So the murder after he got out of prison was done by him, but the one before that he was accused of he really was innocent?

I’ve intentionally been picking non-title tracks since I find that people that have only heard a couple B.A.P. songs (especially if they are title tracks) tend to not realize they have a more varied discography than their titles show. I’ve been trying to do a different style every day so definitely check them out and see if anything appeals to you. There’s definitely some overlap between the three, but I find that once you’ve heard enough B.A.P. songs you realize no other group’s sound is quite like theirs.

Agreed ^^ There are so many twists and turns after the first few episodes that I am never bored.

The instruments make quite a difference, don’t they? BTS has dabbled in rock before with songs like Boy in Luv and Ma City, but unfortunately it’s not a concept they do very often. It sucks because they could also pull it off pretty well and with B.A.P. out of the picture now it’s the perfect opportunity to fill in that gap. I can only assume the reason more groups don’t do rock based songs is because they are hard much harder to make. TS’ in-house producers happened to be extremely comfortable writing in that genre though.

I actually really enjoyed those British posts lol

The real shame is that in all the seven years of B.A.P.’s existence we never once got a world tour with the live band. Japan was the only one who got that treat (3 times at that!). They have such an epic set-list that gets you on your feet and heart pumping without knowing anything about k-pop, I know they could have sold out arenas around the world if only they had been able to get more exposure.

B.A.P. Although in a lot of ways I’m grateful for their fall from the top, some days it really gets to me that there’s no other group just like them. I highly recommend checking them out if you’ve never heard of them. I might post some tracks on my wall soon as well out of nostalgia.

Same* not game.

You’re fine. I knew the post would ruffle feathers easily, but sometimes I just want to post something without writing an essay explaining why. I easily can end up writing novel-like/essay replies so I’d rather wait for someone to complain before I go into detail ^^;

I can’t speak much to the producers comment because there’s a lot about music credits that I don’t fully understand, but I’m getting the sense that even after a song has gone through the external producer the owner of the song still modifies and tweaks it to their liking. I’m not entirely sure though. Either way, when I said music composers/producers I meant it very generally. This actually isn’t a problem that’s specific to BTS. I’m realizing it’s very prevalent nowadays, especially when it comes to k-pop, and I think it’s because of how the music production process has become completely digitalized. In some ways, the reliance on computers has made it much much more difficult to write music.

I’m not accusing anyone of being lazy or that the songs are bad exactly. Like I said earlier, it doesn’t take much to be able to write a good sounding song once you know the formula for how to do so. That’s why pop music is often considered cookie cutter music. Which is fine, by the way, I love pop music and also have a quite a few BTS songs on repeat on my playlist. What bothers me is that their music often comes across to me as being dictated by the computer, which is why I think a lot of the people making their music (and other producers too) aren’t actually educated much in music.

Ideally, when you write a song you would want to start with a vision of sorts of what you want it to sound like and then work to figure out how you can build that particular kind of sound. But the way these computer programs work is that you’re given a blank slate and a candy shop worth of pre-made “loop” options to build up from by dragging/dropping and cutting/pasting. Unless out of the hundreds of thousands of loop options you’re given you find the ones that exactly match the sound for your envisioned song, you would need to compose it yourself completely from scratch. Without a background in instrumental music/music theory, that’s extremely difficult to do. That’s why what often happens is people instead skim through the options until they hit a loop they think sounds cool and then extend it and make that the base for their song, regardless of whether it’s the sound they originally had in mind. And as they keep doing that with every element of the song they add, it becomes that the computer dictates the vision of the song rather than the composer.

@greenfields Part 2 This is why I kept my original post short lol

That’s what I think happens with a lot of BTS’s music and it’s why I think their songs sound the same. I may be more sensitive to this since I’ve taken a class in music production before, but I can really easily pick out the loops and such that they use in their songs so they always sound very computer-generated to me. And then on top of that, it feels like they are very often picking loops from the same “folders” as if they don’t know how to work with anything other than the ones they’ve worked with before. For instance, it’s hard for me to find songs of theirs that aren’t built off of synth beats. Ever since their debut in 2013, I’ve always been hoping they’d utilize more real instrument sounding tracks than electronic, but sadly, more often than not, they seem to favor the electronics.

Anyway, I guess this all just goes to say that I’ve learned to stop expecting BTS to grow into the kind of group I wish they would be. I really liked a couple of their earlier albums back in ~2014 so I was holding out hope for them, but I think I’m just going to have to accept that their music just isn’t my ideal. I do still like them as a group though.

I also disagree with your very first statement. Give them at least some credit. They would not have gone this far out without know how to make one. They would not even make it out of South Korea if they don’t know how.

