Chapter 1: Why did BTS go on hiatus and what does their return mean?
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You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm going to start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world. And then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or, honestly, anyone who responds to my DMs. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little bit better about it. That sounds like a lot. Coming May 1st.
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BTS is back. The K-pop supergroup has been on hiatus for four years. They haven't released an album in six. They were the biggest band in the world. And the question is, can they regain their throne or has the world moved on? Today on the pod is the return of BTS and the future of K-pop. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.
And today to discuss the return of BTS, we have a really exciting special guest. It's Hyejin Lee. Hyejin, welcome to the show.
Hello, hello. Thank you for having me.
Welcome. Hyejin is my colleague at USC. Hyejin is a clinical associate professor of communication at the USC Annenberg School. And I'm going to make everyone jealous right now. Let me tell you the classes that Hyejin is currently teaching at USC in the spring semester 2026. One is called Crooked Studies of K-Pop. reimagining K-pop's dominant discourses through G-Dragon.
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Chapter 2: What cultural references are present in BTS's new album?
The band is both leaning into its Korean heritage, and at the same time, fans are asking, are they remaining true to their identity? This is a real catch-22. It definitely is. I should probably offer a little bit of background. BTS formed in 2010 by Big Hit Entertainment. They became the best-selling group in K-pop history by many metrics. They have seven members. There's RM, J-Hope, and Suga.
They're the rappers. And then we've got Jungkook, Jimin, Jin, and V. They went on hiatus four years ago to serve their mandatory military duty in South Korea. And all of them released solo albums as well. But now they've returned as BTS. They have this new album. They've announced a world tour.
Let's listen and hear the tensions that this band is trying to navigate and what it might say about the future of this genre. And I feel like we have to start with the first track off of Ari Rong.
It's called Body to Body. All right
classic bts in many ways we've got these heavy hip-hop beats and a in-your-face flow by rm and then when we get to the chorus jin and v take over with a soaring vocal I mentioned that to some listeners, this album foregrounds Korean music. But if I fast forward to a little later in this track, we're going to hear a reference to the title of this album.
Ari Rong will actually get the folk song of the same name that is associated with Korean history, culture, and identity. Really striking moment in this opening track. And I feel like we need to talk a little bit about this song, Are We Wrong? And what it symbolizes.
Hey, Jin, what was your reaction when you heard this album title and then heard this interpolation of this Korean folk song in the opening track of the album?
Yeah, it's a bold move to use Arirang as a framework for the entire album because it comes with a lot of expectations that it will have to be very, very Korean. But in this first track, Body to Body, we do hear Arirang, you know, getting incorporated towards the end. But it's not just Arirang. It's actually a very specific Arirang, which is Gyeonggi Arirang.
Arirang actually has like very many variations by districts, right? in regions. This one is called Gyeonggi Arirang and it's one of the most well-known Arirangs in Korea. But there are, I think there are about like 30,000 different versions of Arirang. This one became like the representative of Arirang because of a movie that came out in 1926 by Na Eun-gyu called Arirang.
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Chapter 3: How does BTS incorporate traditional Korean sounds in their music?
When they sang Arirang?
Yeah, yeah. So that got included only in the English lyrics. The Korean verse doesn't have Arirang. It ends with hand in hand. But in the English verse, they're like, you know, we got to add Arirang too. Like, you know, even though the song is being performed in English for the second part, we need to bring some kind of Korean-ness to it. So they attached Arirang in the lyrics.
I thought that was very interesting. But do you get a sense of what the message of the song is? End in end.
Well, I'm watching the video of the opening ceremony and I'm seeing all these different cultures, you know, dancing along. And I'm like, OK, this is sort of a sentiment of universalism. And we're all we're all the same, you know, even though we're different in many ways. So it seems to be like an anthem of togetherness and harmony, I guess.
Like, you know, should be because it's an Olympic-themed song, right? It's bringing everybody together. It's about peace, harmony. I mean, that's what the song means by hand in hand. So it's really about coming together. And actually, this is kind of hinted in Body to Body. So I found that this song isn't really just about Korean ethnicity.
And it's not just about focusing on Korean roots and Korean identity. It's about what BTS wants to do with this song, which is about bringing the haters together. And to kind of like join in on the fun.
