REVIEW: ARIRANG by BTS

“Had your little fun, fella? / Pop, pop, pop, pop, yeah, came back for what’s mine, we don’t / (Stop, ride)”, BTS rap in the song ‘2.0’, on their first studio album in 4 years since finishing their military enlistment.

And what a comeback that’s been! ARIRANG has smashed records globally, with a Billboard All Kill (#1 on all the Billboard lists) and even occupying all the top 10 spaces on the Global 200 list, making BTS’ prediction that they’d “come back for what’s [theirs]” all the more true.

The album opens with dance-worthy hip-hop tracks like ‘Body to Body’ and ‘Hooligan’, which harken back to earlier albums like 2 Cool 4 Skool and Dark & Wild,

Notably, ‘Body to Body’ samples a Korean folk song ‘Arirang’, which is the title of the album. An abstract song that connotes feelings of sorrow, love, and separation, ‘Arirang’ was first recorded by seven Korean young men who studied at Howard University. Over time, it grew to be a powerful symbol of Korean identity, being sung at protests against imperial Japanese rule, and appearing on both South and North Korea’s lists of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. As their world tour kicks off, the cultural impact of hundreds of thousands of non-Koreans who got exposed to Korean culture by BTS singing along to the ballad in unison sends shivers down my spine.

One thing that BTS’s fanbase, ARMY, (and the band as well, judging by their pleasantly-baffled reactions) greatly appreciated about the interviews this comeback season was the fact that non-Korean interviewers came to the fore well-prepared with their knowledge of the band and armed with hard-hitting and thoughtful questions – treating the 7-man act like they are genuine musicians instead of a vapid boy band. With previous interviews asking BTS inane questions like how they learnt English and whether they’ve hooked up with fans, instead of about their songwriting process or the deeper meanings behind their lyrics. In fact, the song ‘Aliens’ touches on the xenophobia BTS has battled as the first K-Pop act to promote on US talk shows. Lines like “Oh my God, do I look too funny?” and “You guys with those big eyes say / Are they for real? For real?” identify BTS as aliens both physically (with the common racial microaggression of insulting Asians’ smaller eyes, implying Asians look abnormal and nonhuman) and culturally (not fitting into Western cultural norms). Still, they powerfully insist “If you wanna hit my house, shoes off at the door”, invoking the Korean custom of removing shoes before entering a house, acting as a metaphor for cultural boundaries: before appreciating BTS’ music and being allowed into their musical world, you have to have basic respect towards their culture. Despite the disrespect they’ve faced, BTS assert their pride in their Korean identity as aliens and refuse to be cramped into the box of Western cultural norms by interviewers who interview them just to get the clicks of their “rabid fangirls”.

Another song that touches on themes of artistic agency is ‘they don’t know ‘bout us’, where BTS clap back at their haters with: “Everybody hears the story that they wanna / They popped off ’cause of this one thing, I’m for sure / We just big boys, a.k.a. country kids / Just riding the wave, just shut up, shut up, oh”. The connection of “big boys” and “촌놈”, translating to country kids which derogatorily implies a hillbilly, BTS reassert their identity as artists who stick true to their roots both as Koreans and as authentic musicians who gained success through organic momentum (“Just riding the wave”) instead of chart manipulation that the K-Pop industry is infamous for. With “Ah, you said we changed? (Changed) / We feel the same, shit” and even the chanting refrain “They don’t know ‘bout us” drums this message into listeners’ heads: that while it is easy for a third person to criticise BTS as sell-outs after their multiple English-language hits like ‘Dynamite’ and ‘Butter’, they don’t truly know the amount of thought BTS puts into their songwriting process and how they’re committed to sticking true their roots.

Besides these hard-hitting songs, ARIRANG also features heartfelt ballads reminding listeners of the joie de vivre, like ‘SWIM’ and ‘Like Animals’. The hypnotic main refrain of ‘SWIM’ is, predictably enough, to keep swimming through life: whether good or bad, to just keep pushing forward and living. My favourite track on the album, ‘Like Animals’, encourages the listener to embrace an animalistic and simpler attitude towards life, to “Eat this life ’til your heart is full” and voraciously embrace every part of life, not letting opportunities pass you by, and feeding your soul in a very Marvellian carpe diem fashion.

Closing off the album is ‘Into the Sun’, which is a song dedicated to ARMY. In their final massive free one-night concert before enlistment, the 2022 Yet To Come in Busan, BTS tearfully requested for fans to be patient and anticipate their return from the military. “You call, I run / Dark days, and find the sun / I don’t care, how far / Just wait, dawn” is a direct reference to that plea, encapsulating BTS’ desire to return to the stage and their fans. Here, they overcome the “dark days” by using this dream as a guiding light, or “sun”, emboldening them to get through the worst of life to the beautiful dawn, as reliably as the sun rises every morning. Similar in message is ‘Come Over’, a hidden song only available on the deluxe vinyl record of the album. The post-chorus beseeches: “You’ll never love me like / The way you did before / But would you open up / If I knocked on your door?”. Crooning vocals plead to be let back into the fans’ hearts in a reference to their 2018 track ‘Magic Shop’, where the “door inside [fans’] heart” leads to a Magic Shop where ARMY’s can find love and comfort in BTS’ music and content. The hidden track reminds fans that despite the time that has passed, there is still a home to return to, as cheesy as it sounds.

In an age where more women and people of colour in the music industry are finally getting their flowers: BTS and Bad Bunny arguably being the biggest band and most popular male act respectively, representation and appreciation of cultural multiplicity is slowly but surely being made in the right direction of moving away from the English-language, Eurocentric world of music.