My honest thoughts on BTS ARIRANG
So I have loved BTS for the better part of a decade, and thatβs honestly why I feel so conflicted about this recent album. I don't think its a bad album by any means since there is songs I actually did enjoy like Hooligan, Please, even Body to Body was on repeat quite a bit last night when i first listened to it, but i cannot shake the feeling that they are capable of so so much more, especially lyrically. I understand that they were going for a completely new sound and were experimenting since they have all explored their own music paths during enlistments, but the album feelings like its missing something super important. I do not mind experimental music at all im actually all for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But for a work called Arirang, I was full on expecting them to ditch full english tracks .. at least for the majority of the album, I was expecting deeper lyrics responding to their culture and roots .. and like there are maybe a COUPLE moments about it but a lot of these lyrics fall so flat.
Music doesnt always have to be deep and they do not have to make only Korean songs but I just wouldnt have set up the expectation that it would be. It felt rushed, I feel like the vocal line is super suppressed and when they did have their moment there was more autotune that I would have liked to the point where it can be hard to distingush who is singing at a given moment.The production feels messy at times and makes me wonder if the members agreed to all of the songs on this album like its missing the heart of what BTS means to so much long time fans. During the studio notes they brought up many times how we need to "hear it out" and even they didnt completely like the entire album and wished they had more time which is so crazy to hear for them personally.
The promotion of this album really threw me off since a lot of the producers who worked on this acted like they saw god in the studio, i was expecting some extremely incredible stuff, but its just fine. Their past work has emotional clarity that felt so personal and grounding which separated them from so many artists and now I simply don't feel that connection anymore. Its kinda hard to imagine this is BTS. I am glad they are going back to having more rap and hiphop in their music like their early work, but their earlier work also had a lot of lyrical essence like Tomorrow and No More Dream. I hope the album grows on me over time, i really do, but at the same time i dont want to try to convince myself that I like it.
I went on twitter after my first album listen to see if people agreed with me and the only people agreeing with me were antis where if i dug into their account there was hints that they were planning on posing as a fan during the comeback to bring BTS down. I dont see a single fan critiquing the album at all online and when someone does say something that isnt overly positive they are flamed for it. I know it can feel too early for a lot of people, but i feel like someone has to say it first. I am totally open to your thoughts even if you dont agree with me at all. I feel like NOT ALL but a lot of people in the BTS ARMY do not leave any room for criticism so it makes me worried to come off as a BTS hater for saying any of this. I love BTS so so much it feels wrong to pretend that I liked this entirely. I am still going to stream and support BTS, I guess I am going to have to accept that this album isn't entirely for my taste and I might have to let it grow on me.