So these lyrical musical references to both Ari Rong and Hand to Hand from the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, they're part of a message of harmony, but... They're also bringing up how this band is facing similar difficulties to, you know, the 1988 Seoul Olympic musicians. How do you navigate both trying to appease your native fans and also have a global reach beyond? I think that same question of...
Korean identity versus American hegemonic global pop music identity becomes apparent. Can you go back to the chorus, Nick? It's a great hook. I instantly like it. Uh-oh. This is a song with a lot of collaborators. The lead songwriter on this track is Ryan Tedder. Right. American hitmaker with a global reach. He's kind of like a melody miner.
He can just find these melodies that are kind of familiar but a little bit different. This song sounds like a top line by Ryan Tedder. I'm just going out on a limb here. And it reminds me so strongly of the Kings of Leon, You Somebody. If you go to the post-chorus after probably the biggest chorus... Now, Nate, you sometimes work as a forensic musicologist on copyright issues.
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Chapter 4: What themes of identity are explored in BTS's new songs?
We pop out, we actin' a fool again. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Hooligan. Watch this, watch this bit go. We hooligan.
All right, a lot to break down already just in the opening 30 seconds of this track. First of all, really fun sample to kick things off. This is a really obscure one, which I'm always excited to encounter. It's from the soundtrack to a French film from the 1960s called, I'm gonna butcher this, Sang en Hiver, composed by Michael Magna.
I think I found the moment in this track that they're sampling. And here's Hooligan. And then as the beat drops, we start to get this like glitching effect here. Maybe a nod to the glitch movement of the late 90s, early 2000s, exemplified by artists like Prefuse73 and his track The End of Biters. And then a sound that I'm gonna go out on a limb and say is a sample of knives being sharpened.
Something you'd hear in a lot of trap music, something you'd hear in Megan Thee Stallion's Captain Hook. Even like Billie Eilish, you should see me in a crown. We hear a lot of knife samples. So I imagine that wherever you've heard that sound, it brings you back to that place. It's a fun little technique.
One thing you have to give BTS a lot of credit for, they wear their influences on their sleeve in the chorus. We have lyrics, why this bass line slapping so rude? Drop it lower than chopped and screwed. We're on way back.
Drop it lower than chopped and screwed.
Shouldn't it be slowed down rather than sped up? That whole section is almost like more chipmunk soul than it is chopped and screwed. When they say screwed, they do have a little screwed, screwed. Because that's the DJ screwed thing. You know what I'm talking about? I know what you're talking about, Charlie. You're splitting hairs and it's warranted.
But nevertheless, I feel like the fact that they're calling out some of these influences is significant. We have another... producer entering the fold here, El Guincho. If that name sounds familiar, it's probably from his work with Rosalia, especially on her album El Mal Carrer on tracks like Malamente.
So if I have to sum up this heady brew, it's like we're still in classic BTS territory, I think. It's hip hop forward. It's aggressive. It's creative. It's drawing on a lot of different influences. And I would have to imagine for a lot of longtime ARMY fans, like two tracks in and we're feeling pretty good about the album so far.
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Chapter 5: How do BTS's collaborations impact their music style?
I think this might be my next musical deep dive is Kukak, traditional Korean music. I saw this referred to as Korean blues. It's so bluesy and funky. And I love to hear J-Hope shouting it out in the chorus. It's like continuing these themes of traditional Korean culture that we've heard so far. And then as the song continues, we get to the chorus, which leans a little...
deeper into these themes as well. If you wanna hit my house, take off your shoes. Yeah, we're A-list. Awesome, cute, and shameless. Yeah, we're A-list. The movement of the sky is surprising. A-list, A-list. Every day, every day. Everything is so fast. Every day, every day. Yeah, we're A-list, A-list. Every day, every day. Everything is so fast. The world is so fast.
From the ka-na to the ha. Hyejin, can you break that down for us a little bit? It roughly translates to from A, B to Z. And then I've got a translation for the next line that's, if you want to hit my house, shoes off at the door. Which is a really fun lyric.
And then the final lines of the chorus, So it seems like there's this kind of reclaiming of this, you know, word that often has a deeply negative association to aliens, invaders, right? Yeah. someone who doesn't belong, but they're reclaiming it. They're saying, no, no, no, we're here. We're repping our country and our traditions proudly. And we're wearing this term alien as a badge of honor.
This song probably has the most Korean references out of all tracks in this album. I mean, it is a song that talks about Korean people's lifestyle and traits. Even in that chorus, it talks about Koreans take off their shoes when they enter the house, or Koreans known as people who are polite.
