Last weekend, the music world was taken over by the return of BTS, the South Korean pop septet who rose to local stardom in the mid-’10s before swarming the globe over the course of the late ’10s and early ’20s. The group had been on hiatus since 2022, with its members satisfying their country’s mandatory military service requirements, but returned on Friday with Arirang, the first new BTS album since 2020 — and then just a day later, also greeted ARMY in person with a live show at Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square, livestreamed globally on Netflix as BTS The Comeback Live | Arirang.
On this Pop Star Performance Review episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, host Andrew Unterberger is joined by Billboard K-pop correspondent Abby Webster — who was on the scene in Seoul for the Comeback show, and also at a screening of the group’s upcoming BTS: The Return Netflix doc special — to catch up on all the happenings of BTS’ massive comeback weekend.
Along the way, we answer all the most pressing questions about the Bangtan Boys’ massively anticipated return: How are folks feeling about Arirang a few days into its release? Did the minimal rollout of content before the album’s release help or hurt anticipation for it? How do we feel about “Swim” as a lead single? What songs from the new set go off the most live? Does “Mikrokosmos” make sense as the group’s current big encore song? Should RM have gotten a better chair for his seated onstage moments? And perhaps most importantly: Does BTS still have anything left to prove at this point?
Check it out above, and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!
And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:
Transgender Law Center
Trans Lifeline
Destination Tomorrow
Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe
Human Rights Campaign – In Your Area
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