It's been over 12 years since pop titans BTS announced their hiatus. Celebrating their 9th anniversary as a group, they announced that they are entering a new chapter in their lives. But, worry not! The group emphasized on focusing on themselves for a while, to discover their identities as artistes and plan to comeback as a whole group once they have more stories to tell. As a ritual, the group hosts a dinner/party celebration on their debut anniversary every year. Every year, BTS celebrates the first thirteen days with FESTA as they release new content like music, song covers, dance videos, photo collections among others. The two-week festival leads up to the finale which is a sit-down session of them having dinner with them.
On June 14, the group released a new BTS Dinner Party video via its official YouTube channel ‘BANGTANTV’ to celebrate their 9th anniversary and look back on their journey leading up to the latest anthology album Proof. In the video, BTS opened their hearts and talked about their feelings and thoughts on difficulties and changes they went through amid the pandemic. The members also frankly confessed that they faced challenges in the creative process as artists after actively working over the past nine years. Members mentioned future plans to accelerate personal growth and embark on “BTS' chapter 2.” In this new chapter, the group will allow themselves to express their individuality through the release of solo albums and collaborations with other artists. j-hope marks the beginning with his upcoming solo album and further information will be shared in due course. “Should we talk about why we’re not doing FESTA [this year] and why we haven’t made much new content?” said Suga. “We have to talk about the direction we’re taking.”
RM, the leader of BTS, openly discussed the struggle with BTS’ identity. He said, “Up until ‘ON’ and ‘Dynamite,’ I felt like the group BTS was within my hands. But as we did ‘Butter’ and ‘Permission to Dance,’ I didn’t really know what kind of group we were anymore.” He further explained, “There’s no time for me to grow. Not just in terms of my skills, but as a human. I’m a very different person from who I was 10 years ago, and I need time to think and be on my own, so those thoughts can mature into something uniquely mine.”
“But after spending the past 10 years as BTS, while carrying out our busy schedule together, I can’t mature,” continued RM. “There’s no time for me to think. I have to know what kind of person I am, what kind of group BTS is, why I’m here, what the other members mean to me, and the path we need to take in the future; I need to keep these things in mind while doing interviews and writing lyrics. But starting from a certain point on, I haven’t been sure what kind of group we are.”
Suga continued saying that his struggle has been to find inspiration to pen lyrics. “The hardest thing is writing lyrics,” he said. “I can’t think of anything to say. I have to write about things that I personally feel and want to say, but I feel like I’m just forcing things out right now… and that’s so difficult.”
Jimin said, “I think we’re just now starting to think about what kind of artist we each want to remembered as by our fans. I think that’s why we’re going through a tough time right now, because we’ve entered a phase where we’re only now trying to find our identities.”
RM further explained that previously he was able to balance out group and solo activities but now it was a big struggle. He said, “In the past, I was somewhat able to balance working on my music alone with our group activities, but now I can’t do them at the same time. I can’t be doing group activities and then just flip a switch and change everything to focus on my own work. I realized I really need some time on my own.”
V recalled, “J-Hope told me this before: ‘We can all really focus on our solo activities for the time being, and then when we come back together as a group, that synergy will be like no one else’s. It’ll be better than before.” Jimin chimed in, “To be honest, J-Hope talked about this kind of thing a lot.”
Adding to that, Jin said he felt like he had become a machine working non-stop. He shared, “Doing group activities for so long—just like you guys mentioned earlier, I started to feel like I’ve become a machine. I have my own hobbies and things I want to do on my own.” Suga said, “It’s not like we’re disbanding.”
As fans tried to process the information, they were grateful that BTS could be so open about their worries and chose to discuss it as it is. Following the video, a statement from Big Hit Music read, “BIGHIT MUSIC said, “BTS now starts a new chapter with new solo projects as well as group projects. Members will take this time to achieve personal growth through various new activities, and we expect it to further strengthen the foundation for the group‘s long-run as a team. BIGHIT MUSIC will actively support the artists.”
BTS plan to begin the 10th year as a group by releasing solo work and collaborations with several artists. SUGA kicked off this year with his collaboration with PSY on 'That That'. With the official announcement, J-Hope will begin solo activities with potential new album and his performance at Lollapalooza in July. Following which, BTS' V will be seen in variety show with his actor and music friends - a spin off of In The SOOP. RM, Jin, SUGA, Jimin, Jungkook also plan to release solo work as well.
Pop titans BTS released their new anthology album Proof today. The official music video of the lead single “Yet To Come (The Most Beautiful Moment)” is also available now. Proof comes 11 months after their latest single CD Butter. The three-CD album introduces three new tracks, one in each CD: “Yet To Come (The Most Beautiful Moment)”, “Run BTS” and “For Youth.” The album comprises 48 tracks in total, from the greatest hit songs, and solo/sub-unit tracks selected by each member, unreleased tracks to special tracks.
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