BTS Members' Unique Solo Ventures

Now that all of the BTS members have debuted as solo artists, let's analyze why their projects are all so different. It's not only about the different genres and sounds, it's also about the differences in the style of promotions, target audiences and results. Because this is the reality. A BTS member had a global tour, but another member had one concert at a festival, another member only had one small venue concert and another member didn't have any concerts. A BTS member had three physical albums but another member only had two. Another member only had one. Another member only had one CD with no photo cards, stickers and other things the other albums got. But another member didn't get a physical album that charts could count when he first debuted. A BTS member had promotions in the US, the UK and South Korea but another member only promoted in the US and Korea. another member promoted in Korea and Japan, and another member barely did any promotions. A BTS member debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and his song was the number 1 song worldwide for weeks on a row. But another member only debuted at number 1 on the Hot 100. Another member almost entered the top 50, but another only entered the top 100. When you phrase things like this, conflict awaits. Fans complain about unequal support by the label, unequal support by fans and of course unequal results. But I think these comparisons are unfair and at this point malicious because if you really think about the intention of each project, you can see the different visions the BTS members have. had for their solo music careers. If you really want to measure promotion efforts and success, let's talk about how each promotion schedule helped gain the attention of their specific target audiences. And let's also realize that some promotions are actually counterproductive for some members but beneficial for others. You may think I'm crazy, but sometimes a number one on the US can hurt an album's chances to be consumed by certain audiences. Of course, other times it can help the project, but it all comes down to the artist's vision and target audience. So I'll try to explain why I don't think any BTS member, song or album has been sabotaged by Big Hit, HYBE, ARMY and much less BTS. After analyzing every single piece of promotion, I actually think that every promotion decision has been smart, and effective. The member who started the BTS solo era was J-Hope. Like the other members part of the rap line, J-Hope released his first solo project as a mixtape. This is not his official solo debut. Hope World and the other solo mixtapes did not have official promotions, but they were shared on social media by the head. These type of projects were side projects shared for ARMYs as a gift or as extra free music. This is important to highlight so we can understand why some BTS members do certain promotions and not others. Confused ARMYs and J-Hope's solo stans can say that J-Hope's Jack in the Box debut album was sabotaged by Big Hit and Hype because it was released with no physical versions and no performances in Western TV shows or K-pop shows. These three things are expected in a regular BTS promotion schedule, but this is J-Hope's solo career. So look at what he did do and conclude what new audience he wanted to attract. For what I can see, J-Hope wants his debut album Jack in the Box to be a long-lasting record listened to not only by ARMYs but also by global fans of hip-hop, people who are actually interested in hip-hop as a genre. And J-Hope is not necessarily going to attract this specific audience by performing on K-pop TV shows or American TV shows like Jimmy Fallon and Good Morning America, watched by an older American demographic. Actually, if he did, he would probably lose the specific audience he's trying to attract. For what I can see, he is not interested in the general public listening to the Billboard Hot 100 songs. He prefers promoting to an audience interested in hip-hop no matter the language. This is a tricky audience to target, but I think every decision he made was perfect. To start, J-Hope was the first and only BTS member to launch his album with a listening party. If you pay attention to the artists he invited, you can see that these are mostly indie hip-hop artists. Most of them are not mainstream, but they are respected in the South Korean hip-hop and alternative music scenes. This listening party sets the tone for the rest of his solo promotions. J-Hope's debut solo performance was as a headliner in Lollapalooza 2022 in Chicago. His concert had an audience of over 100,000 people, including ARMYs, the general public, and of course, curious hip-hop fans. This strategy was extremely successful because after the event, there were a lot of hip-hop fans listening to the music of a BTS member for the first time, whether in person or online. This event also gave J-Hope the opportunity to meet meet and then record a song with the artist who inspires his name. jay cole this collaboration and his concert a lovapalooza gave him an attractive image to this specific audience the type of audience who prefers simple individual or one-on-one conversations with no audience and a minimalistic or improvised backstage set these are the only type of interviews he did and it was intentional in my opinion the only exception was his interview at the seasons but this is also very strategic because this is not a kpop show watched by kpop fans unlike kpop shows the seasons has long interviews with no rehearsed answers by idols doing aegyo and an ending fairy and performing a choreography with playback for this same reason the interviewees the performances and the audience watching the show are different thanks to this j-hope has the freedom to do a more personal performance he wouldn't be able to do on a K-pop TV show. The last thing to note about J-Hope's solo debut is the pace of promotions. He didn't do every interview and performance the first two weeks of the album release. This could put his Billboard and Korean charts positions in risk. But that's okay because that was not his goal. He actually performed in Lollapalooza two weeks after his album release and he continued with promotions with months in between each promo. Almost 5 months after the release of the album, he performed at the 2022 MAMA, which let him do a unique stage with no choreography. Then, 6 months after his debut, J-Hope performs at Times Square New Year's Eve. 7 months after his debut, he releases and promotes his J-Hope in the box documentary on Disney+, and has an interview on a popular YouTube channel. 9 months after the release of his album, he performs and has an interview on the Seasons. As you can see, the promotions are focusing on longevity more than on Day 1's success, so J-Hope's records reflect that. Here comes the biggest complaint. When J-Hope released Jagged in a Box, the physical album did not come with a physical CD. They came with most small things you would get in a regular BTS physical album and a QR code to listen to the songs on the Weverse Albums app. This code replaced the CD, and for that, it did not count on western charts like billboard since this was the first time bts did this and the weaver's albums app is a new app by hype people accused hype of affecting j-hope's debut numbers of purposefully sabotaging him just to promote their streaming app but again look at j-hope's overall promotions every interview or performance was far apart This doesn't mean that the promotions are bad. Actually, these type of promotions are very common with Western artists because they are less exhausting for both the artist and the audience, and it can improve longevity. It's true that he released his debut album almost exclusively on digital platforms, but six months later, he released a well-produced vinyl record. And now, more than a year after the debut week, he released physical albums that count toward the Billboard charts. These are the type of promotions you have when you want your album to be discovered and remembered by fans time and time again over the years, not just the first two weeks. This helps with longevity and helps his desired audience, hip-hop listeners, have multiple chances of discovering his music. The unique performances and simple interviews that will be discovered will not disappoint this audience because these are the type of performances and interviews they already enjoy, so the results successfully match the promotions. Next we have Jin's solo debut single The Astronaut, which he released as a See You Later song before going to the military. The biggest complaint I've seen about Jin's debut is from solo stands saying that this is not a proper debut, because most members had album debuts, but Jin only had a single. The assumption is not that Jin decided to release a single, but that Hive and even BTS are at fault because Jin said that he wanted to go to the military earlier during the summer, right after the end of the proof promotions in June. Therefore, according to some people, Jin was forced by the other BTS members and their label to wait until October for their unexpected Busan concert. So he had no choice other than to go to the military on the winter and quickly release the astronaut after being busy with everything. This gave him only days to promote his song. So there were no interviews in America and no music shows in Korea. He only performed as a guest artist in Coldplay's concert in Argentina. However, you don't need to be a genius to realize that the astronaut was not made for the general public's consumption. Like Jin said multiple times, he wanted to make one song for ARMYs before going to the military. He talked to Chris Martin from Coldplay about the kind of message he wanted to transmit, and Chris Martin produced the song specifically for Jin. This was not meant to be an official debut with a non-ARMY audience in mind. This doesn't mean that it was an abandoned project. The Astronaut is Jin's official debut single and had two physical album versions, a music video, a lyric video, a live stadium performance, official merch, merchandise and even a show of four episodes with a vlog style. He also had five interviews, one by himself, one with Suga and three in relaxed, non-serious settings, two for YouTube channels and one for TV. All of these interviews and shows helped him relax and comfortably talk in his native language about his life and future. So once again, this BTS solo project was successfully recognized by its entire audience, in this case ARMY. We would have to wait for Jin's solo debut album. after his military service to know what kind of music style and new audience he wants to pursue. The next BTS member to officially debut was RM with his album Indigo. What I've seen people saying is that ARMYs did not support RM's debut like we supported the other solo debuts, but once again pay attention to the type of audience who is actually listening and RM is promoting to. As part of Indigo's promotions, RM accepted only four interviews, all of them in the format of a long conversation. These were for the Sex Sense Show, hosted by an American interviewer he trusts, the P6 Show, hosted by comedians who interview mostly hip-hop artists and who Namjoon is a fan of, Suchuita, hosted by his BTS band Mischuga, and KBS News, a pretty serious South Korean news show. Namjoon chose these four shows wisely. and he made sure Armitz knew why he really wanted to do these interviews only. This is the only YouTube promotion for this, my whole album. Why? I've watched every show. When it comes to interview, what popped in my mind first was you. I told the label that I, if I, if I have to interview with somebody, it's gotta be Zach number one. Brother, thank you. Your kindness and your trust means the world to me. So, why these shows? If you watch these interviews, you can quickly realize he had his album and the album's production process as the main topics of conversation. Most interviewers don't ask RM meaningful questions, and if they do ask important questions about the music, they don't care or they don't understand the answer. Most interviews have superficial conversations. Do you guys like to dance at your shows? Do you do a lot of dancing? Do you like dancing? Yeah, of course. You guys are all together, but you didn't bring your girlfriends. When someone knows and recognizes you, do you have to run away? Do you ever get tired of each other? Do you guys ever just... So Namjoon chose people he knew would understand and care about his process of creating music. That was his priority. Indigo is not the general public's favorite type of album, and Namjoon knew that. So if there's a new type of audience he would attract after his official solo debut, he's the type of audience who likes indie, underground music. music, the type of audience who enjoys discovering unknown artists and who appreciates less mainstream genres like neo-soul, boom bap, urban, city pop and folk. This is why the only performance he did for American media was for NPR's Tiny Desk concert series. The setting is more personal than most mainstream shows, and a lot of enthusiastic music fans want to discover non-mainstream artists as well as watch popular artists relax in this type of unplugged acoustic setting. So a confident yet vulnerable performer and great lyricist like RM shines the most in this type of settings. This is why instead of having a worldwide tour, he chose to give one concert to an audience of only 200 people. This concert has some of the artists who featured in his album. The list of featured artists is also something not everyone can fully appreciate. Most of the songs part of Indigo have featured artists RM deeply admires. For his new soul song, The future artist is the queen of neo soul Erykah Badu. For his funk song, the future artist is Anderson Paak, known for his funky style. RM also included artists he admires but aren't as worldwide famous such as Kim Sae Wool and Cold. This album also has a lot of references to painters and their art pieces such as Yoon and Still Life. RM's debut album Indigo is for the music fans who care about meaning and art. This is why he chose to have only one physical version of his album instead of the normal two. This, alongside the fact that the physical versions took weeks to be delivered, affected his album sales numbers. But caring too much about that is crazy and shows that you're not paying attention to all the meaning of this project. RM purposefully left all the flashy photo cards, stickers and photoshoots aside. Instead, he made his physical album some type of art piece. The pages are full of poems, graphic artwork, and photographs taken by RM. He also released a vinyl record months after the album debut, which, just like the physical album, includes RM's artwork pieces. His third and last performance was at Dia Beacon, a museum. in New York with no audience. So of course most people won't get it, but the ones who can perceive and appreciate RM's passion in this album are the correct people listening and becoming fans. And by all the records RM was able to achieve with such an experimental album, I can say that his minimalistic yet meaningful promotions have been detected by the right people. ARMYs and music fans who care about stuff like this. Once again, this BTS solo project was successfully recognized by its desired audience. The next BTS member to officially debut was Jimin with his album FACE. FACE is a pop album and its promotions were a little closer to a regular BTS promotion schedule. Jimin released teasers for the pre-release single Set Me Free Part 2 and the main single Like Crazy, which he released alongside the full album. This schedule is similar to J-Hope's schedule, which also included teasers and a pre-release single before the main single. On the other hand, RM released teasers and music videos for a main single and a follow-up single, as well as a surprise music video for a b-side which became an OST. It's important to know these differences, because although some promotions like Jimin and J-Hope's are similar in some aspects, that doesn't mean that they are targeting the same audiences. Like I said, J-Hope's album was targeted at a global hip-hop audience, but Jimin's album was targeted at a global pop audience. And for that, promotions in a show like Jimmy Fallon work better. So Jimin was a main guest at the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon where he had an interview and performed his main single. We also need to highlight that Jimin's interview was mostly in English so he had to practice most of his answers since he doesn't dominate the language. But this decision of taking the challenge of speaking English made sense since Jimin's main single being promoted in America was the English version of Like Crazy, not the original Korean version. This is also why he performed the English version at the Jimmy Fallon show. Other BTS member will later also attend the Jimmy Fallon show, but his choices will be the complete opposite of Jimin's because his target audience is different. The only other promotion Jimin did for America was a day in the life style of interview for both. Then he started the Korean tv promotions. Like I mentioned, K-pop shows have more superficial interviews and flashy performances, but Jimin's pop songs and difficult choreographies shine the most in these types of settings. J-Hope's Jack in the Box performances don't have choreographies, so they work best in a hip-hop show than in a K-pop show. To still demonstrate a more vulnerable and casual side, Jimin had a lengthy interview at SBS Radio as well as an interview and performance of a jazz version of Like Crazy in the show limojin service these interviews were not as complicated as rm's interviews but they were still introspective and personal enough to explain the meaning of his pop album face in an accessible way to global audiences. As expected, Jimin also went to Suga's show Suchita. Like Jin and RM, Jimin made a video for a popular YouTube channel, and like Jin, Jimin released two physical versions of his album. Finally, Jimin was the first member to release remixes of his main single and to have video calls with fans. However, many complained that all of these promotions ended too fast because only two weeks after Suga started promoting his debut album. While I do agree that this felt like a very short era, I don't really see what else he could have done. Actually Jimin did more promotions than any other member up until this point. It just all went really fast because Suga had a tour planned, so he had no choice other than releasing his album then. Suga also couldn't have his tour later because his military enlistment date was approaching fast. So it was literally then or never. Still though, Suga's album and type of promotions are very different to Jimin's album and promotions and if there's any new audiences listening to them for the first time they won't be the same audiences i also think it's even crazier to put jimin and suga against each other and compare their promotions when this opportunity gave us a lot of really cool promotion crossovers i still understand however that the face era was a little frustrating because since it had some promotions in america it had success in america and the american media did not like that i have a whole video about this this problem, but in a few words, Jimin's quote-unquote mistake was not paying for radio and playlisting in streaming platforms, which is illegal and BTS would never, so the sabotage by American media was hard. But again, this has nothing to do with ARMY's efforts, HYBE's efforts and much less Jimin's efforts. Jimin's schedule was precise, effective and more than enough. Other complaints appeared when Jungkook had his solo debut, because it looked like he was also promoting his new song. for a global pop audience, but he had a wider variety of global promotions. However, I actually believe Jimin and Jungkook's target pop audiences were completely different. I'll talk about Jungkook's debut later, but Jimin's pop style and his new audience that likes songs like Like Crazy may cross over with the audiences that like these currently popular songs by Dua Lipa and Troye Sivan. I know the sound of these songs are not that similar, but I'm just trying to paint a picture. These type of pop songs have a stronger feminine and glamorous element, and they have this disco house synth style that is kind of trendy these days. To put it in BTS terms, both Boy With Luv featuring Halsey and Butter featuring Megan Thee Stallion are pop songs. But the general public that likes Boy With Luv featuring Halsey is not always the same general public that likes Butter featuring Megan Thee Stallion. Jimin's solo debut is a little closer to Boy With Luv, while Jungkook's solo debut is a little closer to Butter, so their promotions are going to be different. Because Jimin's pop style is friendlier to the general public than the other solo debuts up until this point, like Crazy, 73 part 2 and the album Face broke multiple records in mainstream charts and platforms like Billboard, Spotify and Korean charts. The achievements of other members like J-Hope and RM are different because the promotions were different because the target audiences were different. So once again, this BTS solo project was successfully recognized by its desired audience. Another haegeum, this song is haegeum The next BTS member to officially debut was Suga under his alternative alias August D with his album D-Day. Suga's promotions were very unique and it took me days to figure out the promotion strategy and if there was even one. Because although D-Day is a hip-hop album, the style of promotions were closer to promotions being done by experienced South Korean artists targeting a non-K-pop Korean demographic. To start, Suga created and became the host of his own show, Suchwita, in which he interviews other South Korean artists while having some drinks. The editing style is dynamic and the conversations are very casual, so the show feels like a combination of the high production of a talk show with the casualness of a podcast. These shows where the artist is the interviewer are actually very common among South Korean artists who have been in the industry for a while. This is what I mean by the typical Korean promotion by experienced artists. This is an actual promotion strategy. Weverse Magazine has an article about it. So you may think that Suga is going to adhere to this style of promotions. Well, yes, but not exactly. Suga seemed comfortable continuing this Korean style of promotions, but he's going to direct it at a global audience. So even if his promotions don't always necessarily align with a global hip-hop audience or an indie audience or a pop-up, a pop audience, it will still bring the attention from different types of global audiences while at the same time giving itself a constant cleanup. So I think Suga's promotion strategy was if you're open-minded and you like me and my music, good for you. And if you don't, I don't care. I'm serious. You just need to look at everything he's done. First, Suga released his pre-release single People Part 2, which is a collaboration with IU, a beloved singer in South Korea who also has her own show. As part of the People Part 2 promotions, Suga hosted his own radio show and was a guest star at IU's show a couple of days after the song release. Both the song and music video are very calm and I can sense the Korean concept of Han, which is common in South Korean music and BTS songs like Spring Day. The music video even has an ending scene in which Suga explains the sentiment of the song. So although it's hard for this song to be globally successful with the general public because it's not flashy, it doesn't have a choreography, and the explanation scene makes the video too long for mainstream audiences, its message, style, and feature artists work with an older Korean demographic who doesn't necessarily listen to K-pop. While the promotion for People Part 2 is friendlier to this Korean audience, the main single Hegem is friendlier to a global audience. The high-budget music video with a strong storyline immediately got the attention of global hip-hop, K-pop and even pop audiences. Hegem is a hip-hop song with aggressive and fast-paced raps, which is what most people expect from an Augustine music video. So now Suga has the attention of a South Korean audience and a global audience, but the third single, Amigdala, will focus on his biggest audience, ARMY. This song and music video are extremely personal to Suga and they explain a traumatic event for him. The song's lyrics and theme are painful and explicit, so the music video has an age restriction. While it doesn't feel right for many ARMYs to use this single as part of a promotion schedule with an strategy and a target audience in mind, I think this trilogy of videos can once again get the attention from people who are actually interested in the story Suga is trying to tell. To truly get his music, you need to care enough to go out of your way to find his story, motives, and style of storytelling. This is why, just like J-Hope, Suga decided to also have his own documentary on Disney+. He's basically giving every audience the opportunity to understand him and his music, but if they don't, He won't go out of his way to convince anybody. Just look at his promo activities. The documentary titled Suga Road to D-Day follows Suga on a trip around the world in the search of inspiration for his debut album and it includes exclusive performances with a live band. Soon after, Suga started his solo tour around the US and Asia. Like the rest of his album promotions, this tour felt very raw, personal and real. He replaced the neat choreographies with performances with a guitar and a piano. So although Suga being a guest at the Tonight Show and even playing a game with Jimmy Fallon may seem like attempts to go mainstream, Suga decided to continue his casual style of promotions and refused to speak English or dance a choreography for mainstream audiences. He still put himself out there and accepted many interviews for different radios in America. but by choosing to speak his native Korean and have a translator on his international interviews, Suga prioritized the meaning of his album and his true personality. So only the ones who are not bothered by reading subtitles will be the right new audience listening to his music. This BTS solo project was successfully recognized by its desired audience. The next BTS member to officially debut was Jungkook with his single 7. Now, up until this point, all of the sounds and styles of the solo works have been pretty predictable. J-Hope has already released hip-hop music. Jin has already released pop-rock music. RM has already released these experimental styles of music. Jimin has already released pop music and Suga's album is the third part of a project going on for years. But Jungkook's 7 came as a surprise to some ARMYs because it's not something many would expect from BTS. To start, 7 is a pop song of the UK garage genre and it has two main versions. A clean version about wanting to spend every moment of every day with one's lover and an explicit version which expresses a more sexual desire. Combine this with Jungkook's commercials as a new ambassador for Calvin Klein and SEVENTH's promotional campaign and you can see a queer new image of Jungkook as an artist. Both versions of the song feature the American rapper Lado and the music video features the South Korean actress Han So Hee as Jungkook's girlfriend. The promotions were focused on three countries, the US, the UK and South Korea. In the US, Jungkook had an interview and performed SEVENTH on the day of its release in New York as part of Good Morning America's summer concert series. He then had interviews with Spotify and radio shows like Odyssey Music, The Elvis Duran Show, Sirius XM, C100 New York and iHeartRadio. In the UK, Jungkook had an interview and performed on BBC's The One Show and on BBC Radio 1's Live Lunch. In South Korea, Jungkook only performed in the K-pop music show in Kigayo, but that one performance was enough to make Jungkook the most awarded K-pop soloist this year across different K-pop shows. As well, Jungkook released three EPs of remixes, the weekday version, the weekend version, and the Alesso remix. The physical CDs were produced by Hype America, and they did not have the regular style of a BTS single album like Jin's The Astronaut, for example. Instead, this CD was a simple CD more common in the US. This is nothing new. BTS has already released simple CDs, finals and cassettes like this for their US singles. This style of promotions in the US helped Jungkook become the second BTS member to get a number one song on the Hot 100 as a solo artist. In a few words, Jungkook's promotion schedule included a lot of the activities artists do to make their song go mainstream. However, Because the song is explicit, it caters a western mainstream audience and it doesn't have a profound message like the other BTS solo projects, some people think it's too westernized and that it doesn't feel like a BTS song. While I do agree that SE7EN is mainly targeted at western audiences and the general public, why is this surprising or even disappointing to some fans? I think this is happening because sometimes ARMYs don't truly accept BTS as their pop culture image. they see them through their wholesome, family-friendly, philosophical image only. And this can sound very nice, but I think this is the reason why 7 can come as a shock to them. And to be honest, I'm a little tired of this, because it's like someone ARMYs want BTS to be the artists they want them to be, not the multidimensional artists BTS truly are and want to be recognized as. Because it's always the same story. BTS shows personality, people say this is not what I expected from them. BTS released DNA, it sounds too western. BTS released Boy With Luv, it sounds too western and it lacks meaning. BTS released Dynamite, it sounds too western, it lacks meaning and it's in English. So the cape of fantasy is broken. BTS released Butter, it sounds too western it lacks meaning it's in english and they only care about western success bts released permission to dance it sounds too western it lacks meaning it's in english they only care about western success and it was not written by the bts members and now jungkook releases seven but it sounds too western it lacks meaning it's in english they only care about western success it was not written by a bts member and it's too explicit but like i said a million times already BTS makes music that attracts completely different audiences, and this is not new at all. Some people say that Jimin's song was also mainstream pop, but at least two BTS members were songwriters and it has meaningful lyrics. But it looks like these fans are ignoring the past years of BTS's career. Wasted On Me, Dynamite, Savage Love, Butter, Permission To Dance and Bad Decisions were targeted at the Western general public, while still releasing the regular hip-hop pop and R&B songs, BTS promoted one song with the purpose of being the mainstream song that can actually get recognized in Western media like Billboard and the Grammys. Once again, they do this all the time. While continuing their meaningful Korean discography, BTS has released an English project for Western audiences and a Japanese project for Japanese audiences, so I don't know why this is suddenly a surprise. And Jungkook's global promotion worked. 