BTOB just celebrated their 14th anniversary and released a new song called We Together so please check it out!
Eunkwang and Hyunsik did an Instagram live to talk with fans for their anniversary where they revealed this story. Melodies know BTOB love It’s Okay, most of the members still mention It’s Okay as their favorite title track, even above their biggest hit Missing You, but it’s the first time they fully expose that their 1st full album Complete was going to be their final album.
In 2015 Cube was going through issues and since BTOB wasn’t achieving the results they wanted, Cube was planning on giving up on them and disband the group after one last comeback. Cube told the members that since it was going to be their last album, they were allowed to do whatever they wanted and were given creative freedom.
BTOB disliked their 2014 title tracks, Beep Beep and You’re So Fly, and the members weren’t happy about the group’s direction. BTOB envied their peers like EXO, B.A.P or VIXX who had lore and a group identity, while BTOB didn’t have their own color and every comeback Cube would throw at them vague concepts the company thought were trendy.
So taking this last chance, BTOB told Cube they wanted to do a complete 180 from those 2014 title tracks and pushed to release a ballad. All of them agreed that It’s Okay was a really good song they needed to promote.
At the time BTOB still weren’t paid, Cube would give them 500,000 won per month as allowance, and that allowance money would also get added to their debt. However, they went on stage, thinking it was going to be their last comeback, to sing a comforting ballad about how even if things are tough, everything will be alright, with references to their struggles and including their fandom name melody in the lyrics.
(As a side note, I recommend listening to the entire 13-track album because it’s quite good. Some personal recs include the intro song Complete where BTOB shows their acapella and beatboxing skills, there’s Open which is the first Minhyuk-produced BTOB song, Hyunsik’s Miss You is a cute song that We Got Married fans will remember it since Joy loved it, the acoustic version of their debut song Insane and for those who enjoyed BTOB’s Wow there’s My Boy’s Girl which almost became the title track before BTOB pushed for It’s Okay).
Like I said before, the members were extremely happy promoting It’s Okay, enjoying every performance as they felt like doing ballads that showcase their vocals was what really fit them. To top it off, this song they loved so much ended up saving their career, as it became their first song to reach #1 in charts. And they almost got RAK, it reached #1 in 8 out of 9 Korean charts, it was #2 in a streaming platform called Monkey3 that used to be counted for RAKs and PAKs.
BTOB ended up getting another comeback 3 months later, releasing Way Back Home, another comforting ballad to cheer up people exhausted from daily life, and it was the comeback where they finally got their very first music show win. At the time it was almost unheard of a kpop group being able to get their first music show win almost 4 years after debuting. The members themselves were utterly shocked, melodies in the audience crying and Eunkwang didn’t even prepare a speech that he didn’t know what to say.
It’s also crazy to think Cube wanted to disband them at that time when you consider that Sungjae was very successful in 2015 and helped promote BTOB, gaining popularity among the public with his role as Taekwang in School 2015, starring in We Got Married with Red Velvet Joy and going viral for his vocals in King of Masked Singer that when he introduced himself as BTOB’s sub vocal and that his members were better singers than him, the public was wondering what sort of vocal monsters were in BTOB if someone like Sungjae wasn’t the main vocal. He did so well in 2015, to the point that he went to 3 different end of the year shows from the 3 main TV stations in one night (perform at MBC Music Festival with BTOB, rush to KBS Drama Awards to win an award and perform with Kim Sohyun, then drop to SBS Drama Awards to win another award and perform a OST medley with other actors and then returned back to MBC Music Festival to spend the rest of the night with BTOB) and a few days earlier he was also at the MBC Entertainment Awards where he won an award for WGM and performed the iconic Marry You with Joy.
BTOB were able to overcome their struggles, steadily rising and eventually become a trusted self-produced group with power vocals, hit songs and every member growing their own niche. They also would go viral over their funny antics and expanded to other areas, doing well in dramas, OSTs, musicals, radio and variety, as well as gaining a steady career in Japan with their Japanese releases topping Oricon and selling +100k. At one point even outselling their Korean releases, hence why there was period when Cube would send BTOB to Japan almost on a weekly basis, they also had a cute Japan-exclusive collab with Sanrio’s My Melody in 2017.
Even in 2026 BTOB is still in the top 10 most streamed boy groups in Melon, the members are still thriving after leaving Cube, and are celebrating their 14th anniversary with a song in pure BTOB-style that Hyunsik made while feeling grateful about the 14 years the group has spent together along with the fans.
BTOB had a lot more to give to the public and the industry to be stopped at just their 3rd year, and I feel grateful that a group like them are still around.
submitted by /u/Mundane_Detective_41
[link] [comments]
