Song Review: BTS – Merry Go Round

Over the past few months, BTS have released music videos exclusive to Spotify premium. I haven’t covered these on the blog because I don’t have a premium account and many others don’t either, so the music videos remained paywalled. Today, they’ve uploaded the mv for Merry Go Round to YouTube, so this probably deserves a write-up of some sort. The Arirang album came and went for me. Despite all the hype, I didn’t find any songs that pulled me coming back for future listens. Because of this disinterest in the project, the second half of the album became a particular blind spot for me. I appreciate the opportunity to think about Merry Go Round on its own. This is definitely one of the album’s more pop-forward moments, but it’s the sludgy, downbeat sort of pop that has colored global trends for the past few years. It’s music to mope around to, which isn’t exactly a new idea but has never really appealed to me. I’m just not much of a moper, even in the worst of times. I’m much more likely to look to pop music as an escape and energizer. This isn’t to say that Merry Go Round is inherently bad simply because of its intent, but even when compared to past angstier BTS songs the sound and ex...