps it’s the highest of all ranks”). Where RM’s verse was more abstract, Suga applies his question to real-life social situations, declaring, “Let’s be real, we don’t need respect when we don’t even have basic regard / That they’re talking behind your back and everyone knows about it except for you.” His ire is aimed at the hypocrites and the fakers (“To that friend who’s cursing you out while smiling at you, give a round of applause.”)
When I pored over these verses, I couldn’t help but think of the B-Free incident. During a broadcast in 2013, the rapper B-Free criticized RM and Suga (J-Hope wasn’t there) for becoming idols rather than staying true to hip hop and made fun of them for wearing makeup. “Is copying Kanye West’s music really a sign of respect for your favorite musician?” B Free asked in one of many rude and outright offensive remarks. Of course, Bangtan has released plenty of lethal diss tracks over the years, particularly the cyphers and “Ddaeng.” “Look at the arrogance of the hip-hop con artists, when you were playing underground, BTS was playing at ground level,” Suga spit on his murderous “Cypher Pt. 2” verse. Even “UGH!” goes harder and more directly targets the group’s antis and anger-obsessed people online.
In contrast, “Respect” has a can’t-be-bothered attitude. Yes, there are people like B-Free who have insulted BTS directly over the years (he even supposedly apologized last year to BTS and to ARMY, six years too late and in a way that left people questioning his sincerity). Yes, BTS and their fans deal with casual disrespect constantly from the media and from the general public. While RM and Suga might not have an exact definition of respect that satisfies them both, they do have an enlightened view of the “respectability politics” that they must navigate as idols on a global stage. Though BTS do impressive, highbrow (for lack of a better term) things like speak at the U.N. General Assembly and fund international public-art projects, the duo in particular arguably had the hardest time learning to embrace their roles as idols without asterisks.
RM and Suga had to leave behind the narrow mentality of what makes a rapper “legitimate” when they said goodbye to the underground hip-hop world that reared them. And they succeeded, finding a comfortable middle ground, one that isn’t so obsessed with image. I think of how Suga insisted on having choreography for his “Seesaw” solo stage, reasoning that he was an idol and that he ought to do something idol-esque (despite the fact that he never wanted to dance when he first joined the group). And how RM went from a tougher sound on his first mixtape to the glorious work of vulnerability that is mono. This is a long way of saying that I think RM and Suga have a better grasp on what respect is than they let on in this song. I think they’ve arrived at a place where respect from others matters so much less than the respect they’ve gained for themselves.
I love the ending of “Respect” — the conversation sounds like one they’d have in a bar and recalls the informal skits from earlier records. If you don’t know what they’re saying it sounds like they’re arguing, but they’re probably just drunk. Yoongi speaks in his drawling Daegu satoori, occasionally barking at RM, who responds in a similarly exasperated voice. Neither really knows what he’s saying, but their bond is unmistakable. Their voices peter out leaving the listener with a grand statement: “English is hard,” RM says. “Yeah, I know right,” Suga answers.
English might be hard, but Namgi’s will is harder.
18. WE ARE BULLETPROOF: THE ETERNAL
“I often wonder whether we’re still dreaming at the end of a long winter”
In the summer of 2013, a rookie idol group known as Bangtan Sonyeondan debuted. Their name translated to Bulletproof Boy Scouts, a slightly awkward-sounding phrase that connotes both power and youth. As they prepared for one of their first shows, the seven members looked nervous but fierce, all earnestness and energy and black eyeliner and questionable haircuts and dark sunglasses. They wore black T-shirts emblazoned with their stage names: V, Suga, Jin, Jungkook, Rap Monster, Jimin, and J-Hope. “If we get big and the camera directors know our names, we might be able to wear something else,” the leader, Rap Monster, said cheerfully during a pre-show interview. “I hope soon they’ll be able to tell us apart.”
The very first song these carefully costumed “hip-hip warriors” performed together was called “We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2.” Why was their debut song called “Pt. 2”? the average viewer might’ve asked. What happened to Pt. 1? Even without knowing the story behind the track’s name (an earlier, unreleased song called “Pt. 1” had already been recorded pre-debut), you still got the sense that this phenomenon onstage didn’t emerge ex nihilo. If “Pt. 2” was the name of the song being performed, then “Part 1,” as it were, could be seen as the hours — the months, the years — spent toiling in practice rooms. Or working as a delivery boy. Or learning how to rap for the first time. Or learning how to sing for the first time. Or learning to be away from friends and family in the lonely and high-pressure idol-training grounds of Seoul.
And learning how to become seven.
