BTS is a seven member boy group from South Korea. Their full name in Korean is Bangtan Sonyeondan which translates to Bulletproof Boyscouts, a theme that has carried itself throughout BTS' music like the song We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2 and the anthology album Proof. The acronym was later expanded to also mean "Beyond The Scene", although that isn't widely regarded as the "true" meaning. The group debuted on June 13, 2013 under the management of Bang Shihyuk (AKA hitman bang AKA Bang PD), the founder of Big Hit Entertainment. Big Hit recently transformed into a larger, more encompassing company called HYBE that oversees a number of smaller labels, but I'm not really here to talk economics or management. Their ongoing music career spans many albums and mini-albums, as well as solo music. Most of their group albums feature solo songs by each member, and they also release their own music separately.

This is intended to be a quick intro to each of the members, mostly regarding their solo music since their group work will be in the Discography section. Since they're all real, changing people (of course), not fictional characters, I don't think I'd do a good enough job at creating summaries for their personalities. For that, I'd suggest checking out their individual Instagram accounts and the group's Twitter, as well as Bangtan Bomb uploads on their YouTube channel. Also, some of the members have full mixtapes/albums! In their cases, the "Songs" and "Collabs" sections will only include one-off singles that aren't associated with a larger body of work, rather than listing every single song from their albums.

RM

• Kim Namjoon
• Birthday: September 12, 1994
• Solo releases:

Albums: RM (2015), mono. (2018), Indigo (2022)

Songs: Reflection (2016), Trivia: Love (2018), Intro: Persona (2019), Bicycle (2021)

Collabs: Buckubucku with MFBTY, EE, Dino-J (2015); U with Primary, Kwon Jin-ah (2015); Gajah with Gaeko (2017); Champion (Remix) with Fall Out Boy (2017); 4 O'clock with V (2017); Change with Wale (2017); Timeless with Tiger JK (2018); Crying Over You with Honne, BEKA (2019); All Night with Suga, Juice Wrld (2019); Seoul Town Road with Lil Nas X (2019); Winter Flower with Younha (2020); Strange with Agust D (2020); Don't with eAeon (2021), SEXY NUKIM with Balming Tiger (2022)

Covers: Fools w/ Jungkook (Troye Sivan)

Jin

• Kim Seokjin
• Birthday: December 4, 1992
• Solo releases:

Songs: Awake (2016); Epiphany (2018); Tonight (2019); Moon (2020); Abyss (2020); Yours (2021); Super Tuna (2021), The Astronaut (2022)

Collabs: Adult Child with RM, Suga (2013); It's Definitely You with V (2016); So Far Away with Suga, Jungkook (2017); Dream Glow with Jimin, Jungkook, Charli XCX (2019), & The Astronaut was co-written with Coldplay!

Covers: Mom (Ra.D); I Love You (Mate); In Front of the Post Office in Autumn (Yoon Do-hyun)

SUGA

• Min Yoongi
• Releases solo music under the moniker Agust D, but his collabs and producing jobs are under SUGA
• Birthday: March 9, 1993
• Solo releases:

Albums: Agust D (2016); D-2 (2020)

Songs: Intro: The Most Beautiful Moment in Life (2015); First Love (2016); Trivia: Seesaw (2018); Interlude: Shadow (2020)

Collabs: Song Request with Lee So-ra (2019); All Night with RM, Juice Wrld (2019); Suga's Interlude with Halsey (2019); Eight with IU (2020); Blueberry Eyes with MAX (2020); Girl of My Dreams with Juice Wrld (2021); That That with Psy (2022)

Produced: Wine (Suran ft. Changmo, 2017); Eternal Sunshine (Epik High, 2019); We Don't Talk Together (Heize ft. Giriboy, 2019); Eight (IU, 2020); You (OMI, 2021); Stay Alive (Jungkook, 2022), Over the Horizon 2022 (SUGA, 2022)

j-hope

• Jung Hoseok
• Birthday: February 18, 1994
• Solo releases:

Albums: Hope World (2018); Jack In The Box (2022)

Songs: 1 Verse (2015); Intro: Boy Meets Evil (2016); Mama (2016); Trivia: Just Dance (2018); Blue Side (extended ver. 2021)

Collabs: Animal with Jo Kwon (2012); A Brand New Day with V and Zara Larsson (2019); Chicken Noodle Soup with Becky G (2019)

Covers: Hug Me w/V (Joonil Jung)

Jimin

• Park Jimin
• Birthday: October 13, 1995
• Solo releases:

