\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \n\tHis time in the military strained his mental health, leaving him in what he describes as an internal \u201ccave.\u201d But no feeling was final, and it wasn\u2019t forever. On a sunless mid-February Saturday in Seoul, South Korea, he\u2019s back with his six bandmates. They\u2019re hanging out in a warehouse-like studio space in the towering midcity headquarters of Hybe, the ever-more-global music \u00adconglomerate originally built, for the most part, on BTS\u2019 own singular success. It\u2019s a sort of friendly pop-music Death Star, gleaming and metallic, where lobby guards intercept \u00advisitors with an intensity certain U.S. pop stars could only dream about, and employees upstairs proffer NDAs on clipboards. Even the bathrooms are futuristically secure, guarded by sliding electronic doors that require ID cards for both entrance and, for some reason, egress.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tWith BTS in the building, though, who could blame them? The slightest change in the band\u2019s perceived fortunes can move Hybe\u2019s stock price, but that\u2019s the least of it. It\u2019s nearly impossible to overstate the group\u2019s importance to its city and its nation, which changed military-conscription rules in 2020 with BTS in mind, though all seven members went on to enlist anyway. If you\u2019re lucky enough to fly into Seoul, you\u2019ll only go a few minutes before spotting V in a tank top on a highway billboard promoting a local coffee brand. For their city-stopping free concert here, BTS will walk to the stage via the King\u2019s Road, following the path of five centuries of monarchs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFive weeks before the release of Arirang<\/a>, <\/em>BTS\u2019 first album of all-new material in nearly six years, RM is living out his favorite poem again. (His bandmate Jimin<\/a> scrawled \u00addifferent Rilke verses on his chest for a music video in 2023. BTS are just that kind of band.) \u201cI have extreme stress and extreme joy at the same time,\u201d RM says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s all always back and forth, back and forth every time, every night.\u201d He\u2019s wearing a shiny black leather jacket over a black T-shirt, chunky boots, and oversize parachute pants you\u2019d have to be a member of BTS to pull off. His hair is frosted at the tips, carefully tousled; his eyes are alert, amused, ever-probing. RM was \u00adoriginally headed for a more academic life, and it\u2019s easy to imagine him as a very popular young professor in \u00advarious other timelines, presumably in the chunky glasses he already wears off-duty.<\/p>\n \n\tRM is always asking himself questions, and in recent years, he\u2019s had a long list of them about his group. What should they sound like? What do they stand for? Should they continue onward? It would be easy for him to say that Arirang<\/em> settles all of those queries, but he\u2019s too compulsively truthful for that. \u201cI\u2019m still really confused,\u201d he says, \u201cand that\u2019s what we figured out after the military.\u201d He thought maybe there\u2019d be \u201csome precise, sharp consensus that we could all relate to, which was not very true.\u201d So the picture is \u201cstill blurry,\u201d he adds, but \u201cthese 14 tracks could be an answer to the people wondering, \u2018What is BTS in 2026?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tEither way, his anxiety persists: \u201cI really wanna pretend like, \u2018I\u2019m OK and I\u2019m ready, all decided, everything\u2019s great, I just can\u2019t wait.\u2019 I really wanna say that, but even more than that, I really wanna be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWith a trio of English-language singles in 2020 and 2021 \u2014 \u201cDynamite,\u201d \u201cButter,\u201d and \u201cPermission to Dance\u201d \u2014 BTS completed the long process of conquering the world, to a degree no group from South Korea, or \u00adanywhere in Asia, had ever managed. But part of RM seemed to wonder if the world had also conquered BTS in the process. They had \u00adpreviously been deeply involved in writing their own material, had always kept most of their lyrics in their native tongue, and started out making aggro hip-hop tracks, not smooth disco pop. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what kind of group we were anymore,\u201d he admitted in 2022, just before the group began a yearslong break they\u2019d fill with military service and solo hits. \u201cI don\u2019t know what kind of story I should tell now.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tLater that year, in a conversation with Pharrell Williams for RS,<\/em> RM went further. \u201cI was just a small rapper and lyricist when I was young,\u201d he told Williams. \u201cIt was 10 years, really intense as a team. I got to stop this for a bit. I got to shut it down and fall away from it and then just see what\u2019s going on\u2026. Sometimes I really feel afraid. Like, what if I don\u2019t like music anymore?