Review | BTS’ new album ‘Map of the Soul: 7’ marks new era of K-pop: review

‘7’ kicks off with familiar songs from ‘Persona’ but what comes next is the darkest, strangest and yet most relevant and ambitious music BTS have made

‘Ugh!’ showcases the best technical rapping of BTS’ career, ‘Black Swan’ is arty and catchy as hell, while ‘Filter’ is a high point for Jimin as a vocalist

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K-pop superstars BTS dive deep into dark and strange new territory on new album ‘Map of the Soul: 7’.

Published: 2:15pm, 24 Feb 2020Updated: 6:56pm, 25 Feb 2020

If there’s a digital-age equivalent to camping outside a record store waiting for a new album to drop, it’s what BTS fans did in the lead-up to the release of Map of the Soul: 7 – hovering over Spotify or Apple Music, pouring some very strong coffee and waiting for the upload to be available so they could finally stream the album when it landed.

The new release from the biggest K-pop group in the world is a global record biz event like no other. It is a comprehensive 20-song collection that looks forward, backward and all around the K-pop landscape that RM, Suga, J-Hope, Jin, Jimin, Jungkook and V helped create.

It booked more than 4 million presales, easily eclipsing the year-end tally of its predecessor, Map of the Soul: Persona – and that’s not even counting the streams to come.

There’s never been a more sure-fire Billboard chart-topper in recent pop. To quote their countryman, Parasite director Bong Joon Ho, it makes any other event in music seem quaintly “local”.

Fortunately, the album is a fantastic summary of BTS’ accomplishments so far, and charts a path forward in a tumultuous but exciting new era for K-pop.