Today, when you watch videos of BTS reacting to videos of themselves in their first couple of years after debuting, the looks on the members’ faces is hard to describe. Everyone responds differently in the moment depending on who’s onscreen. Their expressions shift from horrified to stoic to delighted to amused to shocked to embarrassed. Embarrassment. Yeah — there’s a lot of that. These reaction videos are funny to watch now because you can cringe alongside them and also because they have come so far. When the in-video clips are over, BTS look relieved, but they also speak of their younger selves with fondness and admiration. They compliment their choreography and their determination and visible effort. They remark on how, without the hard work of those guys, they wouldn’t be here today.
In February 2020, nearly at the end of a long winter, those boys — if you could still call them that — released the track list for their new record, Map of the Soul: 7. In the flurry of discussion that ensued, many fans noticed the name of the penultimate song: “We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal.” Seemingly everyone thought they knew what that song would sound like. “I feel like ‘We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal’ is going to slap on the level of ‘Outro: Tear’” is something that I, a huge clown, wrote five days before the album dropped. The thing was that “We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2” after all these years, really did still slap. Set aside Jimin’s gravity-defying tumble, Jungkook’s intricate hat trick, and J-Hope’s fluid b-boying, and the track stands on its own. Click click bang bang.
When Map of the Soul: 7 dropped, “We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal” left many reeling. Where its predecessor began with operatic synths, a menacing snare, and ghoulishly distorted vocals, “The Eternal” floated in with nothing but an ethereal piano. For those first few seconds you feel lost in a dream, lulled by each note, until you realize there’s nothing “hip-hop warrior” about this song. At all.
“The name is Jungkook, my scale is nationwide” a 17-year-old maknae snarl-rapped in “Pt. 2” “While you guys partied, I gave up sleep for my dreams.”
“All we had were dreams,” a 23-year-old Jungkook sings in the gentlest of falsettos at the start of “The Eternal.” “Opening our eyes only dim mornings, dancing and singing all night long to those endless music scores,” a a 25-year-old V recalls, his warm voice like a balm.
“I spent all night holding a pen,” a young Suga spit in “Pt. 2,” his delivery wild and furious. “Closing my eyes only after the morning sun rises.”
“Our first fight with the world. Don’t wanna die, but so much pain, too much cryin’,” a 27-year-old J-Hope sings, sounding depleted, in “The Eternal.” “So, the dulling of the blade.”
“I will show you, as much as I sharpened by sword,” a young V sneered in “Pt. 2,” his inner child not completely gone from his voice.
There is no sneering, no proverbial blade-sharpening on “We Are Bulletproof: the Eternal.” Instead of a manifesto from a group of underdogs trying to prove themselves in a merciless industry, we have an anthem of self-pride and of gratitude for a constellation of fans across the world. The somber cousin of “Mikrokosmos,” “The Eternal” may be the most important song on his entire album. Not because of its complex production or intriguing structure or because it is the catchiest track, but because of the story it tells. I don’t want to say that it tells the story of a group that has come full circle, because that implies a conclusion; rather, the title of this song invokes boundlessness. After all, theirs is a saga that will never, in any meaningful sense, end.
“We were only seven, but we have you all now,” Jin and V sing, their voices rising like wisps of smoke.
“After seven winters and springs, with the ends of our interlocked hands … yeah we got to heaven,” V and Jungkook whisper, as though sharing a secret. When the chorus explodes with Jimin and Jin’s voices, “The Eternal” becomes possessed with the spirit of “We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2.” The defiance doesn’t feel performative, but hard-won and intuitive: “Throw rocks at me, we’re not afraid anymore. We are we are together bulletproof.” Then all seven in unison: “We are we are forever bulletproof.” This refrain has the ring of a battle cry, though in reality the biggest battles have been fought and won. Now what’s left for the members is the sweet pain of reflection and the task of moving on.
“Suga,” Suga murmurs in the next verse, his intonation prayer-like, “we are bullet bullet bulletproof, facing the negative attention head-on, we achieved it.” Then enters the member he achieved so much alongside: RM, no longer “Rap Monster.” “At the end of a long winter, is the thing that has come truly spring?” he asks, deploying one of his favorite lyrical dualities (apart from “sea” vs “desert”). “Something they all mocked, something that we were embarrassed of — our name. This has been proven through iron: bulletproof.” Dull blade or not, these lines cut through me. To think of Bangtan feeling ashamed of their own name when they were smallest and most vulnerable — when they debuted — and to think of them now, flying at their highest — their name on primetime chyrons, on the world’s biggest stadiums, on the covers of millions of albums, gracing countless trophies — leaves me profoundly sad. And happy. And sad. And also proud.
Though I’m focusing a lot on the lyrics, the overall composition and production of this song are transcendent. There’s a divine feel to “the Eternal” that goes beyond its allusions to heaven. I don’t mean to force a religious lens onto this song, but it’s very hymn-like to me; the members’ reverb-heavy voices meld as though they’re a choir, as a patient beat stomps in the background. All of the other elements, the synths and guitars, are mixed so that it’s hard to pull them apart, and the soundscape is continuous and all-encompassing. And in the center of that hurricane is the listener.
