transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[00:36] Support for the show comes from Amazon. There are the things you can plan for. A first birthday party, a movie marathon, a renter-friendly bathroom reno, and then there are the things you can never plan for. A surprise rainstorm, a Blu-ray player calling it quits, stick-on tiles that looked way better on the package. For all things planned and unplanned, Amazon has you covered. You'll find low prices on everyday essentials and last-minute lifesavers. Shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday.

Speaker 3:
[01:13] 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.

Speaker 4:
[01:38] Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter, Charlie Harding.

Speaker 3:
[01:41] I'm musicologist, Nate Sloan, and today to discuss the return of BTS, we have a really exciting special guest. It's Hye Jin Lee. Hye Jin, welcome to the show.

Speaker 5:
[01:54] Hello, hello. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3:
[01:56] Welcome. Hye Jin is my colleague at USC. Hye Jin is a clinical associate professor of communication at the USC Annenberg School. I'm going to make everyone jealous right now. Let me tell you the classes that Hye Jin 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. If you're not familiar with G-Dragon, one of the.

Speaker 5:
[02:26] The Goat.

Speaker 3:
[02:27] The Goat, yes. From one of the OG K-pop boy bands, Big Bang. Hye Jin is also teaching a class called Promoting Idol in the US, where students actually get to have hands-on experience promoting a K-pop group in the United States. We're thrilled to have you here, Hye Jin, because this is a big topic. BTS first album in six years and it's getting a lot of positive reviews and maybe some negative ones as well. This album is called Arirang. We'll talk about what that means in a moment, but I think it's representative of what the New York Times says is the band leaning into the K of K-pop, kind of putting Korean music, tradition, language, and culture at the forefront of this album. But at the same time, the BBC's Uniku is asking, is BTS losing its K-pop identity as it aims for a bigger world stage? So it seems like there's this interesting tension. The band is both leaning into its Korean heritage, and at the same time, fans are asking, are they remaining true to their identity?

Speaker 4:
[03:38] This is a real catch-22.

Speaker 3:
[03:40] 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. 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. I feel like we have to start with the first track off of Arirang. 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. Arirang 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, Arirang, and what it symbolizes. Hye 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?

Speaker 5:
[06:56] 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 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 very many variations by districts and regions. This one is called Gyeonggi Arirang and it's one of the most well-known Arirangs in Korea. But I think there are about 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 and in that movie, the song or this version was featured and that's how Koreans kind of accepted this as the representative Arirang. But there's one part in the lyrics that kind of like got me going, huh, that's interesting. Like there's a lyric that says, And I thought the use of the term was really interesting because it's a pure Korean word for nation or ethnic tribe. So you would translate into like a group of people of the same blood who share same language, culture, and history for a long period of time. And that's the moment where we get a sense of what this song is about or how it's kind of like talking about the group leaning into their Korean roots and identities. But I don't think that's really the core message of this song, even though we do hear Arirang towards the end. The part that I thought was really interesting was actually in the pre-chorus, the vocal line singing, which is, 저기 저 달에 닿게 손에 손. So that translates into hand in hand, so we reach that moon. So we hear the word hand, hand, hand repeatedly. And I didn't really think much about this until I saw BTS appear in Hot Ones. And then they also mentioned this very briefly, like kind of like a drop and then moving on kind of a thing in the Weverse Live studio notes that they did on the day the album came out. And Suga mentions the song hand in hand being an inspiration of the song. Hand in hand is the official song for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. It was composed by an Italian songwriter and record producer named Giorgio Moroder. And the song was performed by a group called Korean. And I got curious, how did the song get chosen as the official song for the 1988 Olympics? And one thing that the Olympics committee wanted to do was to pick a song that the whole world can enjoy. So it kind of opened room or space for a lot of musicians around the world to participate. And Polygram, which is a multinational label, submitted a song. And of course, that kind of raised a lot of disgruntlement within the Korean politicians and those inside the Korean music industry, because they wanted to really use the opportunity to showcase Korean talent. And they were kind of upset that a song that was composed by a European would be chosen. But once they listened to the song, they were like, okay, we have to go with this because they're really well made. The original plan was to release the song in English entirely. But then the Seoul Olympics Committee, they didn't think it was a good idea. So they made a compromise. So the first verse is in Korean, and then the second verse is in English. And if you like play the song, especially the chorus part, the meaning is the same, but there's a slight variation. Can we listen to the chorus part in Korean first and then in English?

