ARIRANG by BTS

Released on 20/03/2026 by BIGHIT MUSIC
Main artists: BTS
Genre: K-Pop
Distinctions: Rolling Stone UK: 5 stars

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Boy bands don't typically last this long. But boy bands are also rarely so important to their nation's economy and culture that mandatory military service laws are altered just for them. The seven-strong BTS (whose members received service deferments, not exemptions) barely need an introduction: they're the biggest group in the world, their fan army ensured their takeover of K-Pop would extend to all of pop, and they're in the unusual position of releasing a tenth studio album. Historically, the successful solo ventures they trickled out over the 2020s as each member completed their military requirements on a staggered timeline would have been the next chapter for any number of breakout members. But not only does BTS remain greater than the sum of its multitalented parts, they've incorporated the daring sounds of their extracurricular ventures into a more cohesive and vibrant version of the whole.

Arirang is the most sonically coherent BTS album, their best since 2018's Love Yourself: Tear. It's also more sophisticated than likable earworms like "Dynamite" and "Butter" that finally crashed the Hot 100 at the same time the band began to sing in English; it's also remarkably pop. They've pulled off a maturation that evades stars who aren't too big to fail: the music hits harder while adhering entirely to hookcraft, growing without alienating. While no song here signals a total media takeover like, say, "Boy With Luv," Arirang is a capital-A album experience in a way K-Pop artists rarely shoot for—and it all sticks.

More than any other BTS record, the group's rapping core of RM, Suga and J-Hope have taken over. (Imagine a TLC album where Left Eye called the shots and T-Boz and Chilli came in for the hooks, especially in the opening flurry of tunes.) "Hooligan" nicks the knife-sharpening percussion devices of F5ve's clanging "Firetruck" and butters them with strings. Several tracks juxtapose such lush textures with distorted beats in that early 2010s Kanye way, and for that matter the detuning piano at the close of "Merry Go Round" is reminiscent of Rostam Batmanglij's Vampire Weekend contributions.

Stray quirks make these towering constructions: the way BTS croon the title of "Aliens" sounds like they're pronouncing it "A-list," and "Like Animals" sounds like if the Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?" was part of Yeezus and tacked on an '80s guitar solo. The great "NORMAL" reimagines Miguel's "What's Normal Anyway" as a widescreen arena-pop spectacle about the pressure to be an arena-pop spectacle: "Kerosene, dopamine, what I gotta do? Yeah, we call this shit normal." Hell of a flex. Hell of a life. Hell of an album. © Daniel Aaron/Qobuz

ARIRANG

BTS

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