Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential and sometimes controversialist. I'm Britney
Speaker 1: Spanos and.
Speaker 2: I'm Rob Sheffield and we're here to shed light on
Speaker 2: the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them
Speaker 2: so great. And this week's song Dynamite by BTS.
Speaker 1: This is one of two songs by BTS that are
Speaker 1: on the Greatest Songs of All Time lists. They made
Speaker 1: their debut, of course in twenty twenty one, ranking at
Speaker 1: number three forty seven with Dynamite, and then spring Day
Speaker 1: landed at number.
Speaker 3: Two hundred and eighty.
Speaker 1: And I mean BTS was already massive phenomenons at that point,
Speaker 1: but Dynamite kind of tipped over the edge of BTS
Speaker 1: mania that would happen globally. I mean, this was their
Speaker 1: first number one song on the Billboard Hot one hundred.
Speaker 1: This was their first fully English language song, and this
Speaker 1: was the first time in all South Korean group hit
Speaker 1: number one on the Hot one hundred.
Speaker 3: They also broke barriers with the Grammys as well.
Speaker 1: They got their first Grammy nomination and we're also the
Speaker 1: first South Korean artists to be nominated for a Grammy Award.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just kind of a boundary breaking,
Speaker 1: massive moment for this band.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like spring Day and Dynamite kind of a beautiful
Speaker 2: pair on the list just because they're sort of opposite
Speaker 2: extremes of the BTS story. Spring Day is them like
Speaker 2: as the South Korean band. It's a song that was
Speaker 2: for the hardcore fans, a very emotional, very inspiring song,
Speaker 2: a very message oriented song. And Dynamite is after they've
Speaker 2: become global phenomenon by being exactly themselves, not compromising anything
Speaker 2: like that. They got so huge in the US, which
Speaker 2: is so historically resistant to any music not in English,
Speaker 2: and they just did not cross over to North America.
Speaker 2: They made North America cross over to them and Dynamite.
Speaker 2: For them to finally do an English language song after
Speaker 2: they were so massive here on their own terms was
Speaker 2: just kind of beautiful. They didn't do it because they
Speaker 2: had to or because it would get them anything that
Speaker 2: they didn't already have, Like they just they felt like
Speaker 2: doing this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the song in particular too, the timing of
Speaker 1: it was so much. They released this in August twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: and this is this song is like, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just like Sunshine bottled up into a song. It's like
Speaker 1: a really great kind of like seventies funk, like very
Speaker 1: like Bruno Mars Uptown funky esque type of song.
Speaker 3: It's like really bright and happy.
Speaker 1: And of course this was August twenty twenty, not a
Speaker 1: particularly bright or happy time for anyone around the globe.
Speaker 3: And I mean it's very purposeful.
Speaker 1: They wanted to release a song that was, you know,
Speaker 1: meant to put a smile on people's faces, bring a
Speaker 1: little bit of joy and lightness, you know. Bts as
Speaker 1: songwriters that are coming from a place of talking about
Speaker 1: being a young person in South Korea who's dealing with
Speaker 1: kind of the pressures of a perfection, or about mental health,
Speaker 1: or about grief. Spring Day a perfect example of that.
Speaker 1: And this was a song that they very intentionally wanted
Speaker 1: to put out into the world that was kind of
Speaker 1: countering the amount of grief that people were facing. And
Speaker 1: it's just kind of a beautiful sentiment and obviously the
Speaker 1: song did just that for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really struck a nerve. It would have been
Speaker 2: so different if they did the song a couple of
Speaker 2: years earlier, you know, when they were still on the
Speaker 2: rise in this part of the world where it would
Speaker 2: have seemed or in some way it might have been
Speaker 2: a sort of compromise to try to broaden their audience.