Speaker 3:
[10:54] Okay, and here's the English chorus.

Speaker 5:
[11:13] Did you hear that last part?

Speaker 3:
[11:15] When they sang Arirang?

Speaker 5:
[11:17] 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, no, we gotta add Arirang to like, even though the song is being performed in English for the second part, we need to bring some kind of Koreanness 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? Hand in hand.

Speaker 3:
[11:46] Well, I'm watching the video of the opening ceremony. I'm seeing all these different cultures dancing along, and I'm like, okay, this is a sentiment of universalism, and we're all the same even though we're different in many ways. So it seems to be like an anthem of togetherness and harmony, I guess.

Speaker 5:
[12:08] It 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. 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 into kind of like join in on the fun.

Speaker 3:
[12:40] So these lyrical musical references to both Arirang 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 the 1988 Seoul Olympic musicians. How do you navigate both trying to appease your native fans and also have a global reach beyond?

Speaker 4:
[13:16] I think that same question of Korean identity versus American hegemonic global pop music identity becomes apparent. Can you back to the chorus, Nick? It's a great hook. I instantly like it. This is a song with a lot of collaborators. The lead songwriter on this track is Ryan Tedder, American hit maker 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. 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. I think we can agree these are both really small moments of melody that are not exactly the same, but instantaneously, that's what I was hearing when I heard Body to Body. And in a way, I think brings up that question that you raised at the very beginning of the episode, which is how much are they appealing to Korean roots versus a larger global body? And I think that this song is working somewhere in the middle of that. The idea of even the image of Body to Body is such a compelling image. It is both like a romantic song being on someone else's body. It's also the band being close together, their bodies together in a group once again. And it's the bodies of all the people in all the arenas all over the world at their global tour, experiencing that body to body being together. I think we hear that musically as well, the very traditional Korean references and these melodies that might feel a little bit more Americanized.

Speaker 3:
[15:25] Yeah, these are definitely the benchmarks that fans will use to measure the perceived authenticity of the album. How many non-Korean producers are on here? We've also got Diplo joining the ranks for body to body. And P-Dawg, the group's longtime producer. So there's a mix, just like there's a mix of English and Korean language lyrics here. But yeah, these are the things that have to come into consideration. It continues. We'll come back to this song and its use of Arirang. But this is a very strong opening statement. Let's see what happens as we move through the rest of the album. Let's go to the next track on Arirang, which is called Hooligan. 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, called Sang en Hiver, composed by Michael Manya. I think I found the moment in this track that they're sampling. And here's Hooligan.

Speaker 4:
[17:20] Oh, yep.

Speaker 3:
[17:23] 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.

Speaker 4:
[18:11] 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 like it's a, wherever you've heard that sound, it brings you back to that place. It's a fun little technique.

Speaker 3:
[18:30] 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. Going way back.

Speaker 4:
[18:52] 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. Cause that's the DJ screwed thing. You know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 3:
[19:04] I know what you're talking about, Charlie. You're splitting hairs and it's, 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 Correr, on tracks like Malamante. 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.

Speaker 5:
[20:05] And there's also this line that you played where RM says, this that K, gotta get a better pop here. So even when they're acknowledging that despite all these like, you know, collaboration with Western songwriters and producers, they're still thinking about the Korean culture, right?

Speaker 4:
[20:23] We've gotten in trouble before by calling BTS K Pop on the podcast. People in army will say, oh, no, no, no, this is not K Pop. This is BTS music. It is of its own category. And they are navigating that within the lyrics.

Speaker 3:
[20:34] I think part of that distinction for a lot of listeners is the fact that BTS are working within the system, but they're also exerting their own opinions and control and artistry, perhaps more than other idols in that system. So let's leave that an open question for now.

Speaker 2:
[20:54] Support for the show comes from Amazon. There are the things you can plan for, a first birthday party, a movie marathon, a Roger-friendly bathroom reno, and then there are the things you can never plan for. A surprise rainstorm, a Blu-ray player calling it quits, stick-on tiles that looked way better on the package. For all things planned and unplanned, Amazon has you covered. You'll find low prices on everyday essentials and last-minute lifesavers. Shop Amazon and save on essentials. Save the everyday.

