Hi everyone, Beatthony Repeattano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new BTS album, ARIRANG.

Here we have a brand new LP from K-pop kingpins BTS. It is their 10th overall and first record in a minute, because if I'm not mistaken, the last year the band was really making noise was back in 2020 with MAP OF THE SOUL: 7, along with some other releases too. And while obviously they haven't been completely silent, either as a group or solo since then, BTS did need to slow things down for a bit due to members having to join up for mandatory military service, leading to really the biggest album break the group has had since their inception in 2010.

Which is a kind of unfortunate time to have to pause their progress, because K-pop only recently became the commercial sensation that it is in Western music markets, with BTS definitely being one of those groups that helped lay the groundwork for many other artists who have seen success over here, in their wake. Not to mention the unbreakable popularity right now of KPop Demon Hunters as a film, a soundtrack.

So in several years, K-pop has gone from being this shiny, exciting new thing in our feeds, all over the charts, to this kind of inescapable known quantity. And considering that, along with BTS having to take a minute to really boot things up for another album, another era, it feels like it's kind of time to shake things up right now. And the group more or less forecasted a project that was going to present something something different, given the sheer number of crossovers from a variety of different rap artists and producers.

Names like Diplo, JPEGMAFIA, Mike WiLL Made-It, Y2K, Flume. Presuming we might be in for something hipper here, more alternative maybe? Or at the very least truer to the influences the group often borrows from hip-hop music and EDM. Even Kevin Parker of Tame Impala fame has a writer credit on "Merry Go Round," a track whose instrumental has a very Tame Impala, Currents-esque bed of synthesizers behind it. Teezo Touchdown even has a credit on the closer, too.

It seems like BTS has more help than ever on this record to make their music sound like an actual product of the western music market that so deeply inspires them, not just an all-over-the-place mix and amalgamation of a series of different sounds with just surface-level spins on each of them, but they still kind of culminate into a kind of unique soup and recipe that feels specific to K-pop.

Anyway, I guess the point I'm ultimately trying to make here is that it seems like BTS is really making an attempt to deliver to fans, like, the real deal, and yet the final results on this record couldn't come across more alien and, I think, unaware of how weak its mimicry actually is. Whether the group is trying to come across as menacing and edgy with with all these string chops and 'shing shing shing' metallic samples all over the beat to "Hooligan," a track that also has these rhythmic "hahahaha" laughs that are weirdly Joker-coded, and very boring flows, surprisingly. Rap Monster delivered much more impassioned and exciting performances, not just on past BTS albums but solo material, too.

And that's kinda the thing, like, BTS provably can actually rap, but I feel like they're not pushing themselves on that front that hard with at least the bangers on this project.

Not only that, but I feel like for the first time on this record, BTS is truly sounding behind the curve, as "they don't know 'bout us" is pretty much like a moody pop-trap blend that hasn't sounded fresh or interesting since the mid-2010s. Then the closing track that I mentioned earlier has this absolutely grating blend of autotuned vocal harmonies that are really like an auditory abortion. It sounds like the result of like the worst pop songwriting group session of all time, or like an Animal Collective vocal experiment that escaped the lab.

And while yes, I know that K-pop long has been like, uh, this kind of combination of different genres and cultural popular music trends, the increase in English and AAVE bars combined with all of the dated instrumentals here, it makes so many songs on this record feel more like a very carefully groomed product as opposed to a genuine artistic expression. Like with the opening moments of the album — "what you need twin?" — awkward, to say the least.

And it's not like the experience of these songs smooths out that much more as they progress. Whether it's "Aliens" or "FYA", which is the track that has the JPEGMAFIA credit, both of these tracks have huge instrumentals, massive beats, big group vocals too, but nothing writing-wise that is all that compelling or memorable that would, like, connect it all together. Like, "Aliens, aliens!" Or, "Everything lit, it's fire / Everything big, it's fire / Everything lit, it's fire / Everything big, it's fire / She wanna dance on fire."

These are hooks. These are hooks.

The song "SWIM" is really like the first plainly respectable, chill, glossy pop tune on the entire project. Nothing weird or gimmicky going on. It may be kind of basic by BTS' usual standards, but it's at least palatable.

Then "Merry Go Round" that I mentioned earlier is so similar aesthetically to not just mid-era Tame Impala, but also a lot of pop music out there loaded with analog synthesizers that has maybe a bit of a nostalgic flair. And frankly, given the saturation of stuff in this style right now, what BTS offers just doesn't really stand out all that much. The song "NORMAL" is a pretty dramatic one that continues the album's run of ballads. This one is more of a meditation on intense and mixed feelings around love and fame. "We call this shit normal". And while it may be a little over the top, it is one of the more true and genuine expressions of emotion from the entire group on the record.

But "Like Animals", weirdly, to my ears, with its moody guitar chords and talk-sung vocals, is bringing a big Twenty One Pilots energy. Again, something I feel like there is enough out there in the popular music meta, and BTS doesn't really need to add to it, as this is another oddly awkward and derivative moment on the record where they're barely even doing justice to the sound they're clearly inspired by here.

Which I think basically boils down to my core feelings on the album in general, as for me it feels like the group's most awkward and nondescript album since they've hit the mainstream over here. When BTS first became the sensation that they are, they at least had a bit of a distinct sound and appeal, and I feel like on this record, in overextending themselves into some more specific styles and influences that maybe they weren't quite ready to turn into their own, they've exposed a shallowness in the group's creativity that most likely has long been there, but the random mishmash of pop, rap, and electronica influences they were mostly dealing with before across variety-packed tracks didn't necessarily make that a distraction point, because super in-depth knowledge of these sounds wasn't required.

Conversely, ARIRANG just feels so much more forced, as well as out of touch. Which is why I'm feeling about a strong 2 to a light 3 on this thing.

Anthony Fantano. BTS. Forever.