The listener, who has been addressed repeatedly throughout the album and who back in “Boy With Luv” Jimin coyly said he wanted to know everything about. V repeats that sentiment here, singing, “Tell me your every story, tell me why you don’t stop this.” “Tell me why you still walkin’, walkin’ with us,” Jin asks. Not waiting for an answer — perhaps already knowing the answer — they run headlong into another chorus, their voices teetering between desperate and soothing, but always full of emotion.
All that emotion undoubtedly stems from the words themselves, and from the member who wrote so many of them. “I just cried, over and over again, and wrote the lyrics,” RM said recently near the end of his almost two-hour-long album review on V Live. He explained the theme of “We are Bulletproof: The Eternal”: the artist’s wish to have their work live on forever and how BTS’s wish has, in a sense, been fulfilled through their relationship with their fans. “We’ll go to heaven holding our hands together. We’ll go to a paradise,” he said, summing up the song’s meaning. It’s a disarmingly intimate promise to make, however metaphorical. Yet a shadow of mortality hangs over his words — to enter heaven, one must die, right?
An emotionally exhausted RM continues cryptically, “It’s too sad and it might not be easy to listen to in the future. What if time passes and this song has a history?” What if it gains some other, more difficult meaning in retrospect? “Then, we’ll go back to the beginning,” he says before quickly moving on to talk about J-Hope’s outro, “Ego” (Fittingly, that next track goes all the way back to “Intro: 2 Cool 4 Skool,” the first song on their first record. The message: This isn’t The End, but simply one kind of ending.)
The most memorable line of “We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal,” the one that BTS will scream out to their fans, their ARMY, and that ARMY will sing back to them in stadiums across the world: “Yeah we are not 7 with you.” First, BTS were one-one-one-one-one-one-one; they were seven individuals. Slowly, painfully, they became a single unit of 7. Somewhere along the way that number became 200, then 1,000, then 50,000, and then many millions. They were always 7 but they were always more than 7, too.
In the summer of 2013, a rookie idol group known as Bangtan Sonyeondan debuted. When they performed “We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2” the meaning of “we” was clear: It referred to the seven boys onstage. They stood, in so many ways, alone. “We go hard, we have no fear.” They had to go hard and, of course, they had plenty of fear — and still do. Not exactly softened by time, but certainly transformed by it (we gon’ change), the BTS of “the Eternal” speaks of a different, bigger “we.” A “we” that has tried to be bulletproof for and alongside them.
“All we had were dreams,” Jeon Jungkook sings at the start of the song.
But they have us all now.
19. OUTRO: EGO
“The worries of 7 years finally come out of my mouth, all the oppressions get resolved”
In the way that “Intro: Persona” and “Interlude: Shadow” were perfectly suited to RM and Suga, “Outro: Ego” has J-Hope’s stylistic DNA bursting out of every note and melody. Still, here I was on the morning of the music-video drop expecting a track like “Boy Meets Evil” — something brooding, heavy, and slick. I expected darkness and he gave me — what else? — sunshine.
Within the context of Map of the Soul: 7, the transition to “Outro: Ego” from “We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal” is both necessary and jarring. The penultimate track is so emotionally draining that it’s a relief when “Ego” arrives with an outstretched hand and a brilliant smile to help you back to your feet. And yet “Ego” isn’t a work of empty optimism; none of J-Hope’s music is, despite the artist’s stage name. The song retains some of the emotional shading of “the Eternal”: the sweet pain of looking backward, the gratitude for the present, the fear and excitement about the future.
The song begins, well, at the very start of the journey for BTS: with a sample from the very first track on their very first record, “Intro: 2 Cool 4 Skool (feat DJ Friz).” (The next song on that album was “We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2,” a reversal of the order we find on MOTS: 7.) “We are now going to progress to some steps which are a bit more difficult,” the voice warns. “Ready, set, and begin.” First of all, some steps which are a bit more difficult than listening to “The Eternal”? How?? That song gestured at an infinite future, but here the album reaches a definite conclusion. The End. But “Ego” balances that contradiction in clever ways, mostly by using references to J-Hope’s origin story (and Bangtan’s) to make this finale also feel like a curtain-raiser for a new beginning. (Note: I can’t be the only person who hears “We are now going to progress to some steps which are a bit more difficult” and thinks about the challenges awaiting BTS, and fans, after this era is over.)