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Speaker 3:
[22:16] Let's go to the next track on the album, which really continues a lot of the themes we've heard so far. It's called Aliens. So, that's J-Hope's pre-chorus and this particular line caught my ear. Clap and shake it to Jung-Mori rhythm. I did some investigating and learned that Jung-Mori is a traditional Korean rhythm associated with the Pansori tradition. I found some really cool examples of it. I think one I'd love to play is a musician named Kim Young playing this traditional instrument called the Ajaeng. And this is an example of that Jung-Mori rhythm that J-Hope is referencing. I'm kind of obsessed with this, y'all. I think this might be my next musical deep dive is Kugak 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. Then as the song continues, we get to the chorus, which leans a little deeper into these themes as well. From the Kanna to the Ha. Hye Jin, can you break that down for us a little bit?

Speaker 5:
[24:48] It roughly translates to from A, B to Z.

Speaker 3:
[24:51] 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, out of the east, the sun's rising, aliens, aliens. So it seems like there's this kind of reclaiming of this word that often has a deeply negative association, aliens, invaders, right? 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.

Speaker 5:
[25:29] This song probably has the most Korean references out of all tracks in this album. I mean, it is a song that talks about like Korean peoples, like lifestyle and traits. Even in that chorus, it talks about like, the Koreans take off their shoes when they enter the house, or Koreans known as people who are polite. Korea's like nickname by China a long time ago was Dongbangyeui Jigok 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, everything faster is in the lyrics. So all the stereotypes and traits that we can attach to Korean people seems to be in this very short chorus.

Speaker 3:
[26:18] In RM's verse later in the song, he leans a little bit deeper into those ideas that you're just discussing. So the translation I found for the second half of that verse, pardon me Kim Gu, tell me how you feel. So, Kim Goo is a figure from the Korean Independence Movement, a freedom fighter against the Japanese when Japan was in control of the nation. And then the last lines are, you guys with those big eyes say, are they for real? For real. And I think the guys with the big eyes are us.

Speaker 5:
[27:16] Westerners.

Speaker 3:
[27:17] Yes. So, this track is pulling no punches. It's really a strong statement from beginning to end with lots of lyrical references, like you were saying, to customs and tradition.

Speaker 5:
[27:32] If I can just kind of go a little bit further with Kim Goo reference and the lyrics, right before when RM says, pardon Kim Goo, tell me how you feel, he says, everybody know now where the K is. So, that message of finding that K reappears in aliens. Kim Goo is again, as Nate said, is the leader of the Korean independence movement. He was an activist, he was head of state of the provincial government of Republic of Korea. But in 1947, his diary was published. So, that would be like two years before he got assassinated. But he's known for giving this quote, and this is roughly translated. But he said, The only thing that I desire in infinite quality is the power of a highly developed culture. This is because the power of culture both make ourselves happy and gives happiness to others. So, back in the day, he's talking about how he hopes Korea can be known for cultural prowess. This was in the 1940s. And when we look back, this was a prediction. So, that's what the reference of Kim Goosun's name is in the song.

Speaker 3:
[28:36] One more track I want to listen to from the first half of this album. It's called Fire and it reaches into its 90s house bag. Once again, bringing in some really creative producers, JPEGMafia and Flume both appear here. I should probably mention back when we were listening to Aliens, that was a Mike Will Made It production. What a creative cast of collaborators they're bringing in. And yeah, this track slaps. Forgive me, Charlie, I know you hate when I say that, but I have no other adjective to prescribe here. It's so much fun to listen to. It's got that 90s house beat. 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.

Speaker 4:
[30:28] Soundbath. What?

Speaker 3:
[30:30] 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 Sonduk, the 29th national treasure of Korea, a bell that was cast in the year AD 771. 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.

Speaker 5:
[31:14] It's the sonic palate cleanser, isn't it?

Speaker 3:
[31:18] 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 songs, including the biggest hit and the lead single from this album, Swim. Swim, 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.

Speaker 4:
[32:33] It feels almost like a chorus by The Weeknd. Dark, melancholy, melodic, you know, nods to hip hop and R&B, but really slow.

