BTS Wings Concept Book [ENG]

❝ Blood, Sweat and Tears ❞

BTS tends to be recognized as a boyband with a global fandom rather than a K-pop band. The first testing of this was "Fire", an electro trap song. The experiment Producer Bang Shihyuk did with "Fire" proved to be a success.

True to its title, "Fire" lighted the fans all over the world on fire, and BTS' strategy of making the winning move with the kind of music that is currently trending in the world, not just in Korea only, wasn't wrong. Korean idol groups' music has started to create a sensation in the West as well. The game's rules have changed.

With "Blood, Sweat & Tears", they took another step forward. It doesn't follow the grammar and the genre of idols' pop songs where being catchy and easy to sing along is typical. Using moombahton - a globally rising genre - as the base, the melody started with "Blood, Sweat & Tears" from the beginning intuitively suggests the theme of temptation and lets the dark and subverse energy seep through. This formation that presents a foreign vibe from the start leading to the climax was new but astonishing at the same time.

Foreign, and sensual. "Blood, Sweat & Tears" music video was foreign and obscure to viewers than ever and full of abstract images for that reason.

From 6 months before the release, Producer Bang Shihyuk and music video director Lumpens had researched about mise-en-scène, and had come to a decision to distribute the information so it wouldn't stay fixed in "Blood, Sweat & Tears", unlike the dramatized music videos with stories in 'Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa' stories.

Through the change of verticle or horizontal composition, each scene was born as a different painting, and the music video becomes a kind of gallery with multiple objets d'art. Meanwhile, the choreography acts as another splendid mise-en-scène. With Suga covering Jimin's eyes as the first movement of the performance, the music video for "Blood, Sweat & Tears" officially started.

In addition, "Blood, Sweat & Tears" contains the story and symbols based on <Demian>. The <WINGS> album - including "Blood, Sweat & Tears" - conceptualized the growth of BTS before moving onto the next phase with the help from classics and mythology.

The story of having to go through agony in order to grow up, rather than describing the specific situation, created the vibe they want to show and explained the conception of temptation, decadence and growth.

While Jin was gazing at "The Fall of the Rebel Angels", playing in the background was a music piece by Bach, seeking forgiveness from God, but the BTS of "Blood, Sweat & Tears" said there's no such thing as God, that our fate has been decided like this since long ago.

From the youth portrayed by the green candy, green smoke, monotonous colors, they went out into a more complicated, more glamorous and chaotic world. Like how Rap Monster gave the melted candle wax to Jungkook, like how Suga took Jimin's hands and led him somewhere outside, the ones who have grown up first in the 'Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa' series urged the kids who haven't awaken from the dream to wake up. Like that, the story of BTS and <WINGS> was completed.