Worldwide K-pop sensation BTS dropped its latest album, "Map of the Soul: 7," on Monday, to the tune of four million pre-order copies sold globally, according to some reports. The record-breaking group decided to look inward and dig deeper than ever to share more of themselves through their music. The whole group — RM, J-Hope, Suga, V, Jimin, Jungkook and Jin — reflected on their careers, creativity and inspiration for their new album in an interview with Variety. Read the full story here.
What was the larger inspiration behind wanting to reference the past, while still needing to take it to the next level as artists?
Jin: We get inspiration from everywhere: We get it from the fans, we get it from each other, from ourselves.
Suga: And when it comes to this album, it's called "[Map of the Soul:] 7." We worked together for seven years, there's seven of us. It's a lot more than just inspiration, this album contains our stories.
BTS mania has reached another level this year. You didn't just go back to "The Tonight Show," you shut down Grand Central Station. What do you think about when preparing to roll out a new album?
RM: I think for the outside, that's up to our label. We've just always been concentrating on the inside things: music, performance, practices. I think you know this the best but what we're doing, no one's ever done. Every time we release a new album, we always get a headache [thinking] like, "How do we promote this? How are we going to do this?" So, for example, we didn't know how big Grand Central is. But the Jimmy Fallon is already so exciting while he's doing all his shows, so then we see Jimmy and we think, "OK, this is a big thing." We realized it then.