Map of the Soul 7: The Journey

If "Stay Gold" wasn’t enough for you, as it clearly overwhelmed me, then have no fear. BTS has released their latest Japanese album. The majority of the album is made up of repackaged Japanese versions of their hit songs from previous albums Map of the Soul and the Love Yourself albums. As a result, I’ve already gone over most of these songs, so I won’t go into each of them in detail like I usually do. If you want to know just how great "Black Swan" is, or why it’s such a joy to hear songs from Persona again, you can click on the hyperlinks to bring you there!

For this album, I want to focus on the four songs that are new, even though one of them was a single release a while ago. “Lights” seemed to fly under the radar when it came out, so I wanted to give it a little time to shine, considering how much I like it.

INTRO: Calling

Like the intro for BTS’s previous Japanese album Face Yourself, “Calling” is a short instrumental with a few lines from other songs thrown in. It’s a tone-setter for what’s to come. I like this kind of a lead in. Since of the songs have been either released as Japanese singles or Korean original, it makes sense not to write a full-fledged intro like the other albums have. This is just a reintroduction to songs we’re already familiar with.

The structure is simple. It slowly builds to a soft, slow beat, and then a few muted lines from “Stay Gold”. This is a great little song to add to a study playlist, and it’s a quick and easy listen if you’re interested in hearing everything BTS has to offer.

Your eyes tell

There are a couple of unique things about “Your eyes tell” that make it a highly anticipated release for BTS fans. This song will be on the soundtrack for a Japanese movie of the same name. It was also co-written and produced by Jungkook, the youngest member. Jungkook has been expanding his horizons with writing, filming, producing, you name it. It’s always exciting to see the vocal line have more writing credits as time goes on. Jungkook is such a talented performer, and it’s clear he has writing skill as well.

This song is exactly what you’d want from a heartfelt soundtrack. I love how consistent the lyrics are in how they talk about the connection between sight and love. When the singer is looking at their love, it’s like seeing the world in color instead of black and white. Of course this type of metaphor has been used before, but it doesn’t make the song any less enjoyable.

It’s really the melody that makes this one stand out for me. The chorus gets stuck in my head for hours. If you don’t believe me, take a listen here and see what I mean.

Lights

Despite being released in 2019, “Lights” fits right at home on this album. It’s another love song that hits some of the same beats as “Your eyes tell”. It uses light and dark imagery, and color to describe what it’s like to love someone.

Lyrically, I like this song a lot more than “Your eyes tell”. This one seems to go a little deeper with the lyrics. It discusses that no distance or darkness can stop the love between the relationship discussed in the song. It’s very sweet and encouraging, and I love reading the lyric translations for this one. There are pretty lines like “When I close my eyes in the darkness, there’s your light” and “We can pick our own value of happiness”. Like a lot of BTS’s other songs, this one has comforting words about going through hard time. They tell us not to be afraid of lonely or dark times, because the light will come back. I always appreciate the consistency BTS with their themes of reassurance, comfort, and positivity. “Lights” is just another great example of them excelling with these kinds of songs.

“Lights” also had a music video release last year, and it’s just as well shot and produced as all of BTS’s other videos. It’s down below for when you want to check it out!

OUTRO: The Journey

“The Journey” closes in the same way “The Calling” opened. It’s a short instrumental focused track. This one has the same kind of echoing lyrics just like “The Calling”. However, this one is a little more upbeat and dreamlike than the outro. It’s a great little head-bobbing song. The best way to describe the sound would be like you’re listening underwater. The beats feel round and bubbly, and it’s a soothing quality. I literally feel like I’m floating in the ocean for the one minute duration of the song.

Just as “Your eyes tell” had heavy involvement from Jungkook, this track was one he composed. This album has helped highlight even more of the youngest’s musical abilities, and he’s still so young. “The Journey” has similar sounds to Jungkook’s recent solos “Euphoria” and “My Time”, and if you told me to guess who was responsible for this, I would’ve guessed it was Jungkook immediately. This kind individuality they can all bring to the table and still be a cohesive group makes me constantly anticipate their future albums. You never know who out of the seven will come out and produce, write, compose, choreograph, etc. on their next album. It’s what makes them so exciting.

Map of the Soul 7: The Journey is a great repackage, full of previous favorites and new dynamite tracks. If you haven’t started listening to BTS’s Japanese albums yet, now would be the time.