BTS' Album, “ARIRANG:” Was the Comeback Worth the Wait?
The gang's all together again! After a hiatus of over three years, during which BTS members fulfilled their military service in South Korea, their fifth studio album, “ARIRANG,” was released in late March. The group's comeback was highly anticipated by ARMYs, followed by their upcoming world tour for the rest of this year and 2027. With over a billion streams, the album was a huge success, celebrating the group’s new music.
“ARIRANG” has a tracklist of 14 songs — with SWIM being the title track — and overall leans into a hip-hop and pop sound.
The word "Arirang," which is interpreted as "my beloved one," is directly drawn from the traditional Korean folk song, “Arirang” about love and longing. BTS symbolically expresses both the time apart from fans and their return; the album embraces Korean roots while reflecting the members’ growth as artists.
Though these themes were poured into the songs through the lyricism and musical production, they did not translate well to my listening experience. Growing up with an older sister who has been a diehard BTS fan since 2014, I listened to the group’s sound evolve over the years and eventually became a fan myself.
BTS has come a long way since their debut. By 2020, it was like a switch had been flipped. Their song “Dynamite” gained immense popularity — becoming the first K-pop act to have a song reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and from then on, BTS began catering their sound to a more Western audience. Then followed “Butter” and “Permission to Dance,” songs that are entirely in English. With this new album, the main track, “SWIM” is once again the same formula. I was hoping they'd step back into full-length Korean songs, but throughout the album, most of the songs were heavily in English, so I’m not feeling the “roots.”
The heavy use of African American Vernacular English in songs like “FYA,” “2.0” and “They Don’t Know ‘Bout Us” felt too forced for me. Apparently, repeating “ooh damn” and “aye yuh” for a third of the song counted as lyrical genius. No joke, the majority of verses consisted of repeating one word, like “rah.” The repetition throughout these tracks drove me nuts, and knowing the members were born and raised in South Korea made the whole thing feel disconnected.
It’s well known that BTS, like much of the K-pop industry, has used AAVE in its rap-heavy songs, but I would’ve liked to hear more genuine creativity here. In one of their older songs, “Hip Hop Phile,” they openly shout out their inspirations from American rappers and hip-hop culture while still putting their own spin on it through their native language. That approach could have worked really well with “ARIRANG’s” concept.
One song that has received a lot of hate, “Into the Sun.” has gone viral on social media as a meme because of its distinct sound. The song begins with a lone, mellow guitar, some whistling, and then the first line, “Baby you remind me,” and suddenly all the hate floods in. When I first heard the song, I honestly wanted to cover my ears. Something about the layering and vocal arrangement creates a dissonant, unpleasant sound. I think the song needed more varied vocal layering to add depth and color. Because the opening vocals are mostly in octave unison — everyone singing the same line at different pitches instead of building real harmony — the sound feels less like layered harmonies and more like someone aggressively blowing a harmonica into my ear.
“Hooligan” hasn’t been doing too well with listeners either. Funnily enough, this was one of the songs I actually enjoyed. I like the experimental sound; it’s bold and rebellious. They were definitely taking risks with the instrumentation. The chopped strings in the beginning moving into the interesting percussion create an entirely different sound that stands apart from the other tracks. “Hooligan” references their older song, “We On,” made in 2013, as the word “hooligan” itself was in the lyrics. It’s nice when there are these little easter eggs or “callbacks” to their early days.
Honestly, “ARIRANG” had many ideas that just did not work well together. Musically, it was not their strongest project and often came off like, “we didn’t have enough time.” The album felt crammed into a hard deadline, leaving barely any room for each member’s creative vision to fully develop. After researching the lyrical analyses for the album on Genius, I found that so many explanations for every track were intended to be vague — left open for the listener’s interpretation. It honestly feels like grasping at straws to truly understand the purpose of every track.
Compared to BTS’s older albums, which balanced melodic vocal performances with strong rap sections, this album felt far too dominated by the rappers. The vocalists rarely get the chance to truly shine or show their range as talented singers.
Maybe “ARIRANG” is ahead of its time and I’m just missing something. As a fan, I guess I’m stuck on the nostalgia train with their “Dark & Wild” and “Wings” eras. Still, I went into the album expecting Korean pop — K-pop — but instead it often sounded like standard American pop music: reheated nachos served with a different label.