Speaker 2: But they did dynamite when they were already as big
Speaker 2: as any group could possibly be. Yeah, it was almost
Speaker 2: a victory lap for them. And like you said that,
Speaker 2: it was at a very bleak global time and very
Speaker 2: similar message, very similar emotional impact as Spring Day, but
Speaker 2: on a just broader global scale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, like many boy bands before them,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't really need a number one to
Speaker 1: tell you that this band is like the biggest in
Speaker 1: the world, right, Like this is kind of like the
Speaker 1: stats quote for a lot of like really big kind
Speaker 1: of global success type of stadium filling boy bands. I mean,
Speaker 1: like One Direction is a great example of that, where
Speaker 1: it's like number one hits don't necessarily measure the global
Speaker 1: impact of a group like this. But BTS already broken
Speaker 1: the dam for K pop globally as a crossover artist,
Speaker 1: you know, well before the song blew up, And you know,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of a sort of solidified that in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, it's sort of just kind of
Speaker 1: further solidified that legacy of what they had done for
Speaker 1: K pop as a genre, for idol groups overall. For
Speaker 1: that kind of like legacy of that in this particular
Speaker 1: moment where they can be a crossover success in any capacity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, while also that it came so soon after
Speaker 2: I mean the whole map of the Soul franchise and
Speaker 2: just how complex that is. What I think made them
Speaker 2: like so forbidding and intimidating to people, Like when they
Speaker 2: first started to crossover in this part of the world
Speaker 2: was just that they were not what people figured when
Speaker 2: people heard the words k pop or boy band, they
Speaker 2: had an image of one thing, and like bts were
Speaker 2: just so complex in terms of the mythology and in
Speaker 2: terms of you know, it's like, yeah, they do concept
Speaker 2: albums about Nietzsche and Kyl Jung and like this, this
Speaker 2: is what they do. Like nothing they do is watered down.
Speaker 2: So for them to do Dynamite a very simple, accessible
Speaker 2: across the board, anybody hearing this could like it at
Speaker 2: first listen, just a real statement in itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean with Dynamite, I mean, with this kind
Speaker 1: of like further breakthrough post map of the Soul everything
Speaker 1: that was going on, I mean of course, like Map
Speaker 1: of the Soul was already massive in its own right.
Speaker 3: They were a decade in.
Speaker 1: At this point since they had first formed, and you know,
Speaker 1: seven years since they made their debut. But I love
Speaker 1: kind of like the origin of RM being this like
Speaker 1: underground wrapper and like this Big Hit Wine to create
Speaker 1: a hip hop group around him. So Sugar and Jay
Speaker 1: Hope were the first ones recruited and eventually kind of
Speaker 1: decided to pivot to an idol group. And we're having
Speaker 1: like struggling getting people to audition to be part of
Speaker 1: an idol group. I mean, now Big Hit Entertainment is
Speaker 1: like one of the biggest names in kpop globally, I
Speaker 1: mean just in pop music globally, and we're kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, a very lesser known label at that point.
Speaker 1: But Yeah, eventually formed a group in twenty ten, spent
Speaker 1: three years training. They were like living together. They were
Speaker 1: spending like fifteen hours a day training and practicing to
Speaker 1: become this like powerhouse group. I mean you can tell
Speaker 1: and like every single one of the performances, like they
Speaker 1: are just like incredibly talented, each of them, And you know,
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, made their debut and started releasing music
Speaker 1: under big hit and obviously I've become one of the
Speaker 1: one of the biggest bands in history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and did it by playing up their weirdness. I mean,
Speaker 2: it is funny, especially when they started to like make
Speaker 2: inroads here where you know, there's real resistance to boy bands.
Speaker 2: People like never really appreciate them. The whole tradition legacy
Speaker 2: is that they have this pop audience that they start
Speaker 2: with and other audiences really threatened by that. I know
Speaker 2: the memory is similar for you. But when one of
Speaker 2: the first times that they were on one of the
Speaker 2: American late night chat shows and there was this funny
Speaker 2: idea of like, how we'll dress them up is the Beatles.
Speaker 2: Oh playing at Sullivan doesn't hold up great with time.
Speaker 2: Yeah now, but even at that time seemed like really
Speaker 2: like uncomprehending of how original they were and the idea
Speaker 2: the only way Americans could appreciate this was by channeling
Speaker 2: it through something that they already knew that was from
Speaker 2: England and got it completely backwards, because BTS became stadium
Speaker 2: band here just by being themselves and honestly, they didn't
Speaker 2: have any songs that sounded like the Beatles, and they
Speaker 2: just they weren't like the Beatles. They were their own
Speaker 2: kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it was one of those things, especially
Speaker 1: with K pop iidle groups. I mean, they've existed for
Speaker 1: a very long time, and these groups have always been
Speaker 1: very very successful and massive in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: in a lot of markets. Obviously, there was very little
Speaker 1: breakthrough in the American market until BTS. I mean other
Speaker 1: than cy blowing up and becoming kind of like this
Speaker 1: viral like mean sort of sort of artist and song
Speaker 1: with Gongenham style. But I mean BTS was that kind
Speaker 1: of like really important art group. But that like really
Speaker 1: helped kind of show for a lot of like American
Speaker 1: industry experts and people who are like paying attention to
Speaker 1: really great pop music that this was like a massive
Speaker 1: global success and something worth paying attention to and bigger
Speaker 1: than are previously seeing kind of quantifiable ways of measuring success.
