WINGS

The record

WINGS is BTS’s second full-length album, released on 10 October 2016 with fifteen tracks. The title track is ‘Blood Sweat & Tears’. BIGHIT MUSIC’s album introduction on Bugs places the record after the sequence that closed with 화양연화 Young Forever (The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever), and says it holds the doubt and conflict of boys meeting temptation for the first time. The same text calls it the first album to carry a solo song by every member, and describes the title track as moombahton trap.

Reviews

IZM took up the record in an album review dated January 2017. Jo Jin-yeong opened that “the kind of narrative BTS hold to is decidedly powerful”, and wrote of the group songs that “the shape of layered vocal harmony crossed with rap parts is very natural and supple”. He added that “crossing tracks built on concepts far from real life with the members’ own autobiographical stories, and mixing house, reggae, future bass and other genres together without the colour coming apart, is a great strength”.

Idology (아이돌로지) carried the record in its 1st Listen for early October 2016. Mimyo wrote that “with its fifteen songs it offers the welcome experience of meeting a fairly consistent album — an ‘orthodox album’ in the Western sense”, and that this is “because it touches trendy sounds a little at a time while keeping, in the sound itself, that existing texture of a slightly mischievous, hard-luck boy”. Park Hee-a named as its strengths “that the way the tracklist is built is groundbreaking in a way there is no precedent for, and that every song on it guarantees a certain level of quality”.

weiv placed the record tenth on its list of Korean albums of the year for 2016. Park Hee-a opened her piece there with the line “experimental and productive — a success”, and wrote that “looked at first in musical terms, this album is a work that shows plainly that idol musicians are people who make ‘music’ too”.

Billboard placed the record first on its ten best K-pop albums of 2016, published on 23 December that year. Jeff Benjamin wrote that “Wings is an accomplishment all its own”. He credited the record with “forward-thinking production” set beside lyrics “discussing topics important to their listeners like the dark side of adulthood and mental health issues”.

Among the tracks

IZM ran a separate single review of the title track. Hyeon Min-hyeong wrote that it “joins a moombahton sound to an idol concept in the Korean manner”, and that “the mood of ‘temptation’, the new keyword after school and youth, also lines up with the identity they showed on the earlier records — lyrical, with a little fierceness added”. Idology’s Doldolmalling wrote of the same song that “‘Blood Sweat & Tears’ is said to draw on reggae, house and trap, and being languid and fierce at once it has a tone that steams away as if refusing the weather turning cold”. The official channel’s music video upload is dated 9 October 2016, the day before release.

‘Lost’ is the track Jo Jin-yeong named as the heart of the second half: “‘Lost’, with a lyric that runs through the whole theme and a clean contest between vocal and rap, is the key track that holds the centre of the later stretch.” Mimyo also wrote that “as songs that show the album’s character and its keynote well, I would recommend ‘Lie’ and ‘Lost’”. Park Hee-a picked out ‘Lie’ too, calling it and the fan song ‘2! 3!’ very striking. Billboard, on the record’s production, gave ‘Interlude : Wings’ as its example.

Numbers

Billboard placed the record first on its ten best K-pop albums of 2016, published on 23 December 2016. weiv placed it tenth on its Korean albums of the year for the same year. The label’s own distribution metadata dates the record 10 October 2016 and ships the English song titles from the same place: ‘피 땀 눈물’ is Blood Sweat & Tears, ‘21세기 소녀’ is 21st Century Girl and ‘둘! 셋! (그래도 좋은 날이 더 많기를)’ is 2! 3!.

What came after

Four months later the record returns with four songs added as YOU NEVER WALK ALONE, and in September of that year LOVE YOURSELF 承 ‘Her’ begins the next sequence.