The song “Idol” from BTS’ most recent album, Love Yourself: Answer, broke the record for the most viewed music video within the first twenty-four hours of release.  Gaining 45.9 million views in twenty-four hours, “Idol” beat Taylor Swift’s record of 43.2 million views on “Look What You Made Me Do.” Personally, I believe that this album is the epitome of hard work that pays off.

BTS is a K-pop boy group that debuted in 2013, making it six years since their debut. Since debut, they’ve released over 10 albums, the most recent being Love Yourself: Answer. The album’s tracklist was released on August 19 and the album itself was released on August 24.

Love Yourself: Answer contains six new songs by the boys. The songs are Trivia: Just Dance, Trivia: Love, Trivia: Seesaw, Epiphany, I’m Fine, and Idol. Along with these, there are nineteen other songs from the rest of the “Love Yourself” trilogy or extended versions, meaning they took old songs and added to them to improve them. The album totals to 25 tracks. Unlike a lot of other artists, the members of BTS write the majority of their lyrics. For this album, the main songwriters were Namjoon (RM), Yoongi (Suga), and Hoseok (Jhope).

Following Love Yourself: Her and Love Yourself: Tear, Love Yourself: Answer is the third album in the “Love Yourself” trilogy.  Kim Namjoon, who is the leader of BTS, has said that the Love Yourself series is a process in which the members of BTS learn to love themselves along with their fans, ARMY.  Namjoon has stressed that if you can’t love yourself, you aren’t able to love others. This is the positive message that the Love Yourself albums send.

The Love Yourself: Answer album is full of amazing tracks but my favorite is “Trivia: Just Dance.”  This is a solo track performed by Jung Hoseok (Jhope) who is a rapper, lead dancer, and sub vocalist. The song has a good beat that anyone could appreciate and Hoseok has a unique style combination of rap and vocals that complete the song.

While I love all the songs on the album if I had to choose one that I didn’t like as much as the others, it would have to be “Fake Love Rocking Vibe Mix.”  I have nothing against this track, however, the album also contains the original “Fake Love,” causing me to compare the two, and I prefer the original.

This album was recorded from 2016 to 2018. That’s two years worth of recording for one album, plus the other albums they produced within that time period. It’s amazing how much talent one group contains and how they work the hardest possible to put out their best work. This album shows many of their strong points and I recommend it to anyone wanting to listen to different music. The album is on YouTube making it easy to listen to, is available to listen to on Spotify, and costs $17.99 on iTunes.