Speaker 2: That's such a brilliant way to put it. They were
Speaker 2: just outside any model that people could use in any
Speaker 2: I mean, certainly like going back in time to when
Speaker 2: they were first making records, it would have been easy
Speaker 2: for any American expert in the music busins to say
Speaker 2: what they should do. If you want to be popular here,
Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, first you have to do some songs
Speaker 2: in English. You have to do duets with very famous
Speaker 2: American stars who have fallen on hard times, which is
Speaker 2: why they're doing this kind of duet. You need to
Speaker 2: pick some members of the group and make them the
Speaker 2: front people. You need to really limit what they do,
Speaker 2: so it's very understandable and accessible. And it's almost like
Speaker 2: they anticipated that advice and did the exact opposite of
Speaker 2: all that stuff, and that their story couldn't have happened
Speaker 2: if they'd tried to compromise in any way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean it's such a great story of
Speaker 1: kind of the power of fandom. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: just like a band that is very close with their
Speaker 1: with the BTS Army, with their fans, like has kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, just organically built this like really worldwide network
Speaker 1: of people who love them and kind of appreciate the
Speaker 1: fact that they exist in this way where they have
Speaker 1: their their personalities, they each have like their strengths, and
Speaker 1: you know, I mean we're seeing this now with their
Speaker 1: solo releases that they're they're rolling out. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so much talent kind of locked into this group, Like
Speaker 1: people just could not like had not seen something like
Speaker 1: that before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was funny that in terms of them, in
Speaker 2: terms of like Dynamite being them's, it couldn't have been
Speaker 2: Dynamite if they'd done it as a step up into
Speaker 2: the English language or American market. It was really something
Speaker 2: that only became the triumph it became because they did
Speaker 2: it after they didn't need that kind of that move anymore.
Speaker 2: Like they're duet with Megan. They didn't do that to
Speaker 2: get more popular. Yeah, Like they did that because they
Speaker 2: were so popular. Yeah, because they had such a fascinating
Speaker 2: combination with Megan. Yeah, that record is just so unique
Speaker 2: for both of them, Like they did not need to
Speaker 2: meet each other in the middle, and they didn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even with Dynamite, I mean, this is like
Speaker 1: one of the first songs that none of them had
Speaker 1: a hand in writing too. Like they like them, they've
Speaker 1: been writing their own music since they were you know,
Speaker 1: kids like that, they've been doing this the entire time.
Speaker 1: Is like also especially given how part of the success
Speaker 1: of BTS is kind of they were writing from this
Speaker 1: place of this like very real you know. They have
Speaker 1: like the school series where they're talking about their experiences
Speaker 1: as teens and they're they're translating that to their music
Speaker 1: and kind of what they were going through, and that's
Speaker 1: always been such an important part of their success and
Speaker 1: of their music. And I think we talk about that
Speaker 1: all the time with so many artists who.
Speaker 3: Start really young.
Speaker 1: Is like, what draws in those fans and what draws
Speaker 1: and people caring about them is them just kind of
Speaker 1: relaying that experience of being young and what it's like
Speaker 1: to a new generation of people who are young and
Speaker 1: trying to make sense of the world. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what BTS was doing for their fans from the you know,
Speaker 1: from the time they broke and from the time they debuted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you made such a crucial point about them in
Speaker 2: terms of their evolution that this happens after the Internet
Speaker 2: has created a new kind of fan community, fan culture
Speaker 2: that exists independent of the conventional music industry, so that
Speaker 2: they could really do an end run around the conventional
Speaker 2: industry just because it was so suddenly so accessible for
Speaker 2: people around the world from all different cultures, all different generations,
Speaker 2: all different languages, all different styles of music, so accessible
Speaker 2: for people to find that music and make their own
Speaker 2: connection to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think like it's always you know, interesting
Speaker 1: talking with people about kind of like what those origins
Speaker 1: of really like massive sort of fan networks online where
Speaker 1: and I think everyone sort of has different answers, right,
Speaker 1: because I mean like there's like, you know, people think
Speaker 1: about Low Monsters and like how they function online, but
Speaker 1: like you know, in comparison to like One Direction, right,
Speaker 1: Like you know, the Low Monsters were less involved with
Speaker 1: like the success of Lady Gaga as like you know,
Speaker 1: directioners were involved with the success of One Direction. But
Speaker 1: you know, like I mentioned earlier, like it's so much
Speaker 1: like K pop fandom existing online because this was like
Speaker 1: that kind of global connection.
