2020 in Music: How BTS Stayed on Top in an Upside-Down World

To read more about the year in music, click here and here

2020 was supposed to be BTS’ year. Already the best selling musical act of all time in their native South Korea, the seven piece boy band has only continued to grow globally over the last few years. In 2018, it was Love Yourself: Tear marking their first #1 album in the United States, and ‘Fake Love’ making them the first Korean group with a top 10 Billboard hit. In 2019, it was their stadium ‘Love Yourself: Speak Yourself’ world tour, which broke records at the Rose Bowl and became the first non-English act to sell out Wembley Stadium. 2020 promised even more success with the release of their album Map of the Soul: 7 and yet another stadium tour to accompany it.

Released in February 2020, Map of the Soul: 7 was a smash hit critically and commercially. You can probably guess what came next. With the world, and by extension live concerts, on hold indefinitely, BTS did what came naturally — they made music. Talk of a new record came as early as April, with group leader RM confirming that the group was working on new music. In August, the first glimpse of the next step in the group’s musical evolution was released. Chances are if you’ve turned on a radio or (heaven forbid) been somewhere in public in the last several months, you’ve already heard ‘Dynamite’. The group’s first all-English song, the glitzy disco-pop number gave BTS their first Billboard #1 single. ‘Dynamite’ wasn’t a total departure for BTS; their single ‘Boy With Luv’ from the Map of the Soul era is a similarly funk guitar-driven, dancy pop number. But compared to the group’s usual pop-rap with electronic/trap overtones, the song demonstrated a willingness to flirt outside their comfort zone — and a willingness from fans to listen. In September, the group filmed an NPR Tiny Desk concert, eschewing their bombastic stage presence and immaculate choreography for a more intimate experience performing seated in front of a live band.

That ethos was carried into the November release of Be, a record which reportedly featured significantly more contributions from the band themselves than previous releases. Upon my first lesson to the record, I was, if not disappointed, at least surprised at the album’s quiet, laidback energy. BTS are a pop group first and foremost, one with a sound meant to bring stadiums out of their seats. Their discography of singles is littered with dance bangers and pounding hip-hop tracks; even more downtempo and moody tracks like Black Swan’ and ‘Save Me’, the latter of which was performed at the Tiny Desk concert, are underpinned with chattering trap drums and slick synths. By contrast, the songs on Be are some of the most delicate in their career, most notably the front half of the record, which features three songs that could reasonably be classified as ballads. Even when the energy picks up later on the album, the flavour hews closer to ‘Dynamite’ than much of their previous work, focusing more on grooves fueled by guitars and bass than the blinged-out electronic punch of their typical sound.

It doesn’t take a genius to connect a global lockdown with a move towards a gentler sound, and in the highly industrialized and calculated world of K-pop, it can often be difficult to extricate artistic process from marketing strategy. But given what the last year-plus has looked like for BTS, it’s hard to argue that Be constituted the group playing with house money. Map of the Soul: 7 had already come out and seen massive success. And while postponing a massive worldwide tour surely represented a monetary loss for label Big Hit, commercial viability has never been a problem for an act whose monetary value to South Korea has been compared to that of Korean Air. On top of this, the success of ‘Dynamite’ had further raised BTS’ profile stateside, supported by performances on the Today Show, America’s Got Talent, and a week-long residency on the Tonight Show. Four days after the release of Be, it was nominated for a Grammy, a first for the group. Even from a wholly cynical, commercial perspective, there was absolutely no pressure on BTS to release even more new music; the fact that they did so, and that the result constituted such a strong piece of work, models the kind of efficiency and consistency that pop artists dream of.

