This is how Armys sounded to locals outside the stadium. Insane quite literally, like imagine crossing the street and hearing all the songs loud and clear 😭😭😭
BTS’s ARIRANG is the most impressively structured album of 2026, taking listeners on a journey over the metaphorical “Arirang Hill.”
The album proves to live up to it’s name for many reasons, and this one is the most compelling one:
“People think BTS is this big because of their industry plans. But that couldn't be further from the truth. K-pop didn't accept them, and hip-hop didn't accept them. So they went grassroots. History repeats itself. You can see the through line from D'Angelo to Outkast to now BTS. When a group is forced to curate their own world, they typically end up becoming one of the biggest. Because everybody wants to be on that world.”
🔗 https://t.co/fa5EG8KW3L
القرامي شاف اريرانق مكسر الدنيا هالسنة و بتس مو معطين مجال لاي فنان ويسترن قالوا يلا نضيف فئة للاسيويين و نحشرهم فيها و خص نص عشان اريرانق ما ياخذ حقه بفئة الالبومات
At first they weren’t mainstream enough. Weren’t global enough.
Then bts became the most successful global act across the board, breaking barriers, records, claiming longevity and relevance and still they weren’t “enough”. They were instead used for their reach, used for their name and their global fandom.
Now with Arirang, an album that has yet to reach its peak bc it’s quite literally peaking every single day, an album that has world-renowned producers who worked on it singing praises months after its release, an album about roots, identity, separation, overcoming adversity, resilience, reunion and legacy, an album only 3 months into its existence demanding the level of recognition that can’t be ignored.
So, what do they do to acknowledge it?
They create ridiculous categories in the name of diversity which to me feels like just a fancy word for exclusion.
Notice how grammys announced this new category after seeing ARIRANG break major records that even bigger western artists wasn't able to break this year? Yeah, this is blatant racism.