In early May, rumors swirled on social media a few mysterious guide. Its title wouldn’t be introduced till June 13, but it surely was slated for worldwide publication on July 9, with an preliminary print run of 1 million copies. Media protection centered on fan hypothesis that the writer was Taylor Swift, a concept that drove a wave of preorders of the still-unnamed mission. However, a few of us instantly deduced that the guide was really in regards to the South Korean pop group BTS. The greatest clue was that the announcement and launch dates had been every a significant anniversary for the band—10 years since its debut and the naming of its monumental fan base, ARMY, respectively.
And certainly, inside days the writer, Flatiron Books, confirmed to The New York Times that the 544-page guide was titled Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS. It was written by the South Korean journalist Myeongseok Kang (and translated into English by Anton Hur, Slin Jung, and Clare Richards), primarily based on intensive interviews with the group’s seven members. But I nonetheless had questions, each as a fan and a cultural critic who has written my very own guide about BTS. How candid would the members be? Would the guide communicate largely to diehards like me, or wouldn’t it handle to seize the character of stratospheric fame for basic readers? After a decade of the group’s existence, how far would Beyond the Story transcend the … properly, you already know.
As it seems, the guide is much less a conventional memoir or private biography than a meticulous accounting of how BTS was born and have become a worldwide juggernaut below the once-tiny report label Big Hit (now the huge leisure firm Hybe). For anybody who’s ever heard “Butter” on the radio and puzzled over the group’s ascent in America, Beyond the Story has solutions: It’s an enchanting, difficult, and at-times anxiety-inducing chronicle of fan-driven world domination—in addition to a extremely accessible useful resource for newer devotees.
Many ARMYs first study BTS’s lengthy, bumpy historical past in a piecemeal method—by fan-made YouTube movies, official documentaries, livestreams, memes, and Twitter threads. Now this historical past is offered in an unguarded, complete bundle, narrated by Kang. Even for longtime fans, seeing BTS’s profession laid out so intentionally is staggering. Kang covers each album, tour, and massive awards present up till mid-2022, proper earlier than BTS introduced that the members would quickly be specializing in solo initiatives and making ready for his or her necessary army service. The guide doesn’t delve into their lives outdoors their job, which is unsurprising, on condition that the members are extraordinarily protecting of their private relationships and identified for working nonstop. But Kang nonetheless manages to layer an emotional historical past on high of the skilled one. By considering their evolution as artists, BTS’s members additionally give readers a transparent sense of how the crucible of fame pressured them to develop as human beings.
Beyond the Story is split into seven sections that hint the main eras of the group’s rise. Many readers will know the place the story ultimately goes—a number of No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits, Grammy nominations, numerous historic firsts, a number of United Nations General Assembly appearances, a White House go to—however suspense nonetheless infuses the early chapters. Kang conveys the depth and savvy of BTS’s chief, Kim Namjoon (stage identify RM), who was recruited as a teen by the mastermind producer Bang Si-hyuk to kind a hip-hop group with the guy underground rapper and aspiring composer Min Yoongi (Suga) and the extremely revered avenue dancer Jung Hoseok (J-Hope). Eventually Bang, wanting BTS to be extra of a conventional idol group, introduced in 4 vocalists: the unflappable eldest, Kim Seokjin (Jin); the perfectionist Park Jimin (Jimin); the versatile Kim Taehyung (V); and the golden maknae (or multitalented youngest), Jeon Jungkook (Jungkook).
When they first meet, they expertise the everyday character clashes of any new group: The clear freaks balk on the soiled dishes within the sink and sweaty garments on the ground. The hip-hop aficionados maintain fixed classes to show the novices about rap music. Everyone, no matter dance expertise, practices the powerful choreography till they’re completely in sync—all whereas they’re on strict diets. (ARMY will probably be happy to know that Kang devotes a number of pages to the notorious mandu incident.) “The more you look back on BTS’s preparation for their debut, the more surprising it is that none of them quit in the process,” Kang writes. Even after that 2013 entrance, the members described experiencing isolation and dealing with mockery from lots of their friends at larger, extra financially profitable firms. So troublesome had been BTS’s first two years that when a Big Hit staffer informs the label’s vice chairman, “Something’s happening. Uh … they’re getting more and more fans,” the second lands like a stunning twist.
In the primary half of the guide, Kang offers context in regards to the broader Okay-pop world, displaying simply what number of guidelines BTS broke to distinguish itself from its friends and predecessors. The members filmed vlogs providing followers an unpolished take a look at their lives, even typically criticizing Bang or the corporate straight—a “complete rejection of genre norms in Korea’s idol industry,” Kang writes. Of the unusually darkish realism of 2015’s single “I Need U,” he observes, “Within the Korean idol industry, experimenting like this was no different from intentionally trying to ruin yourself.”
As a fan, I used to be astonished that the BTS members appeared to go a very long time with out understanding why their very own supporters preferred them a lot. Even after they had been confused by their reputation, they expressed deep gratitude to the individuals who boosted them. Jimin tells Kang, “Even now, I remember that one row next to the broadcast cameras during our first performance,” referring to the handful of followers who confirmed as much as cheer them on as rookies. For ARMYs, this evidently real humility is a part of what makes them so interesting—they’ve by no means behaved as if success was an inevitable end result of their expertise or arduous work. Of “Dynamite” topping the Billboard Hot 100, Suga talks about not eager to bask within the achievement: “I realized it would be wiser to get back down to Earth as quickly as possible. There was no need to be floating in the air like that.”
Beyond the Story immerses the reader in how bewildering this entire development course of was from BTS’s perspective. Extreme highs (showing on the American Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards, in addition to main speak exhibits) are juxtaposed with profound lows (overwork, unrelenting despair, an growing lack of privateness). The members open up in regards to the stress of turning into big within the U.S., a completely unfamiliar market, when six of the seven didn’t communicate English. J-Hope remembers berating himself for not with the ability to grasp the language as rapidly as intricate dance strikes: “Each time, in the hotel room I thought to myself, ‘Oh, so I guess this is all I amount to.’” Once they started to regulate to the worldwide nature of their fame, the pandemic arrived. They had been pressured to desert their plans and experiment as soon as once more by releasing their first English-language single, “Dynamite,” whose success stunned RM: “The fandom should’ve craved it greater than we’d thought,” he stated.
Not till this later a part of BTS’s profession, Kang writes, did the members transition from doing issues for “the sake of outside approval or to prove themselves” to turning inward and “trying to reach a point of excellence where they could feel satisfied with their results.” Readers can recognize how their inside development has been virtually inseparable from their creative improvement. Jungkook, who joined Big Hit in center faculty, talks about studying tips on how to acknowledge his personal feelings for the primary time and “unleash” them in music. V displays on rising older and going by an “adolescence of the mind,” earlier than realizing that he’s the sort of musician who can write solely when genuinely impressed. Jin talks about abandoning his obsessive worrying to the purpose of “living without any thought at all,” which allowed extra “mental space” to maintain his work.
For followers, there’s one thing comforting about how a lot of this story we already know, and one thing satisfying about lastly seeing it put down formally in phrases. To me, this familiarity is a reminder of how weak BTS’s members have been from the start, even when the danger of self-revelation was excessive. Kang doesn’t contact on what lies forward. The band’s future chapters have but to be written, however this survey tells an entire story. It’s a doc capturing the way it feels to go from aspiring musician to worldwide celebrity, and what it takes to take action.
By BTS and Myeongseok Kang
By Lenika Cruz
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