Maps of Music

Love Yourself: Tear (2018)

Where the lyrics of Love Yourself: Tear take you, and where it was really made.

Behind this album is a first: it debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 in May 2018, becoming the first Korean album to top the US albums chart.

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Album story

Overview

• Love Yourself: Tear is the third Korean-language and sixth overall studio album by South Korean boy band BTS
• Released 18 May 2018 by Big Hit Entertainment
• Available in four versions, with eleven tracks; "Fake Love" is the lead single
• A concept album about the pains and sorrows of separation
• Designed as a follow-up to the 2017 EP Love Yourself: Her

Background

• Announced 16 April 2018, after the nine-minute short film "Euphoria: Theme of Love Yourself 起 Wonder" was released on 5 April
• The "Euphoria" song, recorded as a solo by Jungkook, connects the two releases
• The 6 May trailer featured "Singularity", a neo-soul solo by V that serves as the album's intro track
• "Singularity" was produced by British composer Charlie J. Perry, with lyrics by RM
• The official track list of eleven songs was released on 13 May, revealing a second collaboration with Steve Aoki
• The first teaser for "Fake Love" came on 14 May; the album and the music video for "Fake Love" were released on 18 May

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org · pt.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• BTS is a South Korean boy band formed in 2010
• Big Hit Entertainment CEO Bang Si-hyuk wanted to form a hip hop group around the underground rapper RM
• Name is the Korean phrase Bangtan Sonyeondan, literally Bulletproof Boy Scouts
• Debuted in 2013 under Big Hit Entertainment with single album 2 Cool 4 Skool

Members

• Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jung Kook
• Members co-write or co-produce much of their material

Career

• Started out as a hip hop act and expanded into a wide range of genres
• Lyrics cover mental health, troubles of school-age youth, coming of age, loss and the journey toward self-love
• Wings (2016) was their first album to sell one million copies in South Korea
• 2018: first South Korean act to top Billboard 200 with Love Yourself: Tear
• 2020: first all-South Korean act to reach number one on Billboard Hot 100 with Dynamite
• Best-selling musical act in South Korean history
• First Asian act to sell out Wembley Stadium

Around this album

• Crossed into the global market by 2017
• February 2017: repackaged Wings as You Never Walk Alone and began the Wings Tour
• May 2017: won Top Social Artist at the Billboard Music Awards, the first K-pop group to win a Billboard award
• September 2017: released Love Yourself: Her, opening the Love Yourself series

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Metacritic: "generally favorable reviews", weighted average score of 74 out of 100 from 6 critics
• AllMusic (Neil Z. Yeung): four stars out of five, praising the album as BTS at a polished and focused peak
• AllMusic: judged the album cohesive enough to feel conceived in one period, unlike some earlier releases that felt cobbled together
• Spin (Blanca Méndez): said the genre-hopping sounds like the group is simply having a good time, while the first installment felt uneasy
• Pitchfork (Sheldon Pearce): described a slick, loosely thematic album about love and loss, with a stronger focus on rapping than before
• Rolling Stone (Elias Leight): called it K-pop with genre-hopping panache
• Billboard (Caitlin Kelley): called it one of the group's most thematically cohesive yet sonically varied albums
• The Guardian (Alexis Petridis): gave a mixed review, praising the ballads but finding some tracks forgettable; it was rated 3 out of 5 stars

Records

• US Billboard 200: debuted at number one on 27 May 2018 with 135,000 album-equivalent units (100,000 pure album sales)
• First Korean album to top the US albums chart; highest-charting album by an Asian act
• South Korea: sold 1,664,041 copies in its first two weeks, the highest monthly sales for an album since the Gaon Chart began
• UK Albums Chart: peak at number eight, BTS's first top ten there; later certified Silver
• Japan: RIAJ gold certification in August 2018, over 100,000 copies sold
• Korea Music Content Association: certified "Million" in July 2018
• IFPI ranking of 2018 global best-sellers: third place with 2,300,000 copies

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · es.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Fake Love was performed live at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, and it was the first time a Korean music act performed at that award show.
• "Paradise" was originally supposed to be called "Mouth" and was about a breakup; its lyrics changed a bit after the song was sent to BTS.
• "Airplane pt.2" is said to be an extension of J-Hope's song "Airplane" from his mixtape Hope World.
• Art director HuskyFox was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Recording Package category in December 2018 for his work on the album.
• The album's Grammy nomination for the 2019 ceremony made the group the first Korean artists to have a nominated work in that category.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

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