Creative kings: How BTS produces and writes all their songs
The boy band BTS has created a cultural impact in the past few years at a scale that very few other artists ever manage to. The South Korean boy band features dazzling music videos, with upbeat dance moves, lyrical references, and the charms of the seven members RM, Jin, SUGA, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook.
The boy band members have been very vocal about social issues they care about, often slipping messages into their lyrics & ensuring they use their stage to amplify a good cause. In a recent message they recorded for the UN, they implored people to keep hope amid the pandemic, “We must try to love ourselves, and imagine the future. BTS will be there with you.”
Band member Suga is also widely known to be vocal about mental health. He was quoted saying, “We feel that people who have the platform to talk about those things really should talk more, because they say depression is something where you go to the hospital and you’re diagnosed, but you can’t really know until the doctor talks to you.”
The musical geniuses
These boys are more than just exterior charms & a good heart – their talent speaks for itself. In fact, this assortment of singers, rappers, and dancers does much of the work itself. Some of their most popular tracks, like “Boy With Luv” that featured Halsey, have been written & produced by the members. Other songs that were written by the members include “Black Swan” & “Dynamite”.
The band members enjoy a lot of freedom & flexibility in the creative as well as the production process of their music. Take the “Boy With Luv” track, for example. Band members Suga, RM, and J-Hope all have a songwriting credit for the track. The song is very 2019, with palettes of the Instagram aesthetics & fluorescent filters further solidifying the young brand of BTS.
Elite Daily reports that all the BTS members are involved in the writing process for different songs. For their album Map of the Soul 7, RM, Suga, and J-Hope have contributed a lot of the songs.
The other members have solo songs to their credit. V & Jungkook have written solo songs. Jin has a solo song called “Moon” to his credit. Jimin’s songwriting boasts of the sub-unit song “Friends”.
Now in 2020, the band has also released an all-English song called “Dynamite”. While the primary songwriters & producers on the song are David Stewart and Jessica Agombar, RM has been very closely associated in the process. In fact, by the looks of it, the BTS members dig deeper into the songs to create space for a depth that resonates with them. True artists!
RM talked about the song in a recent press interview, “We never expected this song would come, you know, like even in fully English, like you said, but many things have changed.” While BTS songs have always held the fans across the globe enamoured, the language barrier was always a bummer. With “Dynamite”, we finally break that barrier too.
RM also talked about how the album came together so seamlessly, “You know during the process of making our album, which we’re going to release later this year, we just met this song like destiny and when we first listened to the demo, the lyrics and the vibes and you know, everything was so perfect.”
All members in it
Each of the BTS members is keen on flexing their production & songwriting muscles. Suga has told the press time & again that if he weren’t in the band, he’d be writing & producing his own music. In fact, in his own words, Suga actually wanted to become a composer, “I didn’t want to become a rapper, I wanted to become a composer. That’s why I joined the agency.”
The boy band members often go on live streams – their social media is another treat for their fans – where they share demos & talk about the songs, the lyrics, and the meaning behind them.
