BTS fly high in UAE with new album
The fourth album from the record-breaking group contains 20 tracks, with 15 new songs
Was there any doubt BTS would make a chart-topping, record-breaking comeback? Well, for starters, BTS’ highprofile return took over the country, literally, once again.
The K-Pop sensations continued their trajectory of success when they dropped their fourth studio album Map of the Soul: 7 and a pulsating and mesmerising Kinetic Manifesto Film: Come Prima video for a powerful hip hop number ON.
Backed by a diverse cast of 30 dancers and 12 marching band members, the music video for the title track saw the members reflect their mindset as artists and is seen as a diary of the group’s seven-year career so far.
BTS’ fierce manifesto music video soared to No 1 on YouTube in the UAE and in countries within the region — including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Algeria, and Bahrain — the same day of its release.
The eagerly-anticipated, intricatelywoven album reflects on the seven years since they debuted as a septet in 2013. With this new musical offering, the members revealed more of themselves, declaring they have admitted their destiny and accepted the shadow and light of their identity in the reflective road map.
The 20-track album contains 15 brand new songs — subunits and solos — and five pre-released tracks featured in last year’s Map of the Soul: Persona.
In addition to the digital version of ON featuring Sia and Louder Than Bombs cowritten by fellow Aussie singer-songwriter Troye Sivan, Map of The Soul: 7 consists of unit tracks such as UGH!, 00:00 (Zero O’Clock), Friends and Respect.
Their solo tracks also highlight the members’ unique traits individually and contains their own personal stories, whether it’s Jimin showing his different sides in Filter, V revealing his past ordeal in Inner Child, Jin expressing his love for their ARMY fan base in Moon and Jungkook reflecting on his journey growing up in the group in My Time.
The album also draws samples and references from the record-breaking act’s early songs, heard in We Are Bulletproof: the Eternal, Interlude: Shadow, Outro: Ego, as well as in ON, which parallels lead track N.O off first EP, O! RUL8,2?.
UAE NUMBERS
BTS occupied the top 20 spots on the UAE iTunes Songs chart while Map of the Soul: 7 debuted at number one on the albums chart.
They certainly took over Twitter with a series of top trending hashtags and rocked the global music market, sweeping the iTunes Top Albums charts in 91 countries and the Top Songs charts with ON in 83 different countries — including the UAE. The soul-searching album was already a projected hit. It eclipsed its predecessor prior to its release for surpassing the biggest global pre-order volume for any South Korean album with a total of 4.02 million copies as of last Monday, the record distributor Dreamus Company revealed.