7. has been the number one song worldwide for weeks, and I won't be surprised if it's nominated for American award shows. And this makes a lot of sense. Think about BTS's old competition, mainstream hip-hop based duets with explicit lyrics. While it's easy to judge these songs for being too explicit or meaningless, the truth is that this is what the general public listens to, and a song doesn't have to be clean or have multiple layers of meaning to be a good song. Actually, there was one time when an interviewer had the same criticism for one of the songs competing with Dynamite back in 2020, but BTS disagreed with the interviewer and defended the song. So just because a song is explicit doesn't mean that it's bad or dirty. The reason why you are making a dirty version as an artist is not the same as loving you. Why is that a dirty version? Why is that a dirty version? Explain the reason. Explain the reason. It's an explicit version. You're being honest. If you feel that way, then it can't be helped. But in a way, how old am I? I'm 27 years old now. I'm filming with exposure because I'm getting older. Some people might not like that. 7 is actually the perfect song for today's pop. It has a female rapper as a feature artist and Jungkook's pop voice makes the song fresh, modern, and the perfect adaptation of the typical modern mainstream song. Despite some people's beliefs, I see the care of a regular person. BTS project in this song too. It's well produced, polished and not the typical lazy song done exclusively to fool people into streaming it. Whether Jungkook decides to make a full album in English targeted at a western audience like Butter, a self-produced Korean album like Map of the Soul 7 or a mix of both like Jimin's Face, I'll support because they are experimenting with their solo careers and finding their personal sound and target audience. So once again this solo project was successfully recognized by its desired audience. The last BTS member to debut as a solo artist is V with his album Layover. These promotions have started not long ago, but we can already see what kind of audience Taehyung is promoting to. However, complaints by solo stans were out before the album was out. They claim that the label is purposefully not doing any promotions and that Taehyung is doing everything himself by sharing his projects on social media. This idea that Hybe is constantly trying to sabotage the artist that brings them the most money is pretty silly, but it's funny how it's always the solo fans who complain about favoritism. Just like every BTS solo project, we need to understand and accept that their music is different. Layover is very different to all of the BTS solo projects, so the promotions are going to be very different as well. Just like most of V's music as part of BTS, layover is R&B with elements of soul and pop. Therefore, the performances interviews will fit the promotions for an R&B project. So don't focus on every mainstream promotion Taehyung didn't do. Focus on how he is choosing alternative mediums for promotions. To start, Taehyung released five different music videos, one for each song of the album. This is already huge. The maximum number of music videos a BTS member has released for one album is three. A pre-release, a main release and a follow-up. But Taehyung has two pre-releases, a main release and a and two follow-ups. This is a new strategy that I wanted BTS to try for a while. Think about these popular albums. Their promotions included music videos for multiple of the album's songs. This prolongs the artist's promotion schedule and it helps each song of the album become popular, not just one song or two. So if we concentrate on this R&B project's promotion strategy, let's think about every door Taehyun opened for himself by releasing these many music videos. His debut performance was not at a western show or a kpop show or a festival. It was on a new Korean music show that slows down chart competition by announcing an artist of the month, not a song of the week, which usually exhausts the artists and the fandoms. This show is also more personal than a festival or a western tv show. So for this kind of calm album, this debut stage feels right. On kpop shows, artists normally perform one or two songs, three being the maximum number of performances. But this specific K-pop show let Taehyung perform four of his songs at once. Why am I mentioning this? Because the only reason Taehyung was able to perform his entire album on K-pop TV shows was because he released music videos for the entire album. For Inkigayo, he performed the main single Slow Dancing and Rainy Days. For Mnet, he performed Slow Dancing and Love Me Again. For Music Bank, he performed Slow Dancing and For Us. And for N-Pop, he performed Slow Dancing, Love Me Again, Rainy Days and Blue. It's genius. Taehyung was able to promote his entire R&B album on K-pop TV shows. This is the first time an artist has done this successfully. But it doesn't end here. Taehyung did not only choose this new K-pop TV show with less than 60,000 subscribers as an alternative medium. He also was one of the first artists to perform on the new series Tiny Desk Korea. This is a new show part of NPR's Tiny Desk Concert Series, which features only South Korean artists. But Taehyung's performance was released on both Tiny Desk Korea and NPR's Tiny Desk Concert. So he is, in a way, promoting his Korean R&B album to a global audience. Finally, Taehyung became the first member to promote in Japan. This is also very smart because if there's any country with a big market who would listen to an R&B Korean album, it's Japan. the second biggest music market in the world. These interviews and performances help Taehyun show his warm and soulful personality to an audience that is more likely to consume this kind of project. His personality is also reflected on the style of photoshoots and the three physical albums he wanted to release. These music videos, teasers, interviews, and media articles are planned, organized, and shared not only by V but also by HYBE and BTS on all of their social media platforms. If you expect Taehyung to have the numbers of pop releases or the type of promotions of the hip-hop releases, you are crazy because he never intended to promote to those audiences. For an R&B album, layover is huge and this BTS solo project is successfully being recognized by its desired audience. audience let's not forget that although bts are on their era of solo music they are still releasing music as a group after the solo promotions started with j-hope bts promoted their song run bts they released the planet an ost song for an animated film and they released take two as part of their 10th anniversary celebration Just like every other solo project and group project, these songs have different sounds, so they have different audiences, so they have different promotions. Run BTS is a song that is friendly to K-pop audiences. It's fast-paced, it has a choreography, and it shows a ton of energy. So they released a dance practice, performed it at their Busan concert, and released a lot of TikTok videos with K-pop artists. The Planet is a song for an animated series about a young idol group with superpowers, so the genre is pop and the style is simple but energetic. The music video and promotions are all related to the show and they have a younger audience in mind. Take 2 is the classical letter song for ARMYs. It was written and produced by BTS members and it has the classical BTS sound when it comes to slow pop R&B ballad songs. Like I mentioned before about V's project, this style of songs actually worked pretty well on Japanese audiences, so it debuted at number 6 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 with no music videos, remixes or anything. But it's pretty clear that the main audience for this song is ARMY, so it charted well on pretty much every global chart. Basically, every one of these songs had the right promotions for each of their audiences. We need to see the solo projects and their promotions like this too. Maybe for some, this analysis of each solo promotion was unnecessary and obvious, but I had to do it because I received so many messages by ARMYs who don't consider themselves being confused about why some members had quote-unquote more opportunities than others. Some were genuinely confused by Jungkook's explicit lyrics, RM's minimalistic emotions, and J-Hope's lack of physical albums. So I hope I helped calm the confusion at least a little. ARMYs need to accept that BTS are real multidimensional artists. They are seven artists with different visions, styles, and journeys in their music. Of course, course their promotion schedules are going to be different sure armies are the main audience listening to their solo projects but the bts members are going to perform and accept interviews on the shows that they feel the most comfortable showcasing their music don't expect the global bts style of promotions for every solo project and cry when that doesn't happen. Think about the sound and their personalities individually. Their solo projects align with the solo songs they had on BTS albums. So accept the BTS members as the multidimensional artists they are. Trust them and their decisions, especially in this solo era. We will overcome this and make music and perform happily with you. Please have faith in us as Hoseok said.