Speaker 3: Is that feels so much to me like the.
Speaker 1: Defining aspect of of how internet fandoms formed and how
Speaker 1: they work on you know, from different chat rooms and
Speaker 1: you know kind of the kind of nascent version of
Speaker 1: ways people talk to each other online to like Humblr
Speaker 1: and MySpace and Twitter now and then.
Speaker 3: TikTok and all of that.
Speaker 1: That feels like that origin and sort of that kind
Speaker 1: of natural progression of making an act like BTS become
Speaker 1: as big as.
Speaker 2: They have become, absolutely and boy, like what you said
Speaker 2: about the army, like being part of the group is
Speaker 2: so true. And that's such a long tradition for boy bands,
Speaker 2: and yet they always have this song that's about you know,
Speaker 2: the fans. They always have the tribute. They always know
Speaker 2: that the audience is there. They've all got the classic
Speaker 2: song that's you know, they're larger than life, They're you know,
Speaker 2: like thank you girls. There's song that's directly to the audience,
Speaker 2: and that BTS just made such a tradition of that
Speaker 2: in itself. So many great love songs that come on
Speaker 2: and you go through them as conventional love songs, but
Speaker 2: they're heard and meant to be heard as you know,
Speaker 2: songs between the boys and their audience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm curious, like, do you think that Dynamite
Speaker 1: will be that like I want it that way for BTS,
Speaker 1: Like or do you see another song or maybe we
Speaker 1: haven't heard that song yet, but do you think that
Speaker 1: this will become that song for them? Or do you
Speaker 1: have another one that you feel stands out in that way?
Speaker 2: Wow, it's interesting. Would you say, we don't know if
Speaker 2: Dynamite is going to go down in history as the one.
Speaker 2: It's funny like Dynamite is one that just it stands
Speaker 2: out as a highlight, but I don't know if it'll
Speaker 2: go down in history as you know, the highlight of
Speaker 2: this phase at least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean just even like the timing, you know,
Speaker 1: of course, in twenty twenty two, you know, all the
Speaker 1: members ended up having to put this on pause so
Speaker 1: that they can do their eighteen months of mandatory military
Speaker 1: service in South Korea. They're all kind of doing it
Speaker 1: at different times and obviously depending on age and kind
Speaker 1: of going in order of that. So they've been slowly
Speaker 1: rolling out solo albums, which have also done extremely well
Speaker 1: and been really like massive successes for them. Though I
Speaker 1: am curious kind of what happens in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: which is when they said they would end up returning
Speaker 1: to the group and releasing more music, and what that
Speaker 1: will look like. I trust them more than other boy
Speaker 1: bands that have said that they're on hiatus, So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna believe that they're they will come back together,
Speaker 1: because it did feel like it was just a kind
Speaker 1: of a new a new beginning for them as a group.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is always a hiatus to head a
Speaker 2: particular purpose. Yeah, and they knew this was coming. This
Speaker 2: is part of like a long term planning for them.
Speaker 2: It didn't come by surprise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Obviously, strategy can't tell you like how big a
Speaker 1: band will get, like, no matter how well you're strategizing.
Speaker 3: But they knew it was coming.
Speaker 1: It just so happened that they were one of the
Speaker 1: best selling acts of the world. Yes, as the time
Speaker 1: that happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for something like Dynamite, and when it came at
Speaker 2: a time when they didn't have to work through conventional
Speaker 2: North American media. I think a lot of us associate
Speaker 2: Dynamite with when they were on the Grammys doing Dynamite,
Speaker 2: and it was a first for them to be doing
Speaker 2: one of their songs on the Grammys. They were on,
Speaker 2: you know, the year before doing soul Town Road, which
Speaker 2: was a phenomenal ten second moment in the Grammys.
Speaker 3: Bedne I'm almost completely forgot about. That was such a
Speaker 3: good moment.
Speaker 2: It was such a great moment.