\u201d Williams told him it was temporary, and offered parting advice that unintentionally echoed Rilke\u2019s: \u201cJust keep going.\u201d Much later, in a livestream that had him subsequently apologizing for excessive candor, RM admitted what he had been hinting at: \u201cI\u2019ve thought tens of thousands of times whether disbanding or pausing the team would be better.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJ-Hope<\/a>, the group\u2019s emotional backbone, a fierce rapper rivaled only by the \u00adformally trained Jimin as the dancing-est member, was circling the same doubt. \u201cIs getting all this love and attention actually a good thing?\u201d J-Hope says now, recalling his feelings. \u201cMaybe while everyone is clapping and cheering for me, I should just turn it all off. And I wondered whether I wanted this. All I had was a tiny flame inside of me, and it had just spread like wildfire. I felt a lot of pressure around that.\u201d In 2022, he became the first BTS member to release a full-fledged solo album, Jack in the Box<\/a><\/em>, which posed the question directly: \u201cDo I put out the fire or burn brighter?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJ-Hope chose the latter option, though he wasn\u2019t sure he really had a choice. \u201cI realized it\u2019s probably not something I can stop just because I want to stop it,\u201d he tells me. \u201cPersonally, I\u2019m very affected by the people around me, so I have to think about whether I can handle the emotional effect my decisions will have on so many others. In the end, I felt that keeping the flame burning is what I truly want, and the choice that\u2019s most authentically me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe third member of the group\u2019s rap line, the cerebral, mysteriously charismatic Suga<\/a>, isn\u2019t sure there was ever a question. \u201cThere\u2019s no way for me to know everyone\u2019s individual thoughts and desires,\u201d he says, \u201cbut we all went solo because we couldn\u2019t work in a group at the time. So before going into the military, I knew we were always gonna get back together. But I can see how it could be surprising from a foreign perspective. But for us, staying together just felt obvious. So, nobody really had opinions about that. I just thought, \u2018Yeah, of course we\u2019re doing this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t challenge anymore, there\u2019s no reason we should keep doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tRM did at least decide on a mandate for Arirang,<\/a><\/em> which turned out to be an artistic and commercial triumph, selling 641,000 copies in the U.S. alone in its first week and topping Apple Music\u2019s charts in 115 countries. \u201cI\u2019ve been saying to the members, \u2018If we don\u2019t \u00adchallenge anymore, then I think there\u2019s no reason that we should keep doing this as a team,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cWe have to show the world that we are still ongoing and still exploring. It\u2019s so complicated sometimes. But still, I think we have to push it to the edge even more, even more, and it\u2019s still not enough.\u201d He smiles at his own intensity.<\/p>\n \n\tIN OCTOBER 2022, all seven members of BTS, in matching purple hoodies, grasped hands and took a deep, synchronized bow as fireworks flooded the sky above the seaside city of Busan. As they walked offstage, V held aloft a laminated sign with the same message in both English and Korean, from the lyrics of the song they had just performed: \u201cBest moment is yet to come.\u201d They waved to their fans, trying to look upbeat. Jimin lingered at the front of the stage, eyes shimmering. It was the last time BTS would perform together in public for four years.<\/p>\n \n\tJin<\/a> is the eldest at 33, sardonically charming, with a rich, pure tenor and a commanding stage presence. It sometimes seems like he has entirely unwarranted impostor syndrome about his place in the group \u2013 he jokes that his one advantage is that he\u2019s \u201cmore good-looking than the other members.\u201d He was the first to enlist in the military, shortly after releasing the soaring Coldplay collaboration \u201cThe Astronaut.\u201d\u00a0As an assistant drill sergeant, he bought extra food for his troops, and they grew to love him, weeping when his time was over. He cried, too, at his discharge ceremony. Once he was out, he carried the Olympic torch at the Paris Games, starred in a hit Netflix variety show, and released two excellent EPs that continued to lean into the rock sounds he had come to love, mostly through his longstanding Coldplay fandom.