About 4 years ago, I wrote a post about how much I was enjoying the promo rollout for BTS’s anthology album Proof. And now, I thought it might be apt to write about the incredible promo rollout of their first album since then.
At the time of writing that post, I genuinely wasn’t expecting a hiatus or enlistment notice anytime soon. But literally a few weeks after, the infamous FESTA dinner happened where BTS announced they’d be taking a break to focus on solo work and a few months after that, they played their last concert together as a group, the Yet to come concert in Busan, and a day after that the enlistment announcement came with a promise to reconvene sometime in 2025.
At the time, 2025 felt so far away, and the whole enlistment era felt a bit daunting, but I am also grateful for it, as chapter 2 has given us 18 eras from the members, 3 solo tours, multiple documentary films, and multiple collaborations and before we know it, it was FESTA 2025 and BTS returned from the military, get back together right away just like they promised and announced an album to be released in the Spring of 2026 (how fitting for BTS), which we now know is ARIRNAG.
And although we haven’t gotten much from the members regarding the album or comeback from July to December, as they were working on it, the album rollout started in full swing, starting from the first day of 2026, and it has been such a wonderful and crazy journey since then. Like in true BTS fashion, anything about the album was first revealed through New Year’s letters sent directly to ARMY with just the logo and a date “03.20.2026” making armys the first group to know about what’s about to come. And that has followed by:
Media announcements teasing the album
- Logo billboards popping up in major cities
- A worldwide stadium tour spanning 80+ days with more to be added in 2027 and a 14-track album announcement
- A massive comeback show at Gwanghwamun Square to be directed by Hamish Hamilton and streamed on Netflix
- A Netflix documentary about the making of the album directed by Bao Nguyen
- Finally revealing the album name, Arirang, and it be so fitting
- BTS The City: ARIRANG announcement which basically is a collaboration with cities including hotels, restaurants, cafes, parks, museums, entertainment spaces….. to prepare festival like events across a city for weeks similar to what they did with Permission to Dance in Las Vegas
- “What is your love song?” billboards popping up everywhere before Valentine’s Day
- Collabs with Spotify, YouTube, Instagram for “What is your love song?” campaign which includes voting, playlists, instagram notes….
- A “what is your love song?” walls in Seoul, LA, and London on Valentines day where they give away thousands of roses for everyone present
- A collab with Spotify teasing the tracklist first before they release it everywhere
- A Google scavenger hunt that unlocks handwritten tracklists
- Netflix teasers and promo for both the comeback show and the documentary including billboards and posters in major cities and all over Seoul
- Arirang merch release in collaboration with the National Museum of Korea
- Spotify “Decoding Arirang” event where armys hunt for voice notes from the members that give insight on the lead single SWIM
- SWIMSIDE x Spotify pop-ups that are both offline and onlince including a literal cruise event in Seoul
- A lyrics hunt on Apple Music where you can find ARIRANG lyrics hidden inside Proof tracks
- BTS The City fully taking over Seoul with landmarks lighting up red, restaurants and cafes preparing special curated arirang menu, pop ups in parks and several spaces, music listening events in parks, as well as live performance by local artists and indie bands at “The City ARIRANG love songs lounge”.
- A free Spotify x SWIMSIDE live performance in New York for their top 1000 listeners )
- Late night show, YT Show, and radio appearances including two Fallon dates, a Zane Lowe interview right in Seoul, and them guesting on EPIKASE
- A drone show that just happened last night in New York in celebration of Arirang
And what’s actually so interesting is, we’ve barely gotten any traditional concept photos. Just the album and vinyl covers and everything else has come through media or streaming platforms. We also still don’t really know what the album sounds like apart from just a few seconds of SWIM from the MV teaser and a bit of Body to Body from the animation trailer, so none of us know what to expect from the album and everything they have done is so different from any of their previous eras and that is what makes this whole comeback so much fun and so exciting and grand in scale.
And it truly is crazy to think that in just 15 hours or so, we will be listening to the album and watching the MV for SWIM. It still is not fully hitting me, but anyway, happy Arirang day!
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