A BTS member had three physical albums but another member only had two. Another member only had one. Another member only had one CD with no photo cards, stickers and other things the other albums got.

But another member didn't get a physical album that charts could count when he first debuted. A BTS member had promotions in the US, the UK and South Korea but another member only promoted in the US and Korea. another member promoted in Korea and Japan, and another member barely did any promotions. A BTS member debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and his song was the number 1 song worldwide for weeks on a row.

But another member only debuted at number 1 on the Hot 100. Another member almost entered the top 50, but another only entered the top 100. When you phrase things like this, conflict awaits. Fans complain about unequal support by the label, unequal support by fans and of course unequal results. But I think these comparisons are unfair and at this point malicious because if you really think about the intention of each project, you can see the different visions the BTS members have. had for their solo music careers. If you really want to measure promotion efforts and success, let's talk about how each promotion schedule helped gain the attention of their specific target audiences.

And let's also realize that some promotions are actually counterproductive for some members but beneficial for others. You may think I'm crazy, but sometimes a number one on the US can hurt an album's chances to be consumed by certain audiences. Of course, other times it can help the project, but it all comes down to the artist's vision and target audience.

So I'll try to explain why I don't think any BTS member, song or album has been sabotaged by Big Hit, HYBE, ARMY and much less BTS. After analyzing every single piece of promotion, I actually think that every promotion decision has been smart, and effective. The member who started the BTS solo era was J-Hope.

Like the other members part of the rap line, J-Hope released his first solo project as a mixtape. This is not his official solo debut. Hope World and the other solo mixtapes did not have official promotions, but they were shared on social media by the head. These type of projects were side projects shared for ARMYs as a gift or as extra free music. This is important to highlight so we can understand why some BTS members do certain promotions and not others.

Confused ARMYs and J-Hope's solo stans can say that J-Hope's Jack in the Box debut album was sabotaged by Big Hit and Hype because it was released with no physical versions and no performances in Western TV shows or K-pop shows. These three things are expected in a regular BTS promotion schedule, but this is J-Hope's solo career. So look at what he did do and conclude what new audience he wanted to attract. For what I can see, J-Hope wants his debut album Jack in the Box to be a long-lasting record listened to not only by ARMYs but also by global fans of hip-hop, people who are actually interested in hip-hop as a genre. And J-Hope is not necessarily going to attract this specific audience by performing on K-pop TV shows or American TV shows like Jimmy Fallon and Good Morning America, watched by an older American demographic.

Actually, if he did, he would probably lose the specific audience he's trying to attract. For what I can see, he is not interested in the general public listening to the Billboard Hot 100 songs. He prefers promoting to an audience interested in hip-hop no matter the language.

This is a tricky audience to target, but I think every decision he made was perfect. To start, J-Hope was the first and only BTS member to launch his album with a listening party. If you pay attention to the artists he invited, you can see that these are mostly indie hip-hop artists.

Most of them are not mainstream, but they are respected in the South Korean hip-hop and alternative music scenes. This listening party sets the tone for the rest of his solo promotions. J-Hope's debut solo performance was as a headliner in Lollapalooza 2022 in Chicago. His concert had an audience of over 100,000 people, including ARMYs, the general public, and of course, curious hip-hop fans. This strategy was extremely successful because after the event, there were a lot of hip-hop fans listening to the music of a BTS member for the first time, whether in person or online.

This event also gave J-Hope the opportunity to meet meet and then record a song with the artist who inspires his name. jay cole this collaboration and his concert a lovapalooza gave him an attractive image to this specific audience the type of audience who prefers simple individual or one-on-one conversations with no audience and a minimalistic or improvised backstage set these are the only type of interviews he did and it was intentional in my opinion the only exception was his interview at the seasons but this is also very strategic because this is not a kpop show watched by kpop fans unlike kpop shows the seasons has long interviews with no rehearsed answers by idols doing aegyo and an ending fairy and performing a choreography with playback for this same reason the interviewees the performances and the audience watching the show are different thanks to this j-hope has the freedom to do a more personal performance he wouldn't be able to do on a K-pop TV show. The last thing to note about J-Hope's solo debut is the pace of promotions.

He didn't do every interview and performance the first two weeks of the album release. This could put his Billboard and Korean charts positions in risk. But that's okay because that was not his goal.

He actually performed in Lollapalooza two weeks after his album release and he continued with promotions with months in between each promo. Almost 5 months after the release of the album, he performed at the 2022 MAMA, which let him do a unique stage with no choreography. Then, 6 months after his debut, J-Hope performs at Times Square New Year's Eve.

7 months after his debut, he releases and promotes his J-Hope in the box documentary on Disney+, and has an interview on a popular YouTube channel. 9 months after the release of his album, he performs and has an interview on the Seasons. As you can see, the promotions are focusing on longevity more than on Day 1's success, so J-Hope's records reflect that.

Here comes the biggest complaint. When J-Hope released Jagged in a Box, the physical album did not come with a physical CD. They came with most small things you would get in a regular BTS physical album and a QR code to listen to the songs on the Weverse Albums app.

This code replaced the CD, and for that, it did not count on western charts like billboard since this was the first time bts did this and the weaver's albums app is a new app by hype people accused hype of affecting j-hope's debut numbers of purposefully sabotaging him just to promote their streaming app but again look at j-hope's overall promotions every interview or performance was far apart This doesn't mean that the promotions are bad. Actually, these type of promotions are very common with Western artists because they are less exhausting for both the artist and the audience, and it can improve longevity. It's true that he released his debut album almost exclusively on digital platforms, but six months later, he released a well-produced vinyl record.

And now, more than a year after the debut week, he released physical albums that count toward the Billboard charts. These are the type of promotions you have when you want your album to be discovered and remembered by fans time and time again over the years, not just the first two weeks. This helps with longevity and helps his desired audience, hip-hop listeners, have multiple chances of discovering his music.

The unique performances and simple interviews that will be discovered will not disappoint this audience because these are the type of performances and interviews they already enjoy, so the results successfully match the promotions. Next we have Jin's solo debut single The Astronaut, which he released as a See You Later song before going to the military. The biggest complaint I've seen about Jin's debut is from solo stands saying that this is not a proper debut, because most members had album debuts, but Jin only had a single.

The assumption is not that Jin decided to release a single, but that Hive and even BTS are at fault because Jin said that he wanted to go to the military earlier during the summer, right after the end of the proof promotions in June. Therefore, according to some people, Jin was forced by the other BTS members and their label to wait until October for their unexpected Busan concert. So he had no choice other than to go to the military on the winter and quickly release the astronaut after being busy with everything.

This gave him only days to promote his song. So there were no interviews in America and no music shows in Korea. He only performed as a guest artist in Coldplay's concert in Argentina.

However, you don't need to be a genius to realize that the astronaut was not made for the general public's consumption. Like Jin said multiple times, he wanted to make one song for ARMYs before going to the military. He talked to Chris Martin from Coldplay about the kind of message he wanted to transmit, and Chris Martin produced the song specifically for Jin. This was not meant to be an official debut with a non-ARMY audience in mind.

This doesn't mean that it was an abandoned project. The Astronaut is Jin's official debut single and had two physical album versions, a music video, a lyric video, a live stadium performance, official merch, merchandise and even a show of four episodes with a vlog style. He also had five interviews, one by himself, one with Suga and three in relaxed, non-serious settings, two for YouTube channels and one for TV. All of these interviews and shows helped him relax and comfortably talk in his native language about his life and future.

So once again, this BTS solo project was successfully recognized by its entire audience, in this case ARMY. We would have to wait for Jin's solo debut album. after his military service to know what kind of music style and new audience he wants to pursue. The next BTS member to officially debut was RM with his album Indigo. What I've seen people saying is that ARMYs did not support RM's debut like we supported the other solo debuts, but once again pay attention to the type of audience who is actually listening and RM is promoting to.