There’s a lot of different factors that resulted in Map of the Soul ending up the way it did, my post was based off of one particular aspect that I’ve been noticing for the 5-6 years with BTS. You can see my reply to greenfields above for more of an explanation for why I said what I did.

There are a lot of reasons to like BTS and there’s nothing wrong with letting this album grow on you. I’m sure their concerts will be great and I hope you enjoy them. It’s just that for me personally, I’ve reached the conclusion that no matter how many tries I give BTS they just aren’t likely to ever completely live up to my expectations for them. They were in many ways the one k-pop group with the most similarities to my favorite group, but it turns out they’re not similar enough to provide the same kind of satisfaction for me.

That is alas the case with a lot of talent. Bad timing, bad management and shitty companies kill a lot of groups. And a lot of my favourites…

Kind of sad this article doesn’t really mention Block B who I see as game changes in bringing Hip Hop back into K-pop too, and a link between Big Bang and BAP, given that they debuted in 2011 (their 8th anniversary is today yay), but then I also see Block B as more of a parody group than “socially conscious”, often making statements via what is almost satire than direct commentary and obvious concepts, and they have I would say more of a sideways effect on K-pop than direct stylistic influences like everyone mentioned here so it makes sense.

Anyway this article is basically exactly what I was talking about in my comment above about BTS filling the BAP hole.

I got somewhat lost in the flood of comments lol but I did want to add one more thing for you @greenfields Everyone uses loops and computers in their music. That’s just the direction music production has taken now. I don’t want you to think that BTS are cheaters who use shortcuts or something when actually everyone uses the same shortcuts. It makes sense since in-house producers for entertainment companies write several albums a year because they normally have multiple groups to write songs for and they need all the help they can get from pre-made computer loops to be able to push out the amount of songs they do in a year.

The difference is that a skilled and knowledgeable writer will know how to hide and embellish the loops in a way that makes them much less obvious to the listener. Generally, when you hear the same ~4 measure pattern repeating almost non-stop for the entire duration of a song, which tends to happen a lot with BTS’ songs and pop songs, it’s a sign of weak writing. Does that mean the song is bad? Not at all. The song can still sound great and be addictive to listen to, but if someone’s writing dozens of songs and they all follow the same pattern it can be a sign of the writer’s limitations.

Although it sucks that B.A.P. had a terrible company, they are actually very fortunate to have been a part of TS and to have gone through the trials they did. They were exposed to a huge variety of music styles, built up relationships with a multitude of different songwriters, and ended up learning a great deal in the course of their seven years as B.A.P. under TS. It ended up being a good experience for them overall and the caliber of their solo releases lately is proof of that, in my opinion.

This is the one aspect that I think BigHit is failing BTS. The boys aren’t being given enough opportunities to work with different styles and people that can teach them more about songwriting. Instead, RM and Suga are steadily being molded into the next Pdogg or Bang Shi Hyuk kind of “hitmakers” and that’s putting them way behind the curve when compared to other idol producers like Zico and Bang Yongguk. Fortunately, I think this is merely a problem of lack of education. Zico and Yongguk have their fair share of amateur sounding songs, but they were fortunate to have been introduced to great songwriters early on in their careers that helped mold them into the songwriters they are today. I’m sure BTS has similar potential, it’s just a shame that this far along into their careers they’ve shown less growth compared to their peers.

I probably didn’t even watch the last episode with Gary. To think I watched the show from its premiere.

I think they were in trouble even before Gary left though. Gary’s even mentioned himself that part of the reason he left is that there was nothing more he could do with his character on the show. They should have changed up the members many years ago when the show was just starting to decline in viewers. Instead they stubbornly persisted with the status quo, even when it was becoming clear that the public was getting bored with the same-old every week, and now they’ve lost the large fan-base and hype that they needed for a reformatting of the show to be effective. I don’t have anything against the new members, but the show itself is just beyond salvaging at this point.

But I thought it was obvious that he would click that news! Was it surprising?

I don’t really actively study any particular one, but I formally studied 2 languages in high school, 3 in college, and have dabbled in about 3-4 others. I’ve also been basically collecting language dictionaries since I was a child.

My mother is strangely enough pretty bad with languages (she gets tongue-tied and terms mixed up all the time) even though she was actually bilingual as a child. Then she went to school and they literally beat the non-English tongue out of her with a wooden stick. She still understands a good bit in passing but speaking is big challenge for her now.

Holy motherforking shirtballs.

Glad I’m not alone in this. Although it’s even more strange that half the people I’ve seen do covers for this song in Korea weren’t even born when it was released… It’s such a mystery how it became so well-known over there.