LOVE YOURSELF 承 'Her'

The record

LOVE YOURSELF 承 ‘Her’ is BTS’s fifth mini album, released on 18 September 2017 with eleven tracks. The title track is ‘DNA’. BIGHIT MUSIC’s album introduction on Bugs calls it the first album of the LOVE YOURSELF sequence, which begins from the idea that loving yourself is where real love starts, and says it holds the picture of boys in first love, bright and good-humoured. The same text says the record carries genres the group had not tried before, among them EDM and disco-based synth funk. The two hidden tracks in the list above come from that introduction rather than from the Bugs song list, which withholds them.

Reviews

IZM took up the record in an album review dated September 2017. Kim Do-heon wrote of the title track that “it catches beautifully a ‘moment at the summit’, shaped by the meticulous construction of K-pop, the main trend of the pop market and the vigour of having been recognised by the world on top of that”. Of the record’s narrative he wrote that “the new story of a group that has gone from the end of school and youth all the way to a Billboard honour is fitted out with hope instead of unease, and with delicacy and ease instead of a tragic grandeur”, and closed: “the laws of religion and the workings of the universe aside, it is certain that the success of BTS is no accident.”

Idology (아이돌로지) carried the record in its 1st Listen for the second half of September 2017, as short pieces by four critics. Randy wrote that “the first half of EDM songs, each verse sharply contrasted, and the second half reflecting the global trend for Latin sources at its height, run through without strain and with the energy well apportioned”. Mimyo, on the way the record folds the Billboard award into itself as a skit, wrote that “it amounts to taking a dramatic event, the Billboard award, into the work’s own narrative in an interesting way”.

Shim Eun-bo (GDB) wrote that “the way it divides into EDM and hip-hop either side of ‘Skit : Billboard Music Awards Speech’, with the disco track ‘Pied Piper’ filling the gap between them, does feel like care taken over the construction”, and of the first half that “putting the weight on vocals rather than rap, and the feeling of recent K-pop trimmed down plainly instead of an aggressive or crowded sound, is decidedly interesting”. O-yo wrote that “the aim of this album is clearer”, and read it as concentrating on the pop sound most recently in fashion.

Billboard placed the record third on its twenty best K-pop albums of 2017, published on 14 December that year, calling it “a testament to the septet’s style of expressive K-pop” and writing that “with these elements juxtaposed beside one another with ease, Her acts as a witness to BTS’ versatility”.

Among the tracks

‘DNA’ is the song with a music video here, and the official channel’s upload is dated 18 September 2017, the day of release. Mimyo wrote that “‘DNA’ gives you something new every time a section changes, and at the same time builds up the next block, exact enough that no other answer comes to mind, with real momentum”. Randy read the song’s opening, “starting with a whistle or a stylish guitar-stroke source that would sound less unfamiliar to a Korean listener”, as the essence of the localising the group has done.

‘Best Of Me’ is the track Mimyo said “achieves this by joining sentiment and the coldness of the dancefloor together with great skill”. ‘Pied Piper’ and ‘Go Go’ are the two Billboard picked out together, writing that “whether it’s teasing their fans about their passionate love for BTS in ‘Pied Piper’ or tackling financial concerns of the YOLO generation in ‘Go Go,’ the EP is rife with meaning”. IZM’s Kim Do-heon read the hidden track ‘Sea’ as the place where the group widens the road of its story by admitting its unease rather than hiding it.

Numbers

Billboard placed the record third on its twenty best K-pop albums of 2017, published on 14 December 2017, and recorded there that it had peaked at number seven on the Billboard 200. The label’s own distribution metadata prints the record as LOVE YOURSELF 承 ‘Her’, dated 18 September 2017, and ships the English song titles from the same place: ‘보조개’ is Dimple and ‘고민보다 Go’ is Go Go.

What came after

Eight months later the third full-length album, LOVE YOURSELF 轉 ‘Tear’, carries the LOVE YOURSELF sequence on. Before it came YOU NEVER WALK ALONE, seven months earlier.