Speaker 1: And next up, we will be joined by Michelle Kim,
Speaker 1: who is a freelance editor and writer whose work has
Speaker 1: appeared in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Teen, Vogue, The Guardian, and
Speaker 1: much more. We are joined now by Michelle Kim, who
Speaker 1: is an amazing freelance writer and editor who's written for
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone and numerous other outlets. And thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us today.
Speaker 4: Thanks you having me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: So I mean, tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 1: origins of both your BTS fandom and also covering them.
Speaker 4: Yes, so, honestly, I have sort of a maybe complicated
Speaker 4: relationship with K pop, or I did have growing up
Speaker 4: because I was super into it in middle school.
Speaker 3: Was super into Big Bang.
Speaker 4: That was like my original group, if you will. But
Speaker 4: then as I kind of got older, I didn't really
Speaker 4: know if I wanted to keep on listening to the
Speaker 4: Korean music because I didn't know if I wanted to
Speaker 4: fit in more within like my American school, and whenever
Speaker 4: I listened to Korean music, I felt kind of alienated
Speaker 4: from it. So I knew of BTS and I kept
Speaker 4: up with their singles. I had friends who liked them,
Speaker 4: so I knew them as they were kind of rising
Speaker 4: from I would say, like twenty seventeen when DNA got
Speaker 4: really big, and then in the pandemic, everything sort of
Speaker 4: blew up with Dynamite, and that was also a time
Speaker 4: when we were all isolated. I was kind of looking
Speaker 4: inwards myself and trying to figure out, like what's going on.
Speaker 4: And I think BTS was actually like a really important
Speaker 4: part of me, like taking Korean classes for the first time,
Speaker 4: like connecting back to my heritage, and just because there
Speaker 4: was so much content, I kind of just like fell
Speaker 4: into this k pop hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean from your perspective too of being a
Speaker 1: young fan of you know, a lot of idol groups
Speaker 1: and artists, like what was sort of that development of
Speaker 1: the popularity of Korean music in the US or kind
Speaker 1: of especially leading up to BTS breaking through and kind
Speaker 1: of building sort of even more success in the US
Speaker 1: and allowing you know, I guess, like more recognition for
Speaker 1: a lot of other artists from South Korea. But I'm curious,
Speaker 1: like what your perspective is of especially the online fandom
Speaker 1: portion of Yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I would say growing up it was pretty
Speaker 4: niche to like K pop, And I would say that
Speaker 4: there was some sort of like enclaves of communities, probably
Speaker 4: more on the West Coast in California that like, we're
Speaker 4: super into it as a niche thing that they liked.
Speaker 4: But I grew up on the East Coast, so like
Speaker 4: fandom was pretty fragmented for me, and there's just some
Speaker 4: songs that like me and my brother listened to only
Speaker 4: from what it felt like for me. But during the pandemic,
Speaker 4: like I said, since everyone was inside looking for an
Speaker 4: escape from their dreary, like just waking up in your
Speaker 4: own house every day. I think that because K pop
Speaker 4: produces so much content around the music itself, whether that's
Speaker 4: music videos, behind the scenes footage and them goofing around,
Speaker 4: and also just a lot of idol groups making what
Speaker 4: they call variety content, which is just them like playing
Speaker 4: games with each other like you would see on a
Speaker 4: variety show. And I think BTS actually kind of kicked
Speaker 4: off this huge trend of idols doing that sort of
Speaker 4: content because they started their run BTS series I think
Speaker 4: in twenty fifteen, where they just would hang out play games.
Speaker 3: It was super funny.
Speaker 4: You got to see the members' personalities outside of their
Speaker 4: very serious stage persona, and I think at that time
Speaker 4: and during the pandemic, a lot of people started watching
Speaker 4: that show, watching their YouTube video. They have behind the
Speaker 4: scenes content called punk t on Bombs, which are just
Speaker 4: them being backstage goofing around. And I think just the
Speaker 4: fact that people could watch so much minutia of someone
Speaker 4: else's daily life that wasn't their own, Like the fandom
Speaker 4: really blew up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean what is it about them in particular?
Speaker 3: I mean it is I mean the personality is obviously
Speaker 3: such a big part of it.
Speaker 1: They all are just like so charismatic and so just
Speaker 1: like kind of energy personified and like both their performances
Speaker 1: and also what we see off stage. But I mean
Speaker 1: obviously the music is I mean just the way it's
Speaker 1: developed over the last I guess, like decade of them
Speaker 1: being a public band, Like, what is it about that
Speaker 1: chemistry that they have as a group that made them
Speaker 1: break through in the way that they have even before
Speaker 1: Dynamite being their first fully English language single, I mean,
Speaker 1: what was it about them?
