by BTS’ new album is not just a work filled with new songs. There are only three new songs. The rest have been made before, but they are filled with official songs for the first time, the demo version with various attempts, and the representative pieces they have left so far.
In a nutshell, the album Proof’ is the best album that BTS, who celebrated their 9th anniversary as of this writing today (June 12), is the best album to organize the past. At the same time, it is a unique album delivered to the fans (ARMY) who made them today. . The agency put a somewhat heavy premise called ‘Anthology,’ which is often attached to the collections of masters who have been active for a long time.
‘Proof’ consists of 3 CDs. The first CD is a chronicle of representative songs that dealt with school, youth, and self-love, and the second CD contains each member’s solo themes and carefully selected ones from the unit songs among the members. The third and final CDN includes demos of unreleased and previously released songs that can only be heard on physical albums. In the sense that you cannot listen to the rest of the tracks except for a new theme through digital sound sources, the decisive reason to call this collection an ‘album for ARMYs’ is in this third CD.
The three CDs contain one new song. The first CD’s new song is ‘Yet To Come,’ which shares emotion with the theme ‘Sea.’ An intro vocal line that includes Jungkook, Jimin, V, and Jin. Here, the loose and dense rap of Suga, RM, and J-Hope seems proof that they did not spend the past ten years in vain. The theme of this song, where ‘Butterfly’ opens and spreads its wings with ‘Spring Day,’ flows on a laid-back beat. This song’s music seems like “The best moment has not yet come, so keep dreaming and have hope.” RM’s rap saying, “There was a lot, but nothing has changed,” significantly overlaps with the lyrics of ‘Lie,’ which sang, “I’m still the same me.”
Interestingly, the first CD, which closes with ‘Yet To Come,’ starts with a song (‘Born Singer’) that they unofficially released through SoundCloud a month after their debut (July 2013). The track, which puts their story on top of the song ‘Born Sinner’ by American rapper J. Cole, quoted by RM in his first mixtape, is a song about the reality of “a mirage that was always far away is right in front of you.” Even after nine years have passed through ‘Yet To Come,’ he still shows his will to keep chasing that mirage (dream). A team that seems to go to and from the top of the Billboard home is ‘still a long way to go,’ so they are greedy friends.
As mentioned earlier, the second CD is a collection of carefully selected BTS member solo and unit songs. The important thing is that the subject of careful selection is the BTS party. Therefore, the fact that this CD is ‘BTS songs that BTS likes’ alone will satisfy fans. Here, unlike the first CD on the tail, the new song is put on the head, and the title is ‘Run Bangtan.’ ‘Run BTS’ is also the title of their real variety program that has been aired through portal video streaming sites since the summer of 2015. It also reflexively reminds us of ‘Attack on Bulletproof Boys’ and ‘Exciting Boys’ in terms of the spur BTS puts on itself. This song, which puts the rock guitar used well in the ‘War of Hormone’ on the front, and the rapid-fire rap by August D, another name of Suga, “gets the soul” of the listeners, is an identity between idols and rappers for a long time. It sounds like a declaration that BTS, who had to find it, still hasn’t given up on hip-hop.
Following this, the third CD provides a glimpse behind the scenes of famous songs that BTS tried before releasing the final version, including pieces that BTS worked on in the past (singles and albums) but did not record (‘Quotes’ and ‘Ambiguous Relationships’). Demo tracks are included. ‘Rolling Stone’ described this as “a torn page in a diary that no one was going to read,” so this last CD is the most maniac chapter in this album as it can only be checked with the real thing.
The new song hidden in this special gift is ‘For Youth.’ As you can intuit from the fact that the last word (Youth) of ‘ARMY (Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth),’ which is now inseparable from BTS, is written in the title, the song is, of course, ‘Two! three! (Still, I hope there are more good days).’ is a fan song. However, ‘two! While ‘Three!’ is a comfort that says, “Erase sad memories, hold hands and smile,” ‘For Youth’ is different in that it is a confession that promises “I will be with you(they) forever for the rest of my life.” The space called Nonhyeon-dong that appeared in ‘Run BTS,’ the fans’ ‘EPILOGUE: Young Forever’ sang in the intro (recorded at the actual venue), slow beats, and reminiscent strings, and the undercurrent of the piano passing under the hot falsetto vocals are such confessions. Emotional background.
‘Proof.’ Of course, it is probably derived from BTS’ ‘Bulletproof.’ The word itself also has an independent meaning of ‘proof.’ The proof here may be a one-dimensional proof at the brand level of the world’s best pop icon, or it may be a proof of existence about the amendment to the Military Service Act that is still pending in the National Assembly. Of course, the proof is for “the context of K-pop that has penetrated the Western entertainment industry,” as some have evaluated, and for “the reasoning about BTS’ solo dominance.”
