When my video name with Jungkook begins, he has the look of somebody roused too early from a great sleep. On digital camera, the youngest member of the South Korean pop group BTS is sporting a black zip-up, hood pulled over his head in a method that implies he’d take pleasure in a nap—a bit of shocking, given his popularity amongst followers as an indefatigable “energizer bunny.” We’re lower than two weeks away from the discharge of his first solo album, Golden, and his days are full of dance practices, rehearsals, video shoots, interviews with abroad press. The exhausting calls for of promotion aren’t new to him—he’s been with BTS for greater than a decade, racking up best-selling albums, Billboard Sizzling 100 No. 1s, sold-out stadium concert events, and world information. However that is Jungkook’s first time releasing a full report on his personal, and it occurs to all be in English.
At first, Jungkook felt conflicted about this. “I used to be pondering, Is it okay for a Korean to not launch Korean songs in any respect?” the 26-year-old singer informed me by an interpreter, from his leisure firm’s workplace in Seoul. BTS achieved international reputation whereas making music nearly solely of their native language, aside from just a few English-language hits comparable to “Dynamite” and “Butter.” On the similar time, the entire level of his solo effort was to problem himself—and solely singing in English appeared like one great way to do this. But he hopes to attach with folks on a stage deeper than language. “When you consider pop stars, they’re these actually cool singers that you just’d look as much as since your childhood,” he stated. “In fact, issues have been altering quite a bit. However I nonetheless have that pop-star picture caught in my head since my childhood. And I need to be a cool man that offers off that incredible vibe.”
It’s a disarmingly easy description of a pop star: a cool one that offers off a tremendous vibe. Nevertheless it’s a picture he’s been chasing for a very long time. As a youngster, Jungkook determined to affix BTS as a result of he was so impressed by the English-speaking and rap expertise of the group’s chief, RM. He used to add covers of his favourite pop songs on SoundCloud, and recurrently gushes concerning the likes of Justin Bieber, Usher, and Ariana Grande. The primary time I noticed him carry out reside, he flew by a stadium, suspended by a cable over tens of hundreds of followers, his vocals so secure you’d suppose he was reclining on a chaise.
However underpinning this need for coolness is an equally previous obsession with excellence. The title of Golden instantly evokes Jungkook’s best-known nickname: the golden maknae. Coined by RM, it refers to his standing because the youngest (“maknae,” in Korean) member, who appears to be preternaturally proficient at every thing he does. Not solely is Jungkook a strong dancer and a robust vocalist, however he additionally excels at drawing, portray, songwriting, archery, wrestling, sprinting, swimming—a compilation of him merely being good at stuff has greater than 18 million views on YouTube. With regards to his essential job as a performer, he’s a recognized perfectionist who’s exacting about his work. So expectations have been excessive for Golden, the discharge of which was preceded by two singles, the U.Okay. storage observe “Seven (feat. Latto),” which set a Spotify report for the quickest music to succeed in 1 billion streams, and the early-2000s throwback “3D (feat. Jack Harlow).” However I wasn’t ready for the beautiful essential observe, “Standing Subsequent to You,” which brings to thoughts Parliament-Funkadelic and Michael Jackson. It’s not fairly like every music that Jungkook or BTS have finished earlier than.
Jungkook stated he beloved the demo for “Standing Subsequent to You” a lot that he recorded a full observe the following day. One trade-off he made so as to experiment with completely different shades of pop whereas singing in English was enlisting skilled songwriters and producers. Golden options the producers Andrew Watt and Cirkut, who labored on “Standing Subsequent to You,” in addition to Main Lazer, Ed Sheeran, and David Stewart. The album’s 11 songs sound like a broad survey of what you’d hear on American radio—fashionable R&B, acoustic, synth-pop earworms with sing-along hooks—however remodeled by Jungkook’s buttery, chameleonic vocals.
He informed me that, for a very long time, he thought it was vital for artists to jot down their very own information (as some BTS members elected to do for his or her solo albums). Jungkook has written and produced songs for BTS, together with quiet ballads and electropop anthems; at the least two tracks that he wrote for his solo venture ended up being recorded by the group as an alternative. “As I grew up, I got here to phrases with actuality and began accepting what I’m not good at or what I don’t must do,” he stated. “At this second, there’s nothing I need to write about. So I used to be pondering, Do I actually need to speculate my time into making a music from the start to the top?” With Golden, the pressing need wasn’t there, and the timing didn’t make sense. (BTS is anticipated to reunite in 2025, after the entire members have accomplished their necessary army service; Jungkook has but to start his.) Quite than writing lyrics or composing melodies, he selected to experiment with new vocal strategies and hone his live-performance expertise.
The songs on “Golden” reference mature themes—particularly, substances and intercourse—extra explicitly than his earlier work, partly due to the relative cultural conservatism of his residence nation and the idol business. Jungkook has brazenly acknowledged this shift (and appeared unbothered by the extra pearl-clutching reactions) however says he’s not making an attempt to redefine himself in relation to his previous. “Jungkook again then was Jungkook again then, and by some means, I grew to become who I’m proper now. The one which’s making all of the judgment calls is me, myself, on this very second,” he stated. “I’m not pondering, Oh, I ought to break free from that cute picture because the youngest member … Lyrics are simply lyrics, and pictures are pictures.” He added that he selected love songs for his or her universality, however that folks shouldn’t learn them as autobiographical.
All through our dialog, Jungkook would do issues that may learn as sometimes maknae to these followers who’ve adopted him for years: consuming his water by lifting the cup with each tattooed, sweater-pawed fingers; waving goodbye for a stable 15 seconds with an enormous smile on his face, once more with each fingers. However the way in which he talks—how he visibly works by a tough query as he’s talking, correcting himself or leaping in so as to add a thought—and his poised method provide clear indicators of inventive intentionality and hard-won maturity. These indicators come by within the album too: in his natural-sounding enunciation, the way in which he slips between a fluttery falsetto and a heat decrease register on “Nearer to You” or performs with quantity and tone on “Hate You.” It’s the kind of development you see in somebody who hasn’t stopped operating.