Speaker 3: In particular?
Speaker 4: The origin of BTS was a pretty unusual one in
Speaker 4: terms of three of the members were sort of part
Speaker 4: of these street hip hop circles and were already sort
Speaker 4: of performing or writing raps and producing before they became idols.
Speaker 4: So I'm talking about Rm, he was writing raps and
Speaker 4: releasing music before he was training at Big Hit Entertainment.
Speaker 4: Shuga was also rapping and producing, and then Jay Hope
Speaker 4: was part of a street dance crew. What it seems
Speaker 4: like is that big hit at the time, they wanted
Speaker 4: to really create this more hip hop leaning group that
Speaker 4: they could take the talents that these members had already
Speaker 4: developed and then maybe match them with more idleish members
Speaker 4: which they would then scout and then put together this
Speaker 4: pretty unique format for a boy group. And like, after
Speaker 4: their debut, the chairman of their company even said, like
Speaker 4: convinced them to join, like become an idol, become part
Speaker 4: of this group by saying, you won't have to learn
Speaker 4: complicated choreography, it won't be that kind of group. It'll
Speaker 4: be a hip hop group. And then they joined and
Speaker 4: they were like, oh, you lied to us, So they
Speaker 4: talked about that openly. But all that is to say
Speaker 4: is that the songwriting is super strong, because I think
Speaker 4: RM and Sugar they have been really the backbone of
Speaker 4: the songwriting and they're just very analytical but also poetic
Speaker 4: sort of writers in their own ways. And I think
Speaker 4: having that foundation, but then also having other producers and
Speaker 4: songwriters kind of making them into catchy hits. And then
Speaker 4: as they debuted and went from more like hip hop
Speaker 4: sounding to like more synthpop electropop to the bubblegun pops
Speaker 4: that they eventually made. I think that's sort of where
Speaker 4: it all like came together, where fans noted that there
Speaker 4: was a lot of interesting lyricism and songwriting to grab onto,
Speaker 4: but then they could also have the very like catchy
Speaker 4: fun moments as well.
Speaker 2: I'm curious because we're talking about Map of the Soul
Speaker 2: and it's place in their story and in their mythology.
Speaker 2: And yes, and like you said, this kind of world building.
Speaker 3: That they've done totally.
Speaker 4: I do know that like world building was an extremely
Speaker 4: important part of just cultivating that fandom. Like I said,
Speaker 4: people really like to grab onto storylines that have nothing
Speaker 4: to do with them, that exist in a fantasy land
Speaker 4: outside of them. And because like I said, RM is
Speaker 4: super like into literature and like looking up different like
Speaker 4: psychology terms, they took Freudian and Youngian language to build
Speaker 4: out this like universe of pop music. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 4: I can say about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, the two songs that are on the list,
Speaker 1: spring Day and Dynamite, really tell two very distinct sides
Speaker 1: of the BTS story. And I talk about spring Day
Speaker 1: a little bit about the significance.
Speaker 4: Spring Day is one of my favorite personally my favorite
Speaker 4: BTS songs. It is one of my go to karaoke songs.
Speaker 4: I think the lyrics are so beautiful. They're basically in
Speaker 4: this category of BTS music that I like to just
Speaker 4: call yearning music, which is they're expressing when will I
Speaker 4: see you again, and using this imagery of like snowflakes
Speaker 4: falling but also like blossoms falling to convey this passage
Speaker 4: of like from the transition between winter to spring and
Speaker 4: waiting for this person to come back to their life
Speaker 4: or seeing them again in this sort.
Speaker 3: Of like ethereal otherworldly way. I don't know, That's how
Speaker 3: I see the song. So it's at its court, it's a.
Speaker 4: Ballad, but there is a lot of this like electrocynth
Speaker 4: production underneath that kind of pushes it through. And then
Speaker 4: like I said, like RM and Shuga like bringing in
Speaker 4: there that make it a little bit more unique and
Speaker 4: break up the structure of the song. It has become
Speaker 4: sort of this interesting piece of culture within South Korean
Speaker 4: mainstream culture because the song has been tied to the
Speaker 4: Civil Fairy tragedy where unfortunately there was this horrible event
Speaker 4: where these elementary schoolers were taken on a field trip
Speaker 4: to go on a faery and something happened with the
Speaker 4: boat that ended up in this mass death. For a
Speaker 4: long time that song was linked to that event unofficially
Speaker 4: because the lyrics kind of convey this sadness and longing
Speaker 4: of I will never be able to see you again.