Songs: Lie (2016); Intro: Serendipity (2017); Promise (2018); Filter (2020); Christmas Love (2020)

Collabs: 95 Graduation with V (2014); Dream Glow with Jin, Jungkook, Charli XCX (2019); With You with Ha Sungwoon (2022)

Covers: We Don't Talk Anymore Pt. 2 w/Jungkook (Charlie Puth, Selena Gomez)

V

• Kim Taehyung
• Birthday: December 30, 1995
• Solo releases:

Songs: Stigma (2016); Intro: Singularity (2018); Scenery (2019); Winter Bear (2019); Inner Child (2020); Sweet Night (2020); Christmas Tree (2021)

Collabs: 95 Graduation with Jimin (2014); It's Definitely You with Jin (2016), 4 O'clock with RM (2017); A Brand New Day with j-hope, Zara Larsson (2019); Snow Flower with Peakboy (2020)

Covers: Someone Like You (Adele); Hug Me w/j-hope (Joonil Jung), It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas (Bing Crosby)

Jungkook

• Jeon Jungkook
• Birthday: September 1, 1997
• Solo releases:

Songs: Begin (2016); Euphoria (2018); My Time (2020); Stay Alive (2022); Still With You (2020); My You (2022), Dreamers (2022)

Collabs: Dream Glow with Jin, Jimin, Charli XCX (2019); Left and Right with Charlie Puth (2022)

Covers: SOFA (Crush); Lost Stars (Adam Levine); Paper Hearts (Tori Kelly); Fools w/RM (Troye Sivan); Nothing Like Us (Justin Bieber); Purpose (Justin Bieber); We Don't Talk Anymore Pt. 2 w/Jimin (Charlie Puth, Selena Gomez); 2U (Justin Bieber); Oh Holy Night (Adolphe Adam); Only Then (Roy Kim); Ending Scene (IU); 10000 Hours (Dan + Shay); Falling (Harry Styles)

School Trilogy (2013-2014)

2 Cool 4 Skool / O!RUL8,2? / Skool Luv Affair / Dark & Wild

As you can tell from the titles, this era was centered around the high school/college experience. At the time of BTS' debut, the members' ages ranged from 16 to 21. Much of their music was themed around cheesy love songs as well as the difficulties teenagers experience during their adolescence. The latter stands out to me because it isn't often that you hear music being written about the sad fact that students are expected to prioritize studies and finding a well-paying job, rather than following one's true passions and dreams. Much of BTS' music in general discusses dreams and aspirations, and this begins with their very first single, No More Dream. This song talks about how teenagers feel lost in today's society, either because they don't have a dream or because their dream is considered "unrealistic". It tells the listener to go their own way in life, rather than follow the career plans their parents want them to have.

My favorites: Tomorrow, Jump, Intro: Skool Luv Affair, N.O., Paldogangsan, Like, Look Here, Let Me Know, BTS Cypher 3

Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa Trilogy (2015-2016)

The Most Beautiful Moment In Life Pt.1 / The Most Beautiful Moment In Life Pt.2 / The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: Young Forever

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My favorites: RUN, I Need U, Autumn Leaves, House of Cards, Ma City, Hold Me Tight

Wings (2016-2017)

Wings / You Never Walk Alone

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My favorites: Spring Day, Lost, Lie, Reflection, Am I Wrong, A Supplementary Story: YNWA

Love Yourself (2017-2018)

Love Yourself 'Her' / Love Yourself 'Tear' / Love Yourself 'Answer'

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My favorites: 134340, Fake Love, Pied Piper, So What, Airplane pt. 2, dimple, Her, Tear

Map Of The Soul (2019-2020)

MAP OF THE SOUL: PERSONA / MAP OF THE SOUL: 7

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My favorites: Dionysus, Black Swan, Louder than bombs, Intro: Persona, Interlude: Shadow, ON, Filter

BE (2020)

BE

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My favorites: It's a short album. Go listen straight through the whole thing. Right now.