As part of Indigo's promotions, RM accepted only four interviews, all of them in the format of a long conversation. These were for the Sex Sense Show, hosted by an American interviewer he trusts, the P6 Show, hosted by comedians who interview mostly hip-hop artists and who Namjoon is a fan of, Suchuita, hosted by his BTS band Mischuga, and KBS News, a pretty serious South Korean news show. Namjoon chose these four shows wisely.

and he made sure Armitz knew why he really wanted to do these interviews only. This is the only YouTube promotion for this, my whole album. Why? I've watched every show. When it comes to interview, what popped in my mind first was you.

I told the label that I, if I, if I have to interview with somebody, it's gotta be Zach number one. Brother, thank you. Your kindness and your trust means the world to me.

So, why these shows? If you watch these interviews, you can quickly realize he had his album and the album's production process as the main topics of conversation. Most interviewers don't ask RM meaningful questions, and if they do ask important questions about the music, they don't care or they don't understand the answer.

Most interviews have superficial conversations. Do you guys like to dance at your shows? Do you do a lot of dancing? Do you like dancing?

Yeah, of course. You guys are all together, but you didn't bring your girlfriends. When someone knows and recognizes you, do you have to run away?

Do you ever get tired of each other? Do you guys ever just... So Namjoon chose people he knew would understand and care about his process of creating music.

That was his priority. Indigo is not the general public's favorite type of album, and Namjoon knew that. So if there's a new type of audience he would attract after his official solo debut, he's the type of audience who likes indie, underground music.

music, the type of audience who enjoys discovering unknown artists and who appreciates less mainstream genres like neo-soul, boom bap, urban, city pop and folk. This is why the only performance he did for American media was for NPR's Tiny Desk concert series. The setting is more personal than most mainstream shows, and a lot of enthusiastic music fans want to discover non-mainstream artists as well as watch popular artists relax in this type of unplugged acoustic setting.

So a confident yet vulnerable performer and great lyricist like RM shines the most in this type of settings. This is why instead of having a worldwide tour, he chose to give one concert to an audience of only 200 people. This concert has some of the artists who featured in his album. The list of featured artists is also something not everyone can fully appreciate.

Most of the songs part of Indigo have featured artists RM deeply admires. For his new soul song, The future artist is the queen of neo soul Erykah Badu. For his funk song, the future artist is Anderson Paak, known for his funky style.

RM also included artists he admires but aren't as worldwide famous such as Kim Sae Wool and Cold. This album also has a lot of references to painters and their art pieces such as Yoon and Still Life. RM's debut album Indigo is for the music fans who care about meaning and art. This is why he chose to have only one physical version of his album instead of the normal two. This, alongside the fact that the physical versions took weeks to be delivered, affected his album sales numbers.

But caring too much about that is crazy and shows that you're not paying attention to all the meaning of this project. RM purposefully left all the flashy photo cards, stickers and photoshoots aside. Instead, he made his physical album some type of art piece.

The pages are full of poems, graphic artwork, and photographs taken by RM. He also released a vinyl record months after the album debut, which, just like the physical album, includes RM's artwork pieces. His third and last performance was at Dia Beacon, a museum. in New York with no audience. So of course most people won't get it, but the ones who can perceive and appreciate RM's passion in this album are the correct people listening and becoming fans.

And by all the records RM was able to achieve with such an experimental album, I can say that his minimalistic yet meaningful promotions have been detected by the right people. ARMYs and music fans who care about stuff like this. Once again, this BTS solo project was successfully recognized by its desired audience.

The next BTS member to officially debut was Jimin with his album FACE. FACE is a pop album and its promotions were a little closer to a regular BTS promotion schedule. Jimin released teasers for the pre-release single Set Me Free Part 2 and the main single Like Crazy, which he released alongside the full album.

This schedule is similar to J-Hope's schedule, which also included teasers and a pre-release single before the main single. On the other hand, RM released teasers and music videos for a main single and a follow-up single, as well as a surprise music video for a b-side which became an OST. It's important to know these differences, because although some promotions like Jimin and J-Hope's are similar in some aspects, that doesn't mean that they are targeting the same audiences. Like I said, J-Hope's album was targeted at a global hip-hop audience, but Jimin's album was targeted at a global pop audience.

And for that, promotions in a show like Jimmy Fallon work better. So Jimin was a main guest at the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon where he had an interview and performed his main single. We also need to highlight that Jimin's interview was mostly in English so he had to practice most of his answers since he doesn't dominate the language. But this decision of taking the challenge of speaking English made sense since Jimin's main single being promoted in America was the English version of Like Crazy, not the original Korean version. This is also why he performed the English version at the Jimmy Fallon show.

Other BTS member will later also attend the Jimmy Fallon show, but his choices will be the complete opposite of Jimin's because his target audience is different. The only other promotion Jimin did for America was a day in the life style of interview for both. Then he started the Korean tv promotions.

Like I mentioned, K-pop shows have more superficial interviews and flashy performances, but Jimin's pop songs and difficult choreographies shine the most in these types of settings. J-Hope's Jack in the Box performances don't have choreographies, so they work best in a hip-hop show than in a K-pop show. To still demonstrate a more vulnerable and casual side, Jimin had a lengthy interview at SBS Radio as well as an interview and performance of a jazz version of Like Crazy in the show limojin service these interviews were not as complicated as rm's interviews but they were still introspective and personal enough to explain the meaning of his pop album face in an accessible way to global audiences. As expected, Jimin also went to Suga's show Suchita. Like Jin and RM, Jimin made a video for a popular YouTube channel, and like Jin, Jimin released two physical versions of his album.

Finally, Jimin was the first member to release remixes of his main single and to have video calls with fans. However, many complained that all of these promotions ended too fast because only two weeks after Suga started promoting his debut album. While I do agree that this felt like a very short era, I don't really see what else he could have done. Actually Jimin did more promotions than any other member up until this point.

It just all went really fast because Suga had a tour planned, so he had no choice other than releasing his album then. Suga also couldn't have his tour later because his military enlistment date was approaching fast. So it was literally then or never. Still though, Suga's album and type of promotions are very different to Jimin's album and promotions and if there's any new audiences listening to them for the first time they won't be the same audiences i also think it's even crazier to put jimin and suga against each other and compare their promotions when this opportunity gave us a lot of really cool promotion crossovers i still understand however that the face era was a little frustrating because since it had some promotions in america it had success in america and the american media did not like that i have a whole video about this this problem, but in a few words, Jimin's quote-unquote mistake was not paying for radio and playlisting in streaming platforms, which is illegal and BTS would never, so the sabotage by American media was hard.

But again, this has nothing to do with ARMY's efforts, HYBE's efforts and much less Jimin's efforts. Jimin's schedule was precise, effective and more than enough. Other complaints appeared when Jungkook had his solo debut, because it looked like he was also promoting his new song.

for a global pop audience, but he had a wider variety of global promotions. However, I actually believe Jimin and Jungkook's target pop audiences were completely different. I'll talk about Jungkook's debut later, but Jimin's pop style and his new audience that likes songs like Like Crazy may cross over with the audiences that like these currently popular songs by Dua Lipa and Troye Sivan.

I know the sound of these songs are not that similar, but I'm just trying to paint a picture. These type of pop songs have a stronger feminine and glamorous element, and they have this disco house synth style that is kind of trendy these days. To put it in BTS terms, both Boy With Luv featuring Halsey and Butter featuring Megan Thee Stallion are pop songs.

But the general public that likes Boy With Luv featuring Halsey is not always the same general public that likes Butter featuring Megan Thee Stallion. Jimin's solo debut is a little closer to Boy With Luv, while Jungkook's solo debut is a little closer to Butter, so their promotions are going to be different. Because Jimin's pop style is friendlier to the general public than the other solo debuts up until this point, like Crazy, 73 part 2 and the album Face broke multiple records in mainstream charts and platforms like Billboard, Spotify and Korean charts.