Speaker 3:
[32:41] I had a similar reaction, maybe more leaning towards Frank Ocean, who has a song called Swim Good. I mean, BTS have excellent taste. Something that is exemplified by the producer. They bring in, for the next track, Mary Go Round. I'll play this one, and then Charlie will put you to the test and see if you can name the ringer they brought in for Mary Go Round.

Speaker 4:
[33:19] I have not looked it up. Coming in, no knowledge. Sometimes when you bring me something, the less I know, the better. That's Kevin Parker of Tame Impala.

Speaker 3:
[33:50] Oh, that was good, Chuck. I'm going to play New Person, Same Old Mistakes by Tame Impala. Kevin Parker is indeed the producer on Merry-Go-Round.

Speaker 4:
[34:17] Fuzzy synths, lo-fi guitar, analog keyboards that have been out of tune for 40 years. A lot of tape hiss and wobble. That's that sound.

Speaker 3:
[34:26] Another all-star producer slightly out of left field. Another song entirely in English that doesn't have any of those Korean hallmarks we heard in the first half of the album. What about the next track, Normal?

Speaker 4:
[34:59] That's gotta be another Ryan Tedder song.

Speaker 3:
[35:01] Am I right? Let's see, I gotta check my notes here.

Speaker 4:
[35:08] Yes, that's a Ryan Tedder song.

Speaker 3:
[35:10] Okay, okay, he's hot. He's heating up, as they say in NBA Jam. I mean, this song is continuing the theme we've heard so far in the sense that English language lyrics, more just sort of garden variety pop themes rather than like specifically Korean. In other ways though, the song does connect to the deeper history of BTS, who have always been unafraid to, you know, comment on their interiority and what they're experiencing in the world in a way that is maybe distinct from other K-pop artists, kind of like we were talking about earlier. Like this song to me is clearly about the pressures of being one of the most famous bands in the world. So show me hate, show me love, make me bulletproof. And probably bulletproof is a reference to their original name, which was the Bulletproof Boy Scouts. And then they say, we call this shit normal, but it's not. And they've publicly grappled with these issues in the lead up to this album, sort of maybe coming out and being a little too honest, some of the members about their struggles with their notoriety and then having to sort of walk back and apologize for those outbursts. So I feel like this is a song, despite its pop sheen, that maybe allows the group to also express itself a little more openly.

Speaker 5:
[36:35] I mean, the song is about duality, right? And BTS has always explored that concept, like, you know, going all the way back to idol. You know, they talk about, they call me artist, they call me idol. RM has done that with his mixtape called Mono. It's full of contradictions in how he tries to navigate between love, hate, like sun, moon, all these, like, words that are in the lyrics that talk about the contradictions. Suga did that with Taechi Ta, where he's playing the king and also the wanderer. At the end of the music video, the wanderer character ends up killing the king. So it's full of, like, you know, these messages of working with duality and then also, like, their acceptance of being both instead of rejecting one over the other.

Speaker 3:
[37:17] I was listening to one of their first songs, No More Dream, and a lot of that song is about sort of breaking out of the conformity of society and not being afraid to dream, like in verse one, they rap about the completely forgotten childhood that was filled with so many dreams. 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. 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 a acapella group like The Four Freshmen. 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, Hye Jin, we just heard this line, we're just big boys, aka country kids.

Speaker 5:
[39:58] Chon-neum. And this is a word that appears in BTS 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 rise, right? And in the beginning, BTS always talked about how they're not from the big three. Back then, it was 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 identity. And chun-nom 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 to 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. So what's interesting is that in the beginning, they were underdogs and that was because they are hip hop idol groups and they're from the small company. So that was kind of attached to the industry framework. But now that they become this global superstar, it's their Korean-ness, their Asian-ness that makes them the underdog. So we do see how they're still holding on to the underdog narrative, but the target is a bit shifted. And the word Chun-Nom reflects their underdog identity. And this is another thing that I want to point out is that BTS is not just seven members from Korea. None of the members are from Seoul, which is the capital of Korea. And that's also a big part of BTS positioning themselves as underdogs. Korea, like in Korea, like, you know, everything centers around Seoul. So if you're not from the capital of the country, you're kind of considered to be like less sophisticated or not part of the mainstream. So like seven members not being from the city of Seoul also allows BTS to kind of position themselves as Chun-Nom or as the underdogs. And this is really highlighted in their earliest earlier song called Rekdo Gangsan or aka Satoori Rap, which was, I think it was in their first mini album, Oh, Are You Late To?, which was released in 2013. And we see the members doing rap but using satoori or dialect from different regions or from the parts of the country that they're from. It's a really fun song if you can play it and listen to it a bit.