Digital Singles (2020-2021)

Dynamite / Butter / Permission To Dance / My Universe

Since the pandemic threw BTS for a loop regarding their upcoming schedules, they did something(s) they've never done before: three standalone singles in English. They technically aren't stand-alone anymore since Dynamite is on BE and Butter and PTD are in a combined physical album, but at the time each one was released we didn't know that yet. Dynamite and Butter are feel-good songs to keep us grooving during tough times, and I think they accomplished that goal. Honestly, the standout parts of my pandemic summers thus far were these music releases! Butter also had a remix featuring Megan Thee Stallion, and I personally like it even more than the original (I find myself mouthing "It's the hot girl coach and BTS" at the beginning of Butter whether I'm listening to the original or the Meg feature). Permission To Dance is a song of hope for what the future will bring. The choreography includes sign language components, to the surprise of many Deaf/HoH Armys (and non-fans), which I thought was a super neat idea! My Universe, while not fully in English, is included because it is somewhat of a standalone single. The track is one of the singles from Coldplay's album Music of the Spheres. It was really interesting hearing about the collaboration process between the two groups, especially since Coldplay's singer Chris Martin flew to Korea to record the vocals with BTS! RM mentioned in an interview recently that he was surprised & impressed that Chris had done his research on BTS and HYBE, and Chris had even recognized a member of boy group Enhypen in the hallway. From what we saw in the behind the scenes videos, the collab was super genuine, and both sides were huge fans of the others. I think it's also admirable that the verses of the song are sung in Korean, rather than making the whole song English just because of Coldplay.

So how do I fit into all of this? Before I started listening to BTS, I had quite literally no idea who they were; I vaguely knew of kpop as a genre but that was about it. The idea of that seems so weird to me now, because they're pratically everywhere you turn, fan or not. Hashtags dedicated to member birthday celebrations or song releases are all over the top Twitter trends 24/7. I suppose it's because at the time, I was still a major Internet lurker. If we're being uber specific, the first ever BTS-related song I ever heard was RM's remix of Champion by Fall Out Boy. FOB was (and is) one of my all time favorite bands, so of course I listened to the collab the day it released in late 2017. However... I apparently had no interest in finding out who exactly this "RM of BTS" dude was. Personally, I'm still bummed that FOB and RM never got to work on the collab in person. And so, we skip to 2019. At the time I only used my Twitter account to check for updates on my (other) favorite band, so I didn't really have any interest at looking at the trending topics. One fateful day before school, though, I saw a tweet appear on my timeline. It was from a fan account for said-other-favorite-band, but it seemed they were also a fan of BTS. It was the day MOTS: Persona released, and they were tweeting about the songs. One in particular caught my eye: Dionysus. I don't remember the exact words of the tweet, but it said something about how the track was rock-inspired. I still had time before my ride to school would come, so I opened up Spotify and decided to check this album out, out of curiousity. Here's a screenshot of my last.fm account, the scrobbles don't lie!

And... as much as it physically pains me to admit it I cannot leave this out... I didn't really like it. Which is apparent considering the fact that according to last.fm, I didn't listen to another BTS song until April 27, 2 weeks later. And if we do a little search history sleuthing, we can see what I was doing on YouTube when I decided to give MOTS: Persona another listen. It is a little scary that all of my searches are so well documented, but also I have to say, it's fun to look back sometimes. So, on April 26, I had watched a Music Video Sins video of, you guessed it, the Boy With Luv music video. For context, I was very into the whole Cinema Sins shebang at the time. I don't know why either. So that video came up in my subscriptions feed, I was probably like "oh hey it's those guys again", and watched it. Unfortunately my memory sucks sometimes, so I do not remember what specific impression that particular video had on me.

But the next night, It Began. My YouTube searches/video history include: "bts snl", "adults react to bts", "bts new fan", "a guide for new bts armys", the infamous "flinch challenge" on james corden, the even more infamous now-deleted "bts being chaotic in america", "bts ellen", and then I finally went to sleep. And then I woke up the next morning, bright and early at 10 AM... to watch even more of these videos. I was in deep. There was no getting out of the rabbit hole now. I had tried to listen to some other kpop groups because I felt kinda obligated to, since I had never listened to the genre before. I liked some of what I heard, but it seemed that none of these groups stuck with me the same way BTS did. And that's still true now; I like a handful of songs by other boy and girl groups, but I've just never had any interest in learning about the members or their history or discography.

The rest of 2019 brought Festa, the last leg of the Speak Yourself Tour, Bon Voyage 4, many Run BTS! episodes, end of year award show performances (notably: the absolutely insane 40-some minute long MMA 2019 performance), and a trip to NYC where I bought my first piece of merch, a little BT21 Koya plushie from the LINE Friends store. Naturally, I was both amazed and overwhelmed. The experience of stanning my aforementioned other favorite band (a western alt-rock-not-emo duo called iDKHOW) was basically... not like this in the slightest. BTS seemed to be releasing something new at least once every single day, and that was impossible to wrap my head around because I had simply never experienced anything like it.