BTS (band)

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BTS (Korean: 방탄소년단; RR: Bangtan Sonyeondan), also known as the Bangtan Boys, and in 2017 it also represented Beyond The Scene, is a seven-member South Korean Boy Band formed in Seoul in 2013. The septet co-writes and produces much of their output. Initially rooted in hip hop, the group’s musical style has evolved to include a wide range of genres. Their lyrics, often focused on personal and social commentary, touch on the themes of mental health, troubles of school-age youth, loss, the journey towards loving oneself, and individualism. Their work features references to literature and psychological concepts and includes an alternative universe storyline. Popular for their live performances, the group have staged several world tours.

In 2019, their album MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA has sold more than 3 million copies in South Korea: the highest-selling album ever there. In total, their albums sold more than 14 million copies.


The members in 2018. Clockwise, from left: V, J-Hope, RM, Jin, Jimin, Jungkook, and Suga

Members:

  • Kim Nam-joon (RM -formerly Rap Monster-, born September 12, 1994)
  • Jung Ho-seok (J-Hope, born February 18, 1994)
  • Kim Tae-hyung (V, born December 30, 1995)
  • Park Ji-min (Jimin, born October 13, 1995)
  • Min Yoon-gi (Suga, born March 9, 1993)
  • Kim Seok-jin (Jin, born December 4, 1992)
  • Jeon Jung-kook (Jungkook, born September 1, 1997)
Discography:

Studio albums in Korean

  • Dark & Wild (2014)
  • Wings (2016)
  • Love Yourself: 轉 Tear (2018)

Studio albums in Japanese

  • Wake Up (2014)
  • Youth (2016)
  • Face Yourself (2018)

Other releases

  • 2 Cool 4 Skool (2013, single album)
  • O!RUL8,2 (2013)
  • Skool Luv Affair (2014)
  • The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Part 1 (2015)
  • The Most Beautiful Moment In Life, Part 2 (2015)
  • Love Yourself: 承 Her (2017)
  • Love Yourself: 結 Answer (2018)
  • MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA (2019)
  • BTS World: Original Soundtrack (2019)

Individual members' releases

  • RM
    • RM (2015, mixtape)
    • mono (2018, playlist)
  • Suga
    • Agust D (2016, mixtape)
  • J-hope
    • Hope World (2018, mixtape)
Other Media Aparitions

Multimedia projects

  • The BU universe (also called the "BTS universe" or "HYYH Universe" until the current name was revealed in 2017), an alternate universe that has been unveiled through several video clips and short films, a book (HYYH: The Notes 1), notes included in their albums booklets (some of them compiled in the before-mentioned book), and a webcomic (Save Me). The plot, told in non-linear fashion and with a great amount of symbolism, depict the group members in an Alternate Reality as a group of friends with dysfunctional lives, who had to confront their traumas and anxieties to get to the future. A great generator of Epileptic Trees within the fandom, and even when the webcomic clarified some things about the plot by telling what's going on (a Groundhog Day Loop to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, it turns out), it still left more questions than answers.
  • The BT21 project, a collaboration with the messaging service LINE where the group created cutesy animal characters inspired on themselves to be used as stickers for said messaging service. It has generated a great amount of derivative merchandise, including plushies, clothes, a cellphone game, a special menu in a Korean cafe, and even a webcomic starring the characters.

TV Series and Variety Shows

  • American Hustle Life: a 2014 reality show where the members were brought to Los Angeles to know the West Coast rap culture.
  • BTS Gayo, a "behind the scenes" showing the members doing activities related to KPop, stream in the online service V Live between 2015 and 2017.
  • Run BTS! a variety show stream in the online service V Live since 2015, where the members of the group do outrageous dares among themselves for small prizes or punishments. A selection of 8 episodes was shown on TV.
  • Burn the Stage, a 2018 8-episode YouTube exclusive series documenting their 2017 promotional tour "The Wings Tour".
  • BTS: Bon Voyage, a travelogue show, portraying the members of the band during their vacations, who ran between 2016 -2018. It's stream in V Live.