Speaker 4:
[42:53] That's a good song, that's fun, that kicks ass.

Speaker 5:
[42:56] And what's so funny about the song is we hear like the, you know, like Suga who's from Taegu and J-Hope who's from Gwangju, like, you know, kind of get interacting in their own dialects. And then RM, who's from Irsan, which is close to Seoul, but not quite. It will be kind of like, you know, like Orange County to LA kind of a thing. But he's representing Seoul. So that's why he says Seoul state of mind in that part of the lyrics, you know, and he calls the other members who are from different regions, Chun-Nom-Deul. You hear that in the lyrics. Yeah. So again, that's what Chun-Nom means. Like it is their state of mind of being like the underdogs that they still seem to carry.

Speaker 3:
[43:36] Getting a little bit of that history from just, you know, a single line in They Don't Know About Us brings us back to the question we were posing at the beginning of this. How is BTS positioning themselves reemerging from this hiatus? When they went on hiatus, the effect on the K Pop industry at large was so profound that according to one study, Korean album sales dropped almost 20 percent. So the world that BTS is reemerging into is different. Is there a new Korean act that is ready to take the mantle from them? It's unclear. Now, their tour, which is the first since 2019, has already sold out globally.

Speaker 5:
[44:26] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[44:26] These songs are on the Billboard Hot 100. I think despite some of the criticisms or disappointments that longtime fans might feel, this album is hugely successful. But will they be able to put the country, the soft power of the Korean wave on their backs once again? We'll see.

Speaker 5:
[44:49] I know the focus has mostly been on the Korean roots and culture and heritage and all that. But in the documentary, there's a discussion of what Arirang means or how the members are processing the meeting. One of the terms that gets mentioned is legacy in motion. Arirang is powerful, not because it represents Korean people's sentiment and feeling. The song first, we don't even know the origin, like when it first started or who came up with it. But we still sing it, so it's the passage of the song from one generation to the next. I think that's how BTS is thinking about the meaning of Arirang, not necessarily the cultural connection, but the survival of the song. They want to create Arirang with this album. They want their songs to be something that they can consider as part of their legacy, that people can sing along to in years to come. I think that's the real meaning of Arirang if you think about it. Not just about the Koreanness, not just about the Korean Bruce and heritage and identity, but about where it fits in their legacy now that they're no longer these like teen boy bands. They're in their 30s and they're thinking about the next step.

Speaker 3:
[46:02] Building on what Hye Jin just said, there's a really cool story that I learned, actually a bit of music history that was totally new to me. In 1896, seven Korean students traveled to the United States to study in Washington DC at Howard University. There's already a lot of parallels to BTS here with their seven members making their way overseas over a century later. A group of these students made a recording on a wax cylinder at the Library of Congress that was taken by a folklorist named Alice Cunningham Fletcher. And that wax cylinder is the first recording anywhere, including in Korea, of this song, Arirang. So hats off to BTS for uncovering this incredible bit of cross-cultural music history.

Speaker 4:
[47:08] Well, and most importantly, to say thank you for joining us. It's been really a pleasure with all your expertise.

Speaker 5:
[47:13] Thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate.

Speaker 4:
[47:16] Switched on Pop is produced by Rhianna Cruz, edited by Alyssa Soap, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb, video by Nick Ripps, music by Jossie Adams, and Zach Tenorio of Arc IRIS, remember Vox Media Podcast Network and Vulture, which is part of New York Mag. You can subscribe at nymag.com/pod.

Speaker 3:
[47:31] Reach out to us on social media at Switched on Pop. Tell us what else you're hearing on Arirang. Any references we missed, any use of traditional Korean instruments, because like I said, this is my new obsession. We'll be back with a brand new episode next week.

Speaker 4:
[47:50] A crossover episode.

Speaker 3:
[47:51] Crossover episode. That's exciting. Until then, thanks for listening.

Speaker 4:
[47:55] Thanks for listening.

Speaker 8:
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