YOU NEVER WALK ALONE

The record

YOU NEVER WALK ALONE is a BTS album released on 13 February 2017, built by adding four new songs to WINGS, the second full-length album of four months earlier. It carries eighteen tracks and the title track is ‘Spring Day’. BIGHIT MUSIC’s album introduction on Bugs presents it as the record that finishes the story of youth and growing up that WINGS had not room for, and says it carries a message of comfort and hope. The same text says Rap Monster wrote the main melody of the title track, taking a leading part in making a title track for the first time.

Reviews

Idology (아이돌로지) carried the record in its 1st Listen for the middle of February 2017, as short pieces by three critics.

Park Hee-a wrote of the two songs newly attached that “it is welcome to have two songs that show what ‘extra touch’ was added to get from the interlude to the outro”. She called ‘Not Today’ “the sum of all the energy BTS have meant to show so far”, and wrote that “in the course of it the sound bursts out without hesitation, and the message is more forward-looking”.

Doldolmalling called the record “a repackage that adds four songs to the previous album, ‘Wings’”, and wrote that “if you look at how it has done abroad, you can see that it is not one song being a hit but the album being loved evenly across”. Of the two new songs she wrote that “‘Spring Day’ and ‘Not Today’, opposite in mood, look likely to become the new representative songs of the mellow line and the fierce line BTS have shown so far”.

Among the tracks

‘Spring Day’ is the song with a music video here, and the official channel’s upload is dated 12 February 2017, the day before release. The album introduction describes it as alternative hip-hop joining a Brit-rock feeling to electronic sound, with a lyric drawn from Rap Monster’s and Suga’s own experience. Doldolmalling wrote that “‘Spring Day’ in particular is almost the only song in a major key among the songs BTS have promoted, and set against a lyric about longing and hope it feels fresh”.

Park Hee-a wrote of the same song that “on listening alone the warmth of it, with no rough edges, is good, but the best of it may well be in the performance”, and noted how clearly the choreography marks where it puts weight into a movement and where it lets go. ‘Not Today’ is described in the introduction as a song built on a moombahton sound out in front, and the same text says the title comes from a line of film dialogue and a phrase in the pre-chorus from a speech by Martin Luther King. ‘Outro : Wings’ is the full-length completion of ‘Interlude : Wings’ from WINGS.

Numbers

The label’s own distribution metadata prints the record as YOU NEVER WALK ALONE, dated 13 February 2017. The English song titles come from the same place: ‘봄날’ is Spring Day, ‘피 땀 눈물’ is Blood Sweat & Tears, ‘21세기 소녀’ is 21st Century Girl and ‘둘! 셋! (그래도 좋은 날이 더 많기를)’ is 2! 3!. The album introduction says the record came out in two versions, Left and Right.

What came after

Seven months later LOVE YOURSELF 承 ‘Her’ begins the next sequence, and in May of the following year the third full-length album, LOVE YOURSELF 轉 ‘Tear’, arrives.