BTS reveals new album track details and collaboration with Ed Sheeran

KUALA LUMPUR: In the lead up to the release of its latest EP, Map Of The Soul: Persona, K-Pop juggernaut BTS has revealed some details about each of the upcoming tracks.

According to Koreaboo, it was made known that the mini album’s title track, Boy With Luv, which also features American singer-songwriter Halsey, is a feel good funk pop number that is about the happiness of being in an simple, loving relationship. But the seven-member music phenomenon is also collaborating with English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran on Make It Right. The song features deep emotions and is about the healing process and a love for someone who believes in another person who had gone through a difficult time.

First track, Intro: Persona, is a solo rap tune by group leader RM and it answers the question of, “who am I?”

Mikrokosmos apparently examines a person’s small but vast universe, while Home is a consoling message to the group’s fans to take solace in wherever they find themselves at, whenever they feel tired or lonely.

The sixth tune is a unit track with J-Hope, Jin, and Jungkook titled Jamais Vu and the last song, Dionysus, is a hip-hop track with a strong beat that also features Jin’s ad-libs.

It was also reported that BTS had accumulated over 3 million pre-orders for the new EP as of yesterday. This represents a new record for the group for the number of pre-orders.

Meanwhile, the immense popularity of BTS has surely made it the golden goose of its agency Big Hit Entertainment.

Koreaboo reported that Bloomberg had recently announced that the South Korean agency’s founder Bang Si Hyuk was worth USD770 million (approximately RM3.17 billion) according to its Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The financial data company credited his wealth to the huge success of his company and its main artiste BTS. 

Bloomberg also named the K-Pop group’s legion of fans worldwide, dubbed Army, as the number one driving force that had enabled Big Hit Entertainment to amass such an impressive amount of revenue.

As one the biggest winners to emerge from the K-Pop boom, Bang was praised for his humility despite his massive wealth. Bloomberg remarked that he had refrained from “ostentatious displays of wealth often seen in K-Pop.”

An example given was how the Big Hit CEO was seen having a cheap bowl of soup from a convenience store during a previous interview.

This behaviour was believed to have come from the fact that the agency had originally struggled during the initial stages of its formation back in 2005.

The Bloomberg article added that Bang had said that, “the company had edged toward bankruptcy in its early years”, and that “business was sometimes so quiet that artistes stopped by the office only to play tennis matches on Big Hit’s Nintendo Wii.”

But hard work, perseverance and focus on his artistes’ perfected skill sets and communication with fans, as well as leveraging on the “right moves”, led him to grow the company, which made about USD187 million (about RM770.2 million) in revenue last year.

When Bang was asked if Big Hit could make the kind of money that artistes like Taylor Swift and Beyonce do with BTS, he said: “Yes, only if I make the right moves.”