Filmography

  • Burn the Stage: The Movie : a compiled, compressed version of the Youtube documentary.
  • Love Yourself in Seoul: a concert film depicting their August 26, 2018 show of the band's Love Yourself Tour at Seoul Olympic Stadium.
  • Bring the Soul: The Movie: a 2019 documentary that intercalates footage from their 2018 "Love Yourselves" tour with a rooftop conversation between the members filmed at the end of the European Leg of said tour.

Videogames

  • BTS World, a mobile game released on June 26, 2019. It's a Visual Novel/Gacha Game where the player takes the role of the group manager and has to go through several journeys with the group members from their pre-debut era to 2019. It has an unlockable "Another Story" mode, that follows a scenario about What If...? each member didn't got into the music world and instead got more mundane professions.

Webcomics

  • We On: Be The Shield, a 2015 webtoon who portrays the band as a group of superpowered heroes having shounenesque adventures.
  • Hip Hop Monster, a second webtoon, more comedic in tone, where the members of the group are Flanderized for laughs.
  • The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt.0: Save Me or just Save Me: a webtoon released on Line Webtoon between January and April 2019, as part of the BU universe. A more linear retelling of the events of the 'verse or at least, the ones that happen in the real world.
BTS provides examples of the following tropes:
  • all lowercase letters: All the song titles in mono.
  • Archive Panic: Along with the above discography and the MV for their singles and comebacks, there are hundreds of hours on content from their social media, their shows and all the side projets.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: The video clip for "I Need U", with its shocking plot and high angst content, marked a change of direction on the group career. Not that they stopped having silly or light MV and songs, but the video clips for its more serious song became darker and filled with symbology.
  • The Danza: In the BU universe, the characters have the same real name than the group members - and to an extent, similar personality traits and interests.
  • Dye Hard: The members of the band like to dye their hair quite often, from normal colors like blond or red, to more outrageous colors like green and pink. According to this chart (which compiled until mid-2018), all members have had pink hair at some point, and RM and Suga are the ones with more hair color changes.
  • Fan Community Nicknames: Their official fan club is named ARMY.
  • Growing the Beard: The era of The Most Beautiful Moment In Life albums is acknowledged as the moment BTS step up their game and grew out of their initial "bad boys" image and overwhelming rap sound, with their songs growing in quality, their sound becoming more poppier while also venturing in other genres, their video clips actually getting a budget, the group refining their choreographies and stage presence, and the metaplot making its apparition.
  • Money Song: "If I Ruled the World".
  • The Oner: The video for "Save Me" was filmed in one take.
  • Shout-Out: Part of BTS fame is that they use references to western literature that aren't commonly see in Asian pop, or in pop in general.
    • Their album "Wings" is full of references to the famous Hermann Hesse novel Demian. The short films used to promote the individual songs of the members all begin with a reading of select quotes of the novel, and feature imagery of Abraxas, the deity revered by Demian.
    • Their video clip for "Spring Day" visibly features a hotel named Omelas, a reference to Ursula K. Le Guin's famous short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. The song and its video clip were rumored to have been created to memorialize the victims of the Sewol Ferry tragedy.
    • "Blood, Sweat, Tears" quotes Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra and its video clip features, along with the Demian references above mentioned, the famous pictures The Lament for Icarus by Herbert James Draper, and Pieter Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, and The Fall of the Rebel Angels.
    • The series of albums "Love Yourself" are said to be inspired by Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving.
    • "Magic Shop" was titled and inspired by the memoir Into the Magic Shop by James R. Doty
    • Their song "Anpanman" was inspired by and named after the titular Japanese character. The choreography they use for this song had the members doing famous poses from superheroes of Marvel and DC (and, of course, Ampanman's too).
    • Their album "Map of the Soul: Person" is named after Murray Stein's Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction. The song used for the comeback trailer for this album, "Intro: Persona", has several references to Carl Jung's psychological concepts.
  • Silly Love Songs: "Blanket Kick," "Miss Right," "Just One Day" and "Boy in Luv," among others.
  • Take That, Critics!: "MIC Drop" and "IDOL" are directed to every person that told them they couldn't make it or that questioned their artistic integrity. The video clip for "IDOL" even includes visual cues on the members wearing or doing things they had been criticized for online.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: In the Save Me webcomic, all the boys have ordinary-ish hair colors... except Yoongi, who has pink hair. And judging for his flashbacks to his childhood, it's apparently natural too.
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