BE

The record

BE is the mini album BTS released on 20 November 2020. It carries eight tracks, is led by ‘Life Goes On’, and closes with Dynamite, the single that had come out that August. BIGHIT MUSIC’s album introduction on Bugs says the members took part in the whole record — the writing, the sequencing, the concept, the design and the music video.

Reviews

IZM’s Kim Do-heon took up the record in an album review dated December 2020, writing that “BE, released after taking two number one songs on the Billboard singles chart in three months, concentrates on the role of a plain, close pop band in a pandemic rather than on a result nobody has reached before”. Of the title track he wrote that “‘Life goes on’, which sums up 2020 in the line ‘one day the world stopped’ over a quiet guitar and a calm beat, and crosses between the seven members in their distanced days, aims at a common feeling that works for ARMY and the wider public alike”. He wrote that “the album is a work that finely undoes the eye that doubts K-pop’s sincerity and the resistance to fandom-led consumption, and it fully performs a moment its career needed”, and closed: “The BTS narrative that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary is this strong.”

NME’s Rhian Daly reviewed the deluxe edition, gave it four stars out of five and wrote that “seven months later, ‘BE (Deluxe Edition)’ emerges as the most accurate musical encapsulation of the rollercoaster that is pandemic life so far; one minute brimming with joy, the next listless and miserable, another swinging slowly back to a neutral baseline”. She wrote that “over seven songs (and one skit), BTS strike the perfect balance between encouragement and reassurance, and sharing in the dark cloud of everyday struggle Covid-19 has cast over us”, and that they do so “through honest, candid songwriting and the sincerity that has always shone through in BTS’ music”.

Pitchfork’s Dani Blum gave the record 7.0 out of 10 and wrote that “on Be, the Bangtan Boys fixate instead on life in quarantine”, and that “in a year when profundity is woven into the mundane, when the rote tasks of getting through the day have taken on new intensity, BTS soften and shine”. She wrote that “frustration and grief animate these songs, but it’s their simplicity and specificity that make them compelling”. Clash’s Malvika Padin gave it 7 out of 10 and wrote that “K-pop septet BTS trade in their larger-than-life soundscapes and psychoanalytical concepts for something far simpler yet equally comforting”.

Among the tracks

‘Life Goes On’ is the song with a music video here, and the official channel’s upload is dated 20 November 2020, the day of release. Pitchfork’s Blum read it as the record’s thematic centre and wrote that “each gradual glimmer of layered vocals, every lush harmony that streams over the delicate backbeat, stitches together an intimacy”.

Of ‘Blue & Grey’, Blum wrote that it is “the most devastating song on the album” and “details ‘unease and gloom’ in terms that are crushingly vulnerable”. Kim Do-heon wrote that “‘Blue & grey’, which crosses a vocal that steadies with a rap that consoles the unsteadiness”, gives fans a familiar sense and newcomers a special one. Clash’s Padin wrote of ‘Telepathy’ that “they keep the mood light on the funky, clever ‘Telepathy’, which delves into the connection of human hearts and minds despite physical distance”.

Kim picked three recommended tracks: ‘Fly To My Room’, ‘Telepathy’ and ‘Dis-Ease’. Of the record’s second half he wrote that “the cheer inside the funky-backed ‘Telepathy’ runs on into ‘Dis-ease’, a rap track cast from the guitar riff of Brasstracks, the producer who made their name with Chance the Rapper’s ‘No problem’”, and read the placing of ‘Dynamite’ at the end as a device that doubles the feeling.

Numbers

The label’s own distribution metadata prints the record as BE, dated 20 November 2020. The English song titles come from the same place: ‘내 방을 여행하는 법’ is Fly To My Room, ‘잠시’ is Telepathy and ‘병’ is Dis-Ease. NME notes that the fourth track, ‘Skit’, is the group’s first non-musical track since 2017.

What came after

BTS followed this record with the digital singles Butter and Permission to Dance in 2021, and gathered nine years into the anthology album Proof in 2022. Before it came Dynamite, three months earlier, and before that the fourth full-length album MAP OF THE SOUL : 7.