Speaker 4: And then I think a couple years ago they've kind
Speaker 4: of semi confirmed in interviews that they're comfortable with that
Speaker 4: song being tied to that event, and so I'm not
Speaker 4: sure exactly if it was written in response to the event,
Speaker 4: but it seems like they are okay with people thinking
Speaker 4: that it's connected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there is so much beauty connecting it
Speaker 1: to the purpose of Dynamite being released when it was
Speaker 1: and being released mid pandemic and meant to be this
Speaker 1: kind of like light to their fans and to their listeners,
Speaker 1: which ended up going beyond, of course the core fandom
Speaker 1: and finding such like a massive audience. I mean, how
Speaker 1: do you kind of envision what Dynamite started to begin
Speaker 1: for this new chapter for BTS's career and leading to
Speaker 1: a string of big hits from them, and also kind
Speaker 1: of the widening of their fan base.
Speaker 3: Definitely.
Speaker 4: I think Dynamite is such a pivotal point where there
Speaker 4: is such a clear before and after. They have talked
Speaker 4: in interviews about the fact that they were promoting their
Speaker 4: single on from Map of the Soul in February twenty
Speaker 4: twenty and had to cancel in the middle of promotions,
Speaker 4: was going to go on this whole world tour and
Speaker 4: had to cancel all of that, regroup and figure out
Speaker 4: what their next direction is. And Dynamite was the next direction,
Speaker 4: and it really like skyrocketed them at a time when
Speaker 4: people really needed escapism, like energetic music. I think disco
Speaker 4: was like kind of in the ether that year with
Speaker 4: like Doja Kat and Dua Lipa or in that era
Speaker 4: I mean, and I think I pulled a quote from
Speaker 4: RM who said, like in the video where they announced
Speaker 4: that they would like focus on their solo projects, he said, like,
Speaker 4: I didn't know what we would do after On, but
Speaker 4: then COVID came up, so we did Dynamite. Butter Permission
Speaker 4: to dance. Life goes on and I realized that the group
Speaker 4: has definitely changed. We have to accept that we've changed.
Speaker 4: For me, it was like the group ETS was within
Speaker 4: my grasp until On in Dynamite, but then after Butter
Speaker 4: and Permission to dance, I didn't know what kind of
Speaker 4: group we were anymore. What I get from that is
Speaker 4: that they didn't really realize that Dynamite was gonna get
Speaker 4: so big and they were just trying something. I think
Speaker 4: they were trying a lot of new things where it
Speaker 4: was a song where the group members like didn't participate
Speaker 4: in songwriting, which was very rare for them. They got
Speaker 4: some I believe Americans writers to co write a song
Speaker 4: and then they just sang it and it was also
Speaker 4: what's kind of unusual for the song is that all
Speaker 4: the vocal lines for the members are all pretty much
Speaker 4: the same, Like it's they all get like a couple
Speaker 4: verses here and there, but it's not like RM and
Speaker 4: Sugar and Jahope are rapping and then like there's a
Speaker 4: specific like bridge or something for Chung Gup, like all
Speaker 4: of them kind of get a similar melody. And I
Speaker 4: think that that was unusual at the time because it
Speaker 4: was more of a straightforward pop song that they were
Speaker 4: just like, Okay, we'll sing it. And so what RM
Speaker 4: was kind of saying about like losing not being able
Speaker 4: to grasp the group's identity anymore is that they made Dynamite,
Speaker 4: it blew up, and then they I think the company
Speaker 4: tried to recreate that magic with Butter, which I think
Speaker 4: they did successfully. I love Butter personally, but then there
Speaker 4: was like this expectation to either continue that sort of
Speaker 4: standard pop music or what they go back to the
Speaker 4: sort of creative, very BTS music that they made before.
Speaker 1: Yeah wow, And I mean they've all rolled out solo
Speaker 1: albums at this point since they've been on their hiatus
Speaker 1: for military service, and I'm curious, like in that identity sense,
Speaker 1: like what do those solo albums say about where the
Speaker 1: members of BTS are now?