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBut the whole time, he wanted to find his way back to the band. \u201cI just missed the other members so much,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve always thought there\u2019s no reason to continue if it\u2019s not with the group. I guess a solo career is just not that important to me. If I did anything, it would be trying something different within the group when the fans are bored. I\u2019m not interested in acting or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tIn 2023, Suga released his first official album under his alter ego, Agust D (the name is Suga backward, plus the initials of his hometown crew, D-Town), after two mixtapes that pushed boundaries with edgy personal confessions. This time, on \u201cAmygdala,\u201d he raps about dealing with his parents\u2019 illnesses and other traumas, but declares himself liberated from the past: \u201cWhat didn\u2019t kill me only made me stronger\/And I begin to bloom like a lotus flower once again.\u201d Apparently, due to a circa-2012 motorcycle accident that once left him unable to lift his arms onstage, his military service took place in the civilian world, where he spent 21 months as a social worker. \u201cAfter that final album, I don\u2019t have any negative feelings left in my body,\u201d he says. He also got over a fear of running out of lyrics he had confessed to in 2022. \u201cI\u2019ve been focusing on stressing less about it. I\u2019m always going to find things to say, and then run out of them again. There\u2019s an eternal cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBefore enlisting, J-Hope headlined Lollapalooza <\/a>in July 2022, becoming the first South Korean artist to do so at a major American festival. \u201cI felt like I was stuck in some kind of mold that kept me from expressing myself as freely as I wanted to,\u201d he says. \u201cI yearned to break that mold and step into the world with my true self and all of the music that I wanted to share. But now that I\u2019ve made more of my own music, challenged myself, I wouldn\u2019t say that I\u2019m in a box anymore. Now, I\u2019m wondering, what can I create now that I\u2019m outside of the box?\u201d At the same time, he\u2019s reminded himself of the power of his group: \u201cNow that we\u2019re back together, the other members are filling in any gaps that I feel in my expression, in my performance. In a lot of ways, I realized that this is why there were seven of us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJung Kook<\/a> wasted no time in stepping out as the pop star he was born to be, though BTS\u2019 youngest member, 28, still carries himself with remarkable humility. \u201cHonestly, I can\u2019t really think of myself as a pop star just yet,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019m very grateful that I get asked about it that way, and that fans think of me that way. So I want to keep doing better, so that I can feel like a star for myself. Someday!\u201d His single \u201cSeven<\/a>,\u201d with Latto, which offered a rather stunning level of explicitness (\u201cI\u2019ll be fuckin\u2019 you right\/Seven days a week\u201d) was Spotify\u2019s fourth-most-streamed song in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI wasn\u2019t embarrassed,\u201d Jung Kook says of the lyrics. \u201cI just felt, \u2018So what?\u2019\u201d But RM says he had to intervene to allow those lines to come out after execs got nervous: \u201cI told the label, \u2018Please don\u2019t change! Why not? He\u2019s all grown up. He can sing an f-word.\u2019\u201d Then, in the army, Jung Kook worked in the kitchen, stirring giant pots, even on weekends \u2014 feeding the troops right, seven days a week. \u201cWhat I really felt was that I really want to perform,\u201d says Jung Kook. \u201cI want to sing. \u2018Augh,<\/em> I can\u2019t wait to leave! I want to get out and dance!\u2019 That\u2019s all I thought about.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJimin, whose velvety voice and nearly feline lover-boy magnetism stands out even in a group filled with virtuosic singers and strong presences, shocked himself with his own solo success. His single \u201cLike Crazy\u201d hit Number One months before \u201cSeven,\u201d which made him the first Korean solo artist to top the Hot 100. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect it at all,\u201d Jimin says. \u201cBut through that process, I learned that I still have a long way to go.\u201d He enlisted at the same time as Jung Kook, and in their early army days, they participated in a footrace together. (Unlike their sprint up their charts, Jung Kook won that one.) He told me in 2021<\/a> he couldn\u2019t imagine himself outside of the group. \u201cMy thoughts haven\u2019t changed,\u201d he says. \u201cIf there\u2019s any way they have changed, it\u2019s that while BTS, and doing well as part of BTS, remains my top priority, I want to be a better singer as an individual as well. My teammates are all so amazing, so I feel the need to improve my worth as a fellow member and not be overshadowed.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Our](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BTS-desktop-recirc.png\")
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