“Ego” is bright, whimsical, and breathlessly paced Reggaeton-influenced song driven by a sped-up dembow beat and jubilant horns that ends with a choir chant and gospel vocals. It’s a distinctly J-Hopian sound (he’s credited as the main composer and lyricist) best crystallized in his 2018 mixtape, Hope World. The last rap-line solo record I listened to, Hope World hooked its claws into my brain with its idiosyncratic style that felt miles away from anything RM and Suga have made. It took me a little more time and patience to absorb than mono and Agust D, but J-Hope’s penchant for polyrhythms, his sheer range of tones when rapping, the fluidity with which he slips between rapping and singing, the lyrical universe he conjures — all of that made me fall in love with the record.
Like his last solo, “Just Dance,” the chorus of “Ego” is light on lyrics, instead allowing the music to take over and J-Hope to fill the space, especially during concerts, with his dancing. It’s the verses that are densely packed; J-Hope’s flow is frenzied, as though he’s trying to run away from something while keeping a big grin on his face. The lyrics revisit a theme he has returned to frequently as a songwriter — thinking about the alternate path his life might have taken had he never found fame with BTS.
His song “Daydream” from Hope World was entirely about this idea. There, he allows himself to wonder: “For once I want a different picture in my life / That I want to draw, a canvas dream,” he raps. “It’ll be a world of mirages / And it’ll be all mine … But it won’t last forever / Shit,” he continues. Later in the song, he sounds wistful as he envisions his life as a regular young person who can just get drunk and live and not have to worry about working all the time. “Let’s just feel the youth / Wild and free … No eggshell walkin, errday.”
In “Ego,” he thinks of a darker alternate reality, one in which he gave up, only to nudge himself back to this world. “But, in the world, there are some unchanging truths — that time flows forward, that there are no ifs,” he raps. Later, though, he can’t help but think of that other path: “The life of Jung Hoseok who is not J-Hope flashes across my mind / It must have been full of regret with no hope till I die.” Again, it’s a more sobering version of the existence he describes on “Daydream,” one that presumably makes it easier to move ahead with the life he has now and not look back.
All of the Bangtan rappers hold tight to their origin stories, their own narratives of where they came from and how they got to where they are now. (This is true for many songs by the vocal line, too, of course.) Often, especially for J-Hope, this also means vividly remembering his younger self. “It’s still not believable to me,” he rapped on Hope World’s “Airplane,” “that this Gwangju kid could get wrapped up in flight / From my place in this high, high dream / I’m flying above the beautiful world.” Even “Mama,” from Wings, figures J-Hope as a boy thinking about his childhood and thanking his mother for everything she did to support him. This connection to who he used to be is a grounding force for Hoseok the songwriter and for J-Hope the performer.
“Ego” tells the story of the struggle to resist the temptation of such nostalgic thinking (“Touch of the devil, and fateful recall”). The lyrics are also frank about forcing one’s negative feelings down inside (“Lock my worries up, close”), much like “Outro: Her” did (in his verse, J-Hope talked about pretending: “I’m your star, I shine as if nothing’s wrong.” One of my favorite lines from “Her” is “Tick tock, the dark is over,” as he demands himself to set aside his pain and become another person’s sun again.) “Ego” describes an effort to accept things as they are, for J-Hope to accept the essential, immutable aspect of himself (yep, Jung’s “Ego”). “The answer that became clear, to the truth of the world, is a me that is unchanging,” he raps, before singing, “Everything is my fate’s choice” (what an amazing line).
That unchanging part of him, J-Hope seems to say, is the way he took to get here. It’s the things he did and accompished; those are permanent facts, even if the other aspects of his “self” are always evolving. His “way” was his fate, it was his comfort, it brought him to himself. J-Hope doesn’t get especially personal on this song about the precise details of that path. He doesn’t talk about his rise as a streetdancer in Gwangju, or about the various crews he was a part of he like does on “Chicken Noodle Soup.” He doesn’t talk about moving from to Seoul and joining Bighit as BTS’s third trainee on December 24, 2010. Or about being stuck in the dorm for the holidays, all alone and away from his family, until Suga joined him and brought chicken for them to share. He doesn’t talk about almost being cut from the group, or how Jungkook cried when he left, or how RM argued to keep him saying, “We can’t make it without Jung Hoseok,” or how he came back because he trusted the members. In “Ego,” J-Hope doesn’t talk about how he went from zero rapping experience to being part of the rap line and writing lyrics for every record BTS put out since. He doesn’t talk about the exhaustion he must feel, constantly, being the energizer of the group when others are feeling down.
Because he doesn’t need to. Those moments are evident in who he is — the map of his soul — and all he can do is go on. (Dreams, hope, forward, forward.) “I look ahead, the way is shinin.’” The only thing left for him — and for Bangtan, and for us, their listeners — to do is take one step, and then another, and another.
“Ready, set, and begin.”
