Dear Gossips,   

June 13 is a big deal every year for BTS and their ARMY – June 13, 2013 is when the band made its debut. Today, then, is the 10th anniversary. Landmarks in Seoul have been lit up in purple to mark the occasion and all across the country there are celebrations. 

 

As Rolling Stone noted, BTS is the city’s pride and joy. After all, there have never been Korean artists who’ve made the kind of impact that RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook have made on a global level. 

 

BTS has paused on group activities over the last year so that each member can pursue their solo endeavours before their respective military engagements but so much content was banked in advance to roll out for the anniversary. Last week a new song, “Take Two”, was released and today the band dropped a live performance video that was obviously filmed months ago. Today at our Etalk morning meeting, one of the producers was like, if two of them are enlisted, how is there always so much to work with?! It was a rhetorical question, meant to highlight the fact that they must have been busy AF last year trying to get all of their advance material shot and loaded into the vault to be rolled out in due time. Speaking of time, Jin, who was the first to start his military service, will be discharged now in a year, or less. Next year on this day, for their 11th anniversary, he’ll be back in the studio, and then the countdown will begin – to the return of BTS at a full seven.

 

Until then, for those of who have asked over the years, in honour of their ten years together, here’s my playlist of ten. I can’t say that I was with BTS from their very first day. It started for me around 2016-ish and I got super deep into them in late 2017/early 2018. Music is personal, we connect to different songs for different reasons. And it’s also about when a certain song arrives in your life – it’s often impossible to separate the song from the memory it’s associated with. BTS fans who really connected with them during the pandemic understand that powerful relationship. Then again, it doesn’t have to be all that deep. Some of the songs on this list, for me, are there because I just really, really love the choreography. It was BTS’s dance practice videos that really took me from admiration to straight up obsession. I will never, never, ever not love “Idol” for this reason. So, in no particular order, my BTS 10th anniversary Top 10: 

Bapsae

RUN BTS

Home

No More Dream 

Blood Sweat & Tears

Idol

Not Today

Ddaeng

Ugh

Anpanman

Yours in gossip,

Lainey