Speaker 4: Creative way I think I've kind of hinted before, But
Speaker 4: I think also a magic of BTS is that all
Speaker 4: of the members are so different. They have all such
Speaker 4: different personalities, they all have such different tastes in music,
Speaker 4: they express themselves in completely different ways, and that's not
Speaker 4: the case with all K pop groups. Sometimes companies make
Speaker 4: groups where they want the members to be somewhat similar
Speaker 4: or want them to have a certain vibe, and with BTS,
Speaker 4: they I feel like they really wanted people who were
Speaker 4: all different and unique, and it feels like big hit
Speaker 4: help foster that uniqueness, even if they did have to
Speaker 4: come together as a group. And so I see the
Speaker 4: solo albums as each of the members is really trying
Speaker 4: to like challenge themselves to make their unique statement, make
Speaker 4: the music that they couldn't make before. For RM, that
Speaker 4: means making very like experimental indie folk to indie rock,
Speaker 4: to like electronic R and B, and like kind of
Speaker 4: going all over the place. That's what he did with Indigo.
Speaker 4: With Jay Hope, that means making this like really intense
Speaker 4: trap music and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: You've written so powerfully about spring Day and about the
Speaker 2: sort of the emotional history of that song in its
Speaker 2: place and their legacy and in their story. I guess
Speaker 2: we're talking about different songs that represent different sort of
Speaker 2: moments in their history. And you talk about the category
Speaker 2: of yearning songs. Oh yeah, okay, I'm curious what other
Speaker 2: categories you have in mind when you think about their music.
Speaker 4: In terms of BTS categories. I would say there's the
Speaker 4: really like hard hitting hip hop songs where they're just
Speaker 4: going in with their lyricism and like traying like a
Speaker 4: super cool like rap persona. So their songs like ooh,
Speaker 4: their Cipher series. I love that category as well. And
Speaker 4: I would also say they have songs that are about
Speaker 4: like the power of friendship and like loving each other,
Speaker 4: which I think is also very appealing to fans because
Speaker 4: they like seeing like idols interact in terms of like
Speaker 4: seeing like platonic intimacy in a way, and so those
Speaker 4: songs are also really tender and wonderful. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 4: also some songs that are more like social commentary, more
Speaker 4: speaking from the perspective of youth and teenagers. And so
Speaker 4: one of my other favorites is this song called silver Spoon,
Speaker 4: which is just kind of talking to older generations, being like,
Speaker 4: why do you keep on telling us to work harder
Speaker 4: when society is not set up to help us out.
Speaker 4: And so there's a lot of different categories with them,
Speaker 4: which I think has helped their success a lot.
Speaker 1: And finally, to sort of broaden out and to think
Speaker 1: about the future of a lie like the five hundred
Speaker 1: three of songs of all the time list, of course,
Speaker 1: what do you kind of envision in the future, like
Speaker 1: maybe a future kind of like a decade from now,
Speaker 1: of like what songs you'd like to see on the
Speaker 1: list beyond of course BTS, if there are, of course
Speaker 1: BTS songs that you think should make a future version
Speaker 1: of the list, but artists or songs that should be
Speaker 1: represented in the future that's had a big impact both.
Speaker 3: On K pop and pop music generally.
Speaker 4: Yes, definitely. The first artist that came to mind was
Speaker 4: maybe a New Gene song because I think they've had
Speaker 4: such a strong impact on not only the K pop landscape,
Speaker 4: a lot of aesthetics kind of followed since their debut,
Speaker 4: So perhaps New Genes, But I think it would be
Speaker 4: really interesting to like go back and look at sort
Speaker 4: of the more seminole K pop songs and like see
Speaker 4: if those have a place in the list. I helped
Speaker 4: like make the one hundred best Songs in the History
Speaker 4: of Korean pop music list for a Rolling Stone, and
Speaker 4: our number one was g by Girls Generation, which is
Speaker 4: just such a sugar bomb of a song, and I
Speaker 4: think that we really try to recognize that song as
Speaker 4: like there is a place for cuteness and loveliness in
Speaker 4: pop music, and K pop girl groups really nail it,
Speaker 4: and so I'm wondering if there can be more of
Speaker 4: those vibes on the list.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much. Michelle for joining us today.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thanks so much for listening to
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones five hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia Brittan. Hosted by Me,
Speaker 1: Britney Spannis and Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by Gus Winner,
Speaker 1: Jason Fine, Alex Dale and Christian Horde, and produced by
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon, with music supervision by Eric Seiler