Dear Gossips,    

For BTS’s ARMY and Little Monsters, today is a good day. New music arrived today, or last night, depending on where you are. And while there’s usually not that much crossover between BTS and Lady Gaga, there is something similar between the two tracks: they both feel kinda… nostalgic? 

 

Let’s start with Jin, who completed mandatory military service in June and has not stopped since with appearances at the Olympics, Korean talk shows, he shot a couple of variety shows, and he has a new album, Happy, coming on November 15. As I have said on this site since I started writing about BTS, their output is relentless. It’s been almost two and a half years since they announced they were pausing group activities and since then there have been eight new albums (I think? I might be counting wrong, there is SO MUCH!) and a tour and music festival appearances and other performances around the world and music videos and magazine covers – think of how much they banked before going into the army, and how much must already be in the pipeline as we get closer and closer to the day next year when, finally, all seven members will have fulfilled their obligations to their nation. 

 

To go back to Jin, the new song is called “I’ll Be There” and it’s not what I expected. I associate Jin, at least on his own, more with a ballad, not an up-tempo groove. So it was surprising to me that this is rockabilly, it’s big beats and hype, and a little throwback to a genre and style that BTS doesn’t usually play in. The spirit of the song is very much in line with Jin – sentimental and sweet – but the sound of it is much more high energy than I thought it would be. “I’ll Be There” is fun, a little corny, in a good way, in a knowing way, in a Jin way, because he is the joker out of all of them. 

 

And it gives him the opportunity to play on his “Worldwide Handsome” reputation with the closeups and the hard-posing in the video while also flexing his irresistible lightheartedness. 

 

 

Lady Gaga’s latest, “Disease”, is taking me back to her rise, like over 15 years ago. “Poker Face” and “Paparazzi”, those days. I don’t know if you hear it too but it feels like a return to early Gaga for me, drama and opera AF. I liked it on first listen, I love it now after ten. This is a pure Gaga bop, SO good. But so far, at the time of this writing, there’s only a lyric video, and we already know she’s filmed a video, so we’ll get a better idea soon of how she’s visualising this track. 

 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey