Dynamite

The song

‘Dynamite’ is the digital single BTS released worldwide on 21 August 2020. It carries the song, four remixes and an instrumental. BIGHIT MUSIC’s album introduction on Bugs calls it bright, buoyant disco pop, and says the group took on singing in English for the first time since their debut as a way through the helplessness the pandemic had brought. The same text says David Stewart and Jessica Agombar, who made the Jonas Brothers’ ‘What A Man Gotta Do?’ and Hailee Steinfeld’s ‘I Love You’s’, wrote the words and music. Where the fourth full-length album MAP OF THE SOUL : 7, out six months earlier, dealt in trial and fear, the album introduction says this song’s message is happiness and confidence.

Reviews

NME’s Rhian Daly reviewed the track on the day of release and wrote that “‘Dynamite’ mines the bright, infectious sounds of disco to get its joyful energy across, sticking to the genre’s tradition of serving as a form of escapism when life gets hard”. She wrote that “there are snapping handclaps that urge you to join in and hip-swaying rhythms ready-made for the dancefloor”, noted the guitar line worthy of Nile Rodgers that enters as the song reaches its second third and the brass that joins it, and closed that stretch: “Together, it becomes a giddily glorious salve to block out the world’s darkness.”

Pitchfork’s Noah Yoo reviewed the track the same day and wrote that “‘Dynamite,’ the band’s first English-language track, yearns to fit the Western pop music canon while also slyly sending it up”. He wrote that “riding the recent nu-disco resurgence, they allude to American music legends (Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson) and namedrop basketball stars (‘Jump up to the top, LeBron’)”.

In January 2026 The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis ranked BTS’s 20 best songs and put this one sixth, writing that “like another lockdown-era hit, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, it sounded like a party in full swing, offering a precision-tooled 21st-century pop take on disco euphoria”.

What came with it

Besides the song and its instrumental, the release carries four remixes — acoustic, EDM, tropical and poolside. The music video went up on the official channel the day of release, and the album introduction says the choreography strings together simple moves anyone can copy so that each member can show their own appeal.

Numbers

The label’s own distribution metadata prints the song as the standalone single Dynamite, dated 21 August 2020. Each remix sits there as a single of its own, and two mini albums — a daytime and a nighttime version — came out alongside them. Three months later the song was placed again as the closing track of the mini album BE.

What came after

BTS went on releasing English-language songs after this one — Butter in May 2021 and Permission to Dance in July. Before it came MAP OF THE SOUL : 7, six months earlier.