Jimin, the birth of a muse

BY. Isak Choi

Only those with their own stories can become the main characters of the stage. Jimin's story becomes even more ecstatic in his second solo album [MUSE] (2024). The title song <Who> entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 31 weeks (as of March 4, 2025). Jimin is writing a new history for K-pop by repeatedly making reverse runs on the Billboard main chart, which is the dream and symbol of success for all musicians around the world. The 31-week entry is the longest entry record for a K-pop soloist, tied with PSY's <Gangnam Style> 12 years ago. Even though it was released during his military service and there was no full-scale promotion, Jimin left his own mark with his sweet and commanding vocals and performance.

The title track of his first solo album, [FACE](2023), <Like Crazy>, topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart as soon as he debuted. Following Kyu Sakamoto's <Sukiyaki>, which became the first song by an Asian musician to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963, Jimin has renewed the top spot for the first time in 60 years as an Asian soloist. With two solo albums that he personally led from composition to performance and visual creation, he proved his clear presence as an artist and his outstanding intuition to continue to survive as a superstar in the competitive global music market.

But the real reason [MUSE] is special is not just because of its high score. In this album, Jimin shows courage to face, determination to confront, and strength to overcome. In an era overflowing with stimulating and temporary topics, Jimin has returned to the basics and solidified his own world by burning with a pure and pure passion for music and the stage. Poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in <On Music>, "(Music) is something that is in our deepest self and goes beyond us and breaks through." Jimin, who has started a new chapter as a soloist, has been playing music that powerfully goes beyond himself throughout. That is why his presence flows into the deepest self and creates an unforgettable resonance. This infinitely human narrative makes Jimin's stage even more splendid.

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The birth of Jimin

If you ask, 'What kind of musician is Jimin?' I would like to introduce this anecdote. After he finished preparing to release [MUSE], he practiced on stage every day with a microphone, even though he could not perform for at least two years before enlisting. He probably would have to start over from the beginning to wake up his muscles in order to precisely implement the performance of <Who>, which he meticulously perfected by watching the rehearsal video over a thousand times, after his discharge. Nevertheless, Jimin persistently focused on the essence until the very last moment. The reason he was able to quietly head towards the fundamentals without being distracted by the fluctuating reality is probably because Jimin is a person who sees far ahead. A person who knows what to do and where he is going is never trapped in the present.

Jimin once said about his first album activities that it felt like "peeling off my skin." This raw expression lets us guess how unfamiliar and intense the atmosphere must have been for him as a veteran singer and a rookie soloist standing on a new stage. For over 10 years, he must have experienced his life completely changing as a singer and as a person before he became 'Jimin'.

Jimin is a gambler. His life has been a series of battles with the reality before his eyes and with himself, and most of them seem to have been successful. However, Jimin's way of winning, as seen in [MUSE], is clearly different. Until now, he had accepted reality as an opponent to compete with, and had achieved extraordinary victories in a world of fierce competition and proof. He expanded this fierce journey and determination into music and included it in his debut album [FACE]. He created the world of soloist Jimin through a narrative of overcoming the emptiness and irritation of reality that makes him shaken by alcohol and winning freedom and purification. However, in [MUSE], harmony stands out more than confrontation. He absorbed and embodied the vivid reality he experienced while producing and promoting his first album and used it as a driving force to break out of the shell. This may be the reason why the intro title of [MUSE], which took a whole year and four months to complete carefully and purely, is 'Rebirth'. The fact that he started producing his second album during the latter half of the recording of his first album and ended up creating an album with such a different approach proves how rigorous he was in the process of reinterpreting his music and life, and how quickly he is growing as a musician.

The rebirth is proven on stage. Performing the title song <Who>, he shows his transformation from BTS Jimin, who has the power to "eat up the stage," to a conductor and protagonist. In a performance centered on theatrical movements designed with live performance in mind, he intersects with numerous characters and creates sparks of relationships and emotions. His role as the protagonist and leading the breathing of the stage is so precise that it brings about catharsis. Jimin's vocals, which have a special tone and texture that sticks in your ears, have long been likened to 'stardust', but in [MUSE], they go further and show explosions and orbits. The rebirth of soloist Jimin shows how much effort and attempt he made to be honest with the belief that 'singers speak through the stage' in a new reality where he has to reset the expressions and movements he has become accustomed to for 10 years.

The official activities of the title <Who> can be said to be all about the stage of 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' in the US, which was filmed in advance before enlistment. The performance time is 3 minutes and 12 seconds. It is a short time to watch a couple of short videos that you can't remember anything about when you turn around. However, Jimin's stage leaves an impression and aftermath that will never evaporate. This is because it contains all the time he went through like a war to complete [MUSE]. Including this stage, the music video, and the dance practice video, Jimin watched the rehearsal video over 1,000 times for just three shots to complete the elaborate performance. He spent a long time of 1 year and 4 months creating an album whose promotion is uncertain before enlistment. This is probably because he knows that the 'class' of music is only the challenge to surpass oneself and the 'layering' of absolute time. Art is history contained in a moment. [MUSE] contains Jimin's determination to capture the infinite without being confined to the reality of limited time and unfamiliar crossroads.

The Birth of a Muse

If you can see the direction of soloist Jimin in the production process, you can see the world in music. [MUSE] is made up of scenes of colorful emotions that only Jimin can describe. Like an omnibus film, this album, with each story and point of view different, tells the story of absolute joy like a carnival, a sad emptiness like the shadow of a big city, and persistent love that spