Live from Seoul, P. Claire Dodson reports on the BTS 'Arirang' comeback and BTS: The Return documentary and what they say about BTS's future.
In this op-ed, Teen Vogue's senior editor, P. Claire Dodson, unpacks Netflix's BTS: The Return and what it says about where the band goes from here. Warning: spoilers for the documentary ahead. It is so tempting, as we age, to feel the need to prove ourselves.
We have gone through something. We have lived through something. We are different now. The seven members of BTS have experienced a lifetime in a few years, going from the biggest boy band in the world to being on hiatus from the group for nearly four years as they embarked on solo ventures and fulfilled Korea’s military-service mandate. In the group's forthcoming Netflix documentary, BTS: The Return, directed by Bao Nguyen and out on March 27, BTS members express a desire for their music to reflect who they are now. “Standing still isn’t an option,” RM says in the doc. “We have to decide about what to keep and what to change.” I thought about that decision—what we keep vs. what we change—while visiting Seoul with Netflix to see BTS perform their live comeback show in the city’s Gwanghwamun Square on March 21. Gwanghwamun Square is a large plaza lined with government buildings, including the US embassy, the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, and the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, among other prominent structures. At the head of the plaza is the main gate of the landmark Gyeongbokgung Palace, sitting in front of Bugaksan Mountain. The palace, originally built in 1395, has borne witness to more than 600 years of Korean history. Read more: Who Decides If BTS’s Album ‘Arirang’ Is ‘Korean Enough’? On Saturday night, tens of thousands of ARMY from countries all over the world packed the plaza and its surrounding streets to see BTS in their triumphant return as a group of seven. At 8 p.m. sharp, KST, a bell rang out, and the group emerged from behind a regiment of dancers dressed entirely in black, which looked impressive against the backdrop of the palace’s iconic tiered roof. “Hello, Seoul,” RM said simply, using the Korean word for “hello.” “We’re back.” A sea of light sticks waved and glowed in response. As they launched into “Body to Body” , what the group chose to keep musically became clear: their original hip-hop influences, which foreground the song with sped-up boom-bap drumbeats, and join a synth-pop overture. Thematically, too, there is a continued desire to represent something larger than themselves. The end of the song features a sample from the traditional Korean folk song “Arirang”; and in the comeback show, the camera pans back to a group of singers wearing matching hanbok, their beautiful chorus rising as black brushstroke designs are written across the exterior of Gyeongbokgung Palace. In the documentary, HYBE chairman and BigHit Music founder Bang Si-hyuk nearly predicts this moment. The label presents BTS with the “Arirang” concept during the writing and recording process for the album as an homage to the seven Korean students who visited Howard University in 1896, three of whom were recorded singing the song—believed to be the first time a Korean voice had been recorded in the US. As BTS debate the length of the “Arirang” portion in “Body to Body,” Bang argues that this is about legacy. It’s about the power of hearing foreigners singing along to “Arirang”—a capstone moment in Korea’s soft power ascendancy. Something else The Return captures about this idea, however, is that it is an incredible responsibility to put on a group of guys who want to make music together. The meta element to BTS’s rise—the message and implication that they can, do, or even must represent an entire country —complicates the very real growing pains of returning from an experience that has upended your whole routine and perhaps left you struggling to communicate what, exactly, has changed. As much as BTS is seven musicians releasing songs, it is also something like a thousand-person group project. Between the now mammoth size of HYBE, the lengthy roster of collaborators on Arirang, and the Netflix of it all, there are many players and many goals . This is, unsurprisingly, a complicated environment in which to make an album. The Return begins in August 2025 in Los Angeles, and BTS members are stumped by what the lead track for Arirang should be. Eldest member Jin arrives from Korea, fresh off his solo tour, to find that things maybe aren’t going so well. Suga and RM are clearly frustrated. They all seem a bit tired, and they’re a long way from home. They have a group of songs that most of the members seem to like, but they’re searching for conviction , certainty, and answers. There are so many variables. V wonders if fans will feel the same about them as they once did. And they have a rapidly approaching deadline. The introduction of the “Arirang” song concept anchors them in a vision for the album while simultaneously creating more doubt. They listen to the folk song on repeat for hours, trying things that fail. Pdogg, their longtime producer, wisely notes, “We failed just enough.” They sit in the studio and debate how much English is too much that it might threaten the “authenticity” of the project. A HYBE executive brings up global audiences and tells them beloved songs like “Black Swan” aren’t “relatable.” Some members worry Korean audiences might see the “Body to Body” sample of “Arirang” as too directly patriotic. Bang calls them “once-in-a-generation icons,” but elsewhere in the documentary, Jungkook says there’s a part of him that wishes he could just be known as a singer. Jin says he’s “become way more famous than he deserves.” Jimin fondly recalls that as a kid he just wanted to perform; to sing and dance and wear “awesome” clothes on a stage. One of the most interesting successes of this documentary is in the questions it leaves behind about where BTS is now and where they’ll go next. Some of the lyrics on Arirang imply a nervousness about whoever is coming up behind them, the never-ending churn of youth in the entertainment industry, even as they seem to say the opposite . The members of BTS feel they have grown up, so they want that growth to be perceived, and for the lyrics and sound to reflect the ways they have changed. And, somehow, they want to pull that off in the span of just a few months. I’m not sure they find what they’re looking for by the end of the documentary, even as they decide on “Swim” as the lead single for Arirang. You can try so unbelievably hard, you can ask the big questions, you can self-reflect until the end of time, and the ending still might not turn out the way you envisioned. Going back to RM’s comment about what to keep and what to change, maybe it’s less about that decision and more about what has changed beyond them, in pop culture, geopolitics, giant corporations, in how they’ve changed in life and art—even if it’s not concretely visible yet. The group members may try to shed parts of their past, but BTS might forever exist in the balance of intimacy and mass scale, artistry and industry, music and machine. In a press Q&A, Netflix’s head of nonfiction series and sports, Brandon Riegg, talked about the success of Skyscraper Live , comparing it to the BTS comeback live show. What does it mean to talk about art the same way we do shock-and-awe stunt pop culture? How do you create something pure and sincere and small amid such largesse? I experienced this contradiction while watching BTS perform in front of Gyeongbokgung Palace as the next iteration of themselves. There are so many layers of historical and cultural context around BTS’s success, so many stakeholders and expectations, and so much noise online from fans and haters alike. But for an hour on Saturday, in the chilly Seoul night, BTS fulfilled the other side of the paradox, delivering a genuine, captivating performance that showed how much fun they’re having with the new music. Past and present BTS collided; new songs such as “Hooligan” and “Like Animals” felt like natural explorations of where BTS could go amid the energy of “Mic Drop” and the familiar comfort of “Mikrokosmos.” Who they’ve been and who they want to be came together over something simple: They still seem to love doing this. As J-Hope says in the doc, “I want to enjoy making music freely.” I was reminded, too, of my past selves. The person I was when I first heard about BTS. Who I was when I went fully down the rabbit hole. The person I am now, removed from that pandemic-era state of obsession but still enjoying their new album and the things they’re coming up with. Can the people in my life see the ways I have grown, the things I’ve experienced, the changes in my worldview? Last year my sister and I had a little fight that boiled down to how we’ve changed as we’ve gotten older. I played one of her favorite childhood songs on the subway in an attempt to soothe her; this only aggravated the problem. “Can’t you see that I’m not that person?” she said. “It makes me feel like you only see a past version of me.” “Of course I do,” I think is what I told her. What I meant was, “I love you.” Maybe what I should have said, though, is something about how brutal and relatable the urge is to constantly evolve, and to make those changes immediately known. In The Return, the members of BTS watch old footage from their debut era, and their reactions range from fondness to cringing away. You can look at an old photo of yourself one day and feel a bit repulsed; on another day, you might feel nostalgic. The chapter BTS introduces in this era is one in which they are moving forward and taking risks, even if they don’t know exactly where they’re going yet. Simultaneously, their past selves move like ghosts behind them, like brushstrokes on a palace exterior. They are telling a story that can still surprise us.
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