Other than ‘Dynamite’ — whose last-track placement simultaneously feels like an afterthought and a perfect coda — the unquestioned centrepiece of Be is ‘Life Goes On’, the album’s opener and lead single. From its mid-tempo acoustic guitar intro, it’s clear that this is a different type of BTS song than their less ardent followers might be used to. The typical ingredients are there: soulful vocal performances from lead vocalists Jimin and Jungkook, a thoughtful and understated rap verse from RM, hip-hop instrumentation, catchy synth lines. But those elements are placed in a different package than one that constitutes a typical BTS track. Rather than synths providing a propulsive melodic backbone like on the EDM-heavy ‘Mic Drop’ (remixed by Steve Aoki) or the dancehall-infused ‘IDOL’, the sounds in ‘Life Goes On’ have a wispy, cloud-like quality to them, lending themselves naturally to the more organic feel of the song, both musically and lyrically. Instead of thumping 808s and gunshot snares, the percussion makes use of claps, wood block sounds, and a more conventional drumkit. And while the bread and butter of BTS vocals lies in the contrast between sweet falsetto singing and the more aggressive delivery of the group’s rappers, even RM and fellow rappers Suga and J-Hope try their hands at far more melodic performances than are typical for them.

All of these facets, new and old, are underpinned by the group’s trademark lyricism. If your only exposure to BTS is ‘Dynamite’, which features such poetic gems as “Ding-dong, call me on my phone/iced tea and a game of ping-pong”, you might not rate the group’s writing abilities. And given that the band performs roughly 75% in Korean, the already tenuous importance of lyrical ability in pop music is further reduced for an English-speaking audience. In fact, BTS is lauded in K-pop circles for their lyrics, which touch on themes of self-love and mental health. They’re also known for their outspokenness on social justice in a normally conservative South Korean society, advocating for diversity and inclusion while referencing politics and current events, especially those that impact young people. While the lyrics of ‘Life Goes On’ might not be the most profound or enlightening commentary on a situation that has consumed virtually every form of media in the last nine months, it’s not unreasonable to call it the first and most effective quarantine anthem. And while a casual listener won’t ever know all the words to the song, their music has a strange alchemy to it, effectively communicating sentiment without needing to understand specifics. Those that do dig in, however, will find plenty to latch onto.

‘Life Goes On’ is certainly the first smash hit pop song to directly invoke the circumstances of the pandemic; while works like Taylor Swift’s folklore were written during COVID-19 and certainly hold thematic relevance to daily life in 2020, their imagery isn’t as vivid and specific as the picture BTS paint of a world abruptly put on pause. “Spring didn’t know that it had to wait/Showed up not even a minute late” sings Jungkook, hitting on the dramatic irony of the world closing down during a period of renewal. The song is rife with imagery of nature, the chorus making reference to an ‘echo in the forest’ and an ‘arrow in the blue sky’. It evokes a world that has been thrown off its axis, and the confusion and frustration that comes with it. RM compares the circumstances of lockdown to a bone-soaking rain cloud that can’t be outrun; “Once winter comes, let’s exhale a warmer breath”. It’s a juxtaposition RM has hit upon before — on ‘Spring Day’, which the group performed for their Tiny Desk concert, he equates missing a loved one to winter in August. Combined with more organic instrumentation, the result is something surprisingly vital. Despite being a work that’s meant to be stripped down, the song maintains BTS’ typical energy and positivity, but channels it towards peace and taking comfort in a period of inaction, knowing that there will always be a ray of sunlight at the end of the tunnel.

It’s possible I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. The legitimizing of pop music over the last decade or so has led to a critical re-evaluation of seemingly every populist work; while I think the effect on music discourse has been a positive one, I’m also a proponent of letting simple things be enjoyable without having to ascribe a hidden deeper meaning to them. And while BTS have certainly reached the pinnacle of K-pop, they’re still beholden to the conventions of that industry, which focus on a heavily manicured personal brand and can minimize artists’ participation in the creative process. But my gut tells me it wasn’t an accident that BTS were the Korean group to cross over in the West in such a major way. More than attractiveness, natural charm, or even their elite dancing and music videos (which really deserve their own article as an integral piece of the BTS puzzle), they’ve always felt like they’re a group that has something to say. Preaching love, positivity, and hope for the future in turbulent times isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff, but sometimes it just takes the right voice for a message to find purchase.