Korea's nickname by China a long time ago was 동방개위지국, which translates into the Eastern nation that's known for its courtesy and etiquette. So that's the reference that we hear in the chorus. And then also the part about Koreans never sleeping because they're always working hard. And Koreans always moving faster. 모든 더 빠르게 is in the lyrics.
So all the stereotypes and traits are that we can attach to Korean people seems to be in this very short chorus.
In RM's verse later in the song, he leans a little bit deeper into those ideas that you're just discussing.
We'll see you next time.
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Chapter 6: What does the song 'Body to Body' reveal about BTS's direction?
It's got these electric lyrics. I feel like everything we've heard so far from the opening four tracks of this album is just like guns blazing out of the gate, wearing the K of K-pop on their sleeves. And then...
something kind of shifts in the album track seven is simply called number 29 and it's short you're looking at this and you're like oh you know sometimes in the past bts will do like a skit or an interlude or something maybe that's what we're going to get here but instead press play on the song number 29 and this is what you hear Sound bath. What?
It is one minute and 38 seconds of that bell hit that we just heard and then the natural decay of the sound until it's completely disappeared. This is a field recording of the Bell of King Seondeok, the 29th National Treasure of Korea, a bell that was cast in the year AD 771. So it's like literally millennia's old. And it was only rung for the first time in centuries, like 22 years ago.
So it's not a sound you get to hear very often, much less in the middle of a BTS album.
It's the sonic palate cleanser, isn't it?
It's a palate cleanser. It's another reference to Korean heritage. And it kind of signals a transitional moment in the album. If the opening tracks have all been mainly hip-hop in style, after this bell ring, we're going to move more into the world of pop and ballads and melody-forward music. including the biggest hit and the lead single from this album, Swim.
Swim, swim, waterfall in all of your skin Swim, swim, I could spend a lifetime watching you Swim, swim, this is how it all begins
Like a lot of contemporary pop songs, it starts with the chorus here sung by Jungkook and Jimin. And unlike anything we've heard so far, this song is entirely in English. Also, those Korean references that we've been detecting throughout, I'm not sure we're going to get any here. This is a different side of BTS and maybe one that is reaching more for that Western global market.
It feels almost like a chorus by The Weeknd. Dark, melancholy, melodic, you know, nods to hip hop and R&B, but really slow. I had a similar reaction, maybe more leaning towards Frank Ocean, who has a song called Swim Good.
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Chapter 7: How does BTS address global and local audience expectations?
Even if I don't dream, no one says anything. I'm thinking the same as myself. And you hear the bell, the class bell, right?
As he said, okay, I'm going to the study room right now. I mean, fast forward 13 years and they've achieved those dreams. But in this song, you know, maybe it's not all it's cracked up to be. Normal, I mean. Wow. Let's listen to one more track from the back half of this album. It's called They Don't Know About Us, and it's got a great intro.
They don't know about us, how your voice can calm the seas.
I was convinced that was a sample, but I don't think it is. I think that's a BTS original recorded in the style of an acapella group like the Four Freshmen. It's a blues. What follows is maybe the one track in the back half of this album that returns to some of the themes the group explored in the first half, the Korean-ness of their background.
So, Hyejin, we just heard this line, we're just big boys, aka country kids.
Yeah. And this is a word that appears in BTS's songs quite frequently. And this is how BTS identify themselves. And I think what's interesting is by using this term, that they're able to continue their underdog narrative, which has been a big part of BTS's rise, right? And in the beginning, you know, BTS always... talked about how they're not from the big three.
Back then it was, you know, SM, JYP, and YG Entertainment, and BigHit was just a small company, and BTS was from that small company. So they didn't get as many opportunities to perform on TV shows and stuff like that. So that's why they started using social media to communicate with fans and how they got the global recognition and popularity.
So the underdog narrative has always been crucial to BTS's identity. And 전놈 is a word that seems to symbolize that. It really roughly translates into country kids. But what's interesting is it doesn't just appear in the song. In the documentary, I don't know if you saw BTS' The Return. We see RM talking where he's inside the car.
And he says something about how one of the things that we need to hold on to is at our core, we're still just a bunch of country kids from Korea. Yeah. So what's interesting is that in the beginning, they were underdogs. And that was because they're hip hop idol groups. And they're from the small company. So that was kind of like an attached to the industry framework.
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