On May 18, 2018, the world is going to change. This is the day BTS will release their new album Love Yourself: Tear.Photo courtesy of tumblr.com
If you don’t know who BTS is, they’re a seven-member boy band from South Korea. Over the past year, they’ve gained immense global attention and Western recognition. Over the past year, the group sold out their worldwide tour, comprising of 40 shows. They were the first Korean group to win a Billboard Music Award, respectively winning Top Social Artist.Gif courtesy of tumblr.com
BTS’ music covers a variety of genres. Their first albums take on a heavy hip-hop and R&B sound. However, over the years, they’ve also incorporated other genres such as ballads, jazz, EDM, pop, and reggaeton to name a few.
Along with the wide range of music, BTS also writes about different messages in their songs. The themes of BTS’ songs include common things like love and partying, to more societal topics such as the lack of female empowerment, defying the school system, and the struggles that millennials go through. Love Yourself: Tear is no exception. In this new album, it will cover “the pain and agony of the boys facing parting/farewell,” according to Ilgan Sports.
This new album is part of the Love Yourself series. This is a new series that started with a set of videos called The Highlight Reels that displays an ambiguous story. These videos are a continuation of a previous BTS era called The Most Beautiful Moment in Life. Although it is incomplete, the story follows the themes of “love, friendship, love, loss, and death,” according to Billboard.com. Photo courtesy of imgur.com
Next came the first mini album of the series called Love Yourself: Her. Songs in this mini album include “Serendipity” and “DNA” that aimed to capture the idea of stumbling upon “rare things you find in life, something very special, like the calico, three-striped cat; things that have extraordinary meanings in people’s lives,” according to RM, the leader of BTS, in a Billboard.com interview. Other songs include Mic Drop that reflects how far the band made it in the music industry and “Best of Me” which is co-produced by the Chainsmokers and is a song dedicated to the fans.
Love Yourself: Her set records in Korea and internationally. In Korea alone, pre-orders for the mini album totaled 1.12 million, according to Soompi.com. Love Yourself: Her also debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at #7, the highest for any K-pop album. The album caused such a frenzy all over the world that BTS even performed the title track “DNA” at the American Music Awards. “DNA” went on to become the highest charting song from a K-pop group on the Billboard Hot 100, coming in at #67. Not long after, BTS released “Mic Drop Remix” featuring Steve Aoki and Desiigner, beating out “DNA” and charting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and debuting at #28. The two songs then became the first songs by a Korean artist after Psy to become RIAA Gold certified. Gif courtesy of giphy.com
With this amount of success coming from the previous album, all eyes are set on Love Yourself: Tear to top BTS’ current status. Fans are anxiously anticipating the release, already selling out pre-orders on sites like Amazon. Until then, here’s a playlist of songs to get you hyped up for the big release.