The achievements of other members like J-Hope and RM are different because the promotions were different because the target audiences were different. So once again, this BTS solo project was successfully recognized by its desired audience. Another haegeum, this song is haegeum The next BTS member to officially debut was Suga under his alternative alias August D with his album D-Day. Suga's promotions were very unique and it took me days to figure out the promotion strategy and if there was even one.

Because although D-Day is a hip-hop album, the style of promotions were closer to promotions being done by experienced South Korean artists targeting a non-K-pop Korean demographic. To start, Suga created and became the host of his own show, Suchwita, in which he interviews other South Korean artists while having some drinks. The editing style is dynamic and the conversations are very casual, so the show feels like a combination of the high production of a talk show with the casualness of a podcast.

These shows where the artist is the interviewer are actually very common among South Korean artists who have been in the industry for a while. This is what I mean by the typical Korean promotion by experienced artists. This is an actual promotion strategy.

Weverse Magazine has an article about it. So you may think that Suga is going to adhere to this style of promotions. Well, yes, but not exactly. Suga seemed comfortable continuing this Korean style of promotions, but he's going to direct it at a global audience. So even if his promotions don't always necessarily align with a global hip-hop audience or an indie audience or a pop-up, a pop audience, it will still bring the attention from different types of global audiences while at the same time giving itself a constant cleanup.

So I think Suga's promotion strategy was if you're open-minded and you like me and my music, good for you. And if you don't, I don't care. I'm serious.

You just need to look at everything he's done. First, Suga released his pre-release single People Part 2, which is a collaboration with IU, a beloved singer in South Korea who also has her own show. As part of the People Part 2 promotions, Suga hosted his own radio show and was a guest star at IU's show a couple of days after the song release.

Both the song and music video are very calm and I can sense the Korean concept of Han, which is common in South Korean music and BTS songs like Spring Day. The music video even has an ending scene in which Suga explains the sentiment of the song. So although it's hard for this song to be globally successful with the general public because it's not flashy, it doesn't have a choreography, and the explanation scene makes the video too long for mainstream audiences, its message, style, and feature artists work with an older Korean demographic who doesn't necessarily listen to K-pop. While the promotion for People Part 2 is friendlier to this Korean audience, the main single Hegem is friendlier to a global audience.

The high-budget music video with a strong storyline immediately got the attention of global hip-hop, K-pop and even pop audiences. Hegem is a hip-hop song with aggressive and fast-paced raps, which is what most people expect from an Augustine music video. So now Suga has the attention of a South Korean audience and a global audience, but the third single, Amigdala, will focus on his biggest audience, ARMY.

This song and music video are extremely personal to Suga and they explain a traumatic event for him. The song's lyrics and theme are painful and explicit, so the music video has an age restriction. While it doesn't feel right for many ARMYs to use this single as part of a promotion schedule with an strategy and a target audience in mind, I think this trilogy of videos can once again get the attention from people who are actually interested in the story Suga is trying to tell. To truly get his music, you need to care enough to go out of your way to find his story, motives, and style of storytelling. This is why, just like J-Hope, Suga decided to also have his own documentary on Disney+.

He's basically giving every audience the opportunity to understand him and his music, but if they don't, He won't go out of his way to convince anybody. Just look at his promo activities. The documentary titled Suga Road to D-Day follows Suga on a trip around the world in the search of inspiration for his debut album and it includes exclusive performances with a live band.

Soon after, Suga started his solo tour around the US and Asia. Like the rest of his album promotions, this tour felt very raw, personal and real. He replaced the neat choreographies with performances with a guitar and a piano. So although Suga being a guest at the Tonight Show and even playing a game with Jimmy Fallon may seem like attempts to go mainstream, Suga decided to continue his casual style of promotions and refused to speak English or dance a choreography for mainstream audiences.

He still put himself out there and accepted many interviews for different radios in America. but by choosing to speak his native Korean and have a translator on his international interviews, Suga prioritized the meaning of his album and his true personality. So only the ones who are not bothered by reading subtitles will be the right new audience listening to his music. This BTS solo project was successfully recognized by its desired audience. The next BTS member to officially debut was Jungkook with his single 7. Now, up until this point, all of the sounds and styles of the solo works have been pretty predictable.

J-Hope has already released hip-hop music. Jin has already released pop-rock music. RM has already released these experimental styles of music. Jimin has already released pop music and Suga's album is the third part of a project going on for years. But Jungkook's 7 came as a surprise to some ARMYs because it's not something many would expect from BTS.

To start, 7 is a pop song of the UK garage genre and it has two main versions. A clean version about wanting to spend every moment of every day with one's lover and an explicit version which expresses a more sexual desire. Combine this with Jungkook's commercials as a new ambassador for Calvin Klein and SEVENTH's promotional campaign and you can see a queer new image of Jungkook as an artist.

Both versions of the song feature the American rapper Lado and the music video features the South Korean actress Han So Hee as Jungkook's girlfriend. The promotions were focused on three countries, the US, the UK and South Korea. In the US, Jungkook had an interview and performed SEVENTH on the day of its release in New York as part of Good Morning America's summer concert series. He then had interviews with Spotify and radio shows like Odyssey Music, The Elvis Duran Show, Sirius XM, C100 New York and iHeartRadio.

In the UK, Jungkook had an interview and performed on BBC's The One Show and on BBC Radio 1's Live Lunch. In South Korea, Jungkook only performed in the K-pop music show in Kigayo, but that one performance was enough to make Jungkook the most awarded K-pop soloist this year across different K-pop shows. As well, Jungkook released three EPs of remixes, the weekday version, the weekend version, and the Alesso remix. The physical CDs were produced by Hype America, and they did not have the regular style of a BTS single album like Jin's The Astronaut, for example. Instead, this CD was a simple CD more common in the US.

This is nothing new. BTS has already released simple CDs, finals and cassettes like this for their US singles. This style of promotions in the US helped Jungkook become the second BTS member to get a number one song on the Hot 100 as a solo artist.

In a few words, Jungkook's promotion schedule included a lot of the activities artists do to make their song go mainstream. However, Because the song is explicit, it caters a western mainstream audience and it doesn't have a profound message like the other BTS solo projects, some people think it's too westernized and that it doesn't feel like a BTS song. While I do agree that SE7EN is mainly targeted at western audiences and the general public, why is this surprising or even disappointing to some fans? I think this is happening because sometimes ARMYs don't truly accept BTS as their pop culture image.

they see them through their wholesome, family-friendly, philosophical image only. And this can sound very nice, but I think this is the reason why 7 can come as a shock to them. And to be honest, I'm a little tired of this, because it's like someone ARMYs want BTS to be the artists they want them to be, not the multidimensional artists BTS truly are and want to be recognized as. Because it's always the same story.

BTS shows personality, people say this is not what I expected from them. BTS released DNA, it sounds too western. BTS released Boy With Luv, it sounds too western and it lacks meaning. BTS released Dynamite, it sounds too western, it lacks meaning and it's in English. So the cape of fantasy is broken.

BTS released Butter, it sounds too western it lacks meaning it's in english and they only care about western success bts released permission to dance it sounds too western it lacks meaning it's in english they only care about western success and it was not written by the bts members and now jungkook releases seven but it sounds too western it lacks meaning it's in english they only care about western success it was not written by a bts member and it's too explicit but like i said a million times already BTS makes music that attracts completely different audiences, and this is not new at all. Some people say that Jimin's song was also mainstream pop, but at least two BTS members were songwriters and it has meaningful lyrics. But it looks like these fans are ignoring the past years of BTS's career.

Wasted On Me, Dynamite, Savage Love, Butter, Permission To Dance and Bad Decisions were targeted at the Western general public, while still releasing the regular hip-hop pop and R&B songs, BTS promoted one song with the purpose of being the mainstream song that can actually get recognized in Western media like Billboard and the Grammys. Once again, they do this all the time. While continuing their meaningful Korean discography, BTS has released an English project for Western audiences and a Japanese project for Japanese audiences, so I don't know why this is suddenly a surprise.

And Jungkook's global promotion worked. 7. has been the number one song worldwide for weeks, and I won't be surprised if it's nominated for American award shows. And this makes a lot of sense.

Think about BTS's old competition, mainstream hip-hop based duets with explicit lyrics. While it's easy to judge these songs for being too explicit or meaningless, the truth is that this is what the general public listens to, and a song doesn't have to be clean or have multiple layers of meaning to be a good song. Actually, there was one time when an interviewer had the same criticism for one of the songs competing with Dynamite back in 2020, but BTS disagreed with the interviewer and defended the song.

So just because a song is explicit doesn't mean that it's bad or dirty. The reason why you are making a dirty version as an artist is not the same as loving you. Why is that a dirty version?

Why is that a dirty version? Explain the reason. Explain the reason. It's an explicit version. You're being honest.

If you feel that way, then it can't be helped. But in a way, how old am I? I'm 27 years old now.

I'm filming with exposure because I'm getting older. Some people might not like that. 7 is actually the perfect song for today's pop. It has a female rapper as a feature artist and Jungkook's pop voice makes the song fresh, modern, and the perfect adaptation of the typical modern mainstream song. Despite some people's beliefs, I see the care of a regular person.

BTS project in this song too. It's well produced, polished and not the typical lazy song done exclusively to fool people into streaming it. Whether Jungkook decides to make a full album in English targeted at a western audience like Butter, a self-produced Korean album like Map of the Soul 7 or a mix of both like Jimin's Face, I'll support because they are experimenting with their solo careers and finding their personal sound and target audience. So once again this solo project was successfully recognized by its desired audience. The last BTS member to debut as a solo artist is V with his album Layover.

These promotions have started not long ago, but we can already see what kind of audience Taehyung is promoting to. However, complaints by solo stans were out before the album was out. They claim that the label is purposefully not doing any promotions and that Taehyung is doing everything himself by sharing his projects on social media. This idea that Hybe is constantly trying to sabotage the artist that brings them the most money is pretty silly, but it's funny how it's always the solo fans who complain about favoritism. Just like every BTS solo project, we need to understand and accept that their music is different.

Layover is very different to all of the BTS solo projects, so the promotions are going to be very different as well. Just like most of V's music as part of BTS, layover is R&B with elements of soul and pop. Therefore, the performances interviews will fit the promotions for an R&B project.

So don't focus on every mainstream promotion Taehyung didn't do. Focus on how he is choosing alternative mediums for promotions. To start, Taehyung released five different music videos, one for each song of the album. This is already huge. The maximum number of music videos a BTS member has released for one album is three.

A pre-release, a main release and a follow-up. But Taehyung has two pre-releases, a main release and a and two follow-ups. This is a new strategy that I wanted BTS to try for a while.

Think about these popular albums. Their promotions included music videos for multiple of the album's songs. This prolongs the artist's promotion schedule and it helps each song of the album become popular, not just one song or two.

So if we concentrate on this R&B project's promotion strategy, let's think about every door Taehyun opened for himself by releasing these many music videos. His debut performance was not at a western show or a kpop show or a festival. It was on a new Korean music show that slows down chart competition by announcing an artist of the month, not a song of the week, which usually exhausts the artists and the fandoms. This show is also more personal than a festival or a western tv show.

So for this kind of calm album, this debut stage feels right. On kpop shows, artists normally perform one or two songs, three being the maximum number of performances. But this specific K-pop show let Taehyung perform four of his songs at once. Why am I mentioning this?

Because the only reason Taehyung was able to perform his entire album on K-pop TV shows was because he released music videos for the entire album. For Inkigayo, he performed the main single Slow Dancing and Rainy Days. For Mnet, he performed Slow Dancing and Love Me Again. For Music Bank, he performed Slow Dancing and For Us. And for N-Pop, he performed Slow Dancing, Love Me Again, Rainy Days and Blue.

It's genius. Taehyung was able to promote his entire R&B album on K-pop TV shows. This is the first time an artist has done this successfully. But it doesn't end here. Taehyung did not only choose this new K-pop TV show with less than 60,000 subscribers as an alternative medium.

He also was one of the first artists to perform on the new series Tiny Desk Korea. This is a new show part of NPR's Tiny Desk Concert Series, which features only South Korean artists. But Taehyung's performance was released on both Tiny Desk Korea and NPR's Tiny Desk Concert.

So he is, in a way, promoting his Korean R&B album to a global audience. Finally, Taehyung became the first member to promote in Japan. This is also very smart because if there's any country with a big market who would listen to an R&B Korean album, it's Japan.

the second biggest music market in the world. These interviews and performances help Taehyun show his warm and soulful personality to an audience that is more likely to consume this kind of project. His personality is also reflected on the style of photoshoots and the three physical albums he wanted to release.

These music videos, teasers, interviews, and media articles are planned, organized, and shared not only by V but also by HYBE and BTS on all of their social media platforms. If you expect Taehyung to have the numbers of pop releases or the type of promotions of the hip-hop releases, you are crazy because he never intended to promote to those audiences. For an R&B album, layover is huge and this BTS solo project is successfully being recognized by its desired audience. audience let's not forget that although bts are on their era of solo music they are still releasing music as a group after the solo promotions started with j-hope bts promoted their song run bts they released the planet an ost song for an animated film and they released take two as part of their 10th anniversary celebration Just like every other solo project and group project, these songs have different sounds, so they have different audiences, so they have different promotions.

Run BTS is a song that is friendly to K-pop audiences. It's fast-paced, it has a choreography, and it shows a ton of energy. So they released a dance practice, performed it at their Busan concert, and released a lot of TikTok videos with K-pop artists. The Planet is a song for an animated series about a young idol group with superpowers, so the genre is pop and the style is simple but energetic.

The music video and promotions are all related to the show and they have a younger audience in mind. Take 2 is the classical letter song for ARMYs. It was written and produced by BTS members and it has the classical BTS sound when it comes to slow pop R&B ballad songs.

Like I mentioned before about V's project, this style of songs actually worked pretty well on Japanese audiences, so it debuted at number 6 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 with no music videos, remixes or anything. But it's pretty clear that the main audience for this song is ARMY, so it charted well on pretty much every global chart. Basically, every one of these songs had the right promotions for each of their audiences.

We need to see the solo projects and their promotions like this too. Maybe for some, this analysis of each solo promotion was unnecessary and obvious, but I had to do it because I received so many messages by ARMYs who don't consider themselves being confused about why some members had quote-unquote more opportunities than others. Some were genuinely confused by Jungkook's explicit lyrics, RM's minimalistic emotions, and J-Hope's lack of physical albums.

So I hope I helped calm the confusion at least a little. ARMYs need to accept that BTS are real multidimensional artists. They are seven artists with different visions, styles, and journeys in their music.

Of course, course their promotion schedules are going to be different sure armies are the main audience listening to their solo projects but the bts members are going to perform and accept interviews on the shows that they feel the most comfortable showcasing their music don't expect the global bts style of promotions for every solo project and cry when that doesn't happen. Think about the sound and their personalities individually. Their solo projects align with the solo songs they had on BTS albums.

So accept the BTS members as the multidimensional artists they are. Trust them and their decisions, especially in this solo era. We will overcome this and make music and perform happily with you.

Please have faith in us as Hoseok said.

Transcript for:BTS Members' Unique Solo Ventures

Transcript for:
BTS Members' Unique Solo Ventures