If you’re supposed to be in touch with pop culture as part of your professional life, there’s not much that can sharpen the lines of your ignorance like having teenage kids. Of course, not everyone can know or like everything, especially not in this era of unimaginable abundance. But my kids reaching the age of proper fandom has really brought me up on how I’ve lazily treated huge sections of the global mainstream as homogenous blocs, when musically and culturally they are really anything but. This has particularly been the case with the arena rave sounds of American EDM, and with the factory-farmed, globe-conquering K-pop sounds of South Korea.
It’s all too easy to do. As with EDM, K-pop can seem, especially to ageing ears and eyes, like a never-ending barrage of surface level flash and gloss, everything turned up to 11 all the time, every colour saturated, every movement choreographed with inhuman precision, its figureheads so styled and slathered in makeup as to seem like characters in the East Asian cartoons and comic books that teens also hoover up. But looked at through the prism of an enthusiastic 13-year-old’s descriptions, it starts to look a bit more complex.
The scandalous stories of the talent hunts and gruelling boot camps, the various spats and cancellations, the representations of shifting social attitudes in a very unfamiliar world all give it a soap opera addictiveness. Also musically, a lot comes into relief – discovering the higher energy songs of girl groups like LOONA and Red Velvet makes a lot of recent US / Euro “hyperpop” exemplified by Charli XCX make more sense. And more recent adoptions of the real club grooves of proper house and UK garage, and high fashion, high art visuals, notably by remarkable “genderless” group XLOV really help to place the sound and style of the brilliant UK megastar PinkPantheress.
That said, lots of it is still baffling, and the biggest stars of all BTS most of all. They’re one of the biggest acts in the world, with many billions of streams to their names, and obviously they have earned it with their impossibly drilled live shows and relentless hustle and vastly expensive productions. But on their comeback album after a six-year break, it’s as hard to find a comprehensible musical personality as ever. The backing music is truly extraordinary: versions of trap beats and moody rock built up with war-machine precision and impact that make Lady Gaga sound like The Andrews Sisters. But the aggressive stringing together of strained yearning, domineering chants and slick but ultimately excruciating rap gives nothing to get hold of. It's like an LLM doing sexy talk, but actually kind of menacing with it - far more than you'd expect for the return of a teen idol band, really. There’s a lot that’s fascinating in isolation here, but even after repeat plays, as a whole it leaves me wondering if in some cases ignorance isn’t bliss.
Watch an advert for BTS's own-brand light stick:
Comments
Unfortunately just another garbage review.
BTS's ARIRANG, the new critic's pick on New York Times, gets a 2 stars from someone who can't look past his prejudices, since he sees the group's work merely as music for his teenaged children. It must be bad if young people like it right? I wonder, did mr. Muggs bother reading the lyrics to this piece of work?
Still calling them a teen idol group?
In 2026, Mr. Muggs continues to view BTS through the limited lens of a teen idol group. It is rather concerning that, as a journalist, the first opinion sought on the album appears to be that of a 13-year-old. Such an approach undermines the depth and artistry of their work. This incident once again reflects the persistent prejudice against Korean artists, which, regrettably, shows little sign of diminishing.
A review of the album that says nothing
The author begins by admitting their lack of knowledge about the K-pop genre, and that’s exactly what they show. There’s no real analysis of the songs, production, or album structure. It comes across as superficial, especially from someone who openly admits they know little about K-pop and have no intention of learning more. This isn’t what we expect from album reviews. In short, it’s just another poorly written review.
OK I'm very familiar with the nature of K-pop fandom...
...so I'm not surprised to see a regimented set of angry responses all repeating the same criticisms. And I'm not optimistic that any defence against them will get heard, but if any of you are genuinely interested in the perspective of a music writer, and in expanding your horizons about how music and culture discussion happen, I will try and explain a little more.
A music reviewer is not god…
A music reviewer is not god. Their job is not to decree absolute value on each thing they view. In the past many have acted as if it was, and that's still the case in some bigger titles that like to pretend everything they say is definitive.
In fact music reviews can be many things. They can be light-hearted, they can be deep personal essays, they can be super-specialist things aimed only at an in-group, they can be introductory, educational, polemical, political - SO many approaches.
If you read my reviews…
If you read my reviews alongside those of others, you get even more context, and understand even more deeply where people are coming from, and how the records being reviewed fit into the broader context of culture and criticism.
Sometimes I review things that I AM expert in, and when I do I lean into that. But I personally think it's really important that reviewers often leave their comfort zone - be honest about their unfamiliarity on particular things, and explain the context they're reviewing it in.
With all that in mind, I absolutely stand by my review.
There was nothing in it - NOTHING - that was prejudiced against Korea or its music, so let's get that off the table instantly. I've found the process of discovery fascinating, and I'm finding K-pop bangers that I love all over the place.
If you don't think I have the right to say
that I am baffled by the menacing atmosphere, poor rapping and lack of hooks on BTS's record - while massively admiring the advanced production and avant garde beats - then maybe you simply shouldn't be reading reviews in the first place. OR, maybe you could actually be more open-minded and think that the purpose of culture writing is something more than just saying "GREAT" or "BAD", but is an ongoing, multi-faceted conversation with real people that you could join, and which you might actually find stimulating to your ideas and expression.
Baseless
For gods sake what kind of review is this? Not liking the album is completely valid, but we came to this spaces in order to hear REAL arguments and understand how the production could be better. This is just a rant of someone who doesn’t understand what they’re are taking about.
BTS Arirang
Your whole "review" reeks of ignorance and xenophobia, not to mention unprofessionalism. Did you do *any* research at all before writing this condescending pile of garbage? Do you think it makes you seem trendy and in-the-know to denigrate musicians whose music simply isn't to your taste? Honestly, it makes you seem sadly uninformed and out-of-touch. I don't expect every critic/reviewer to like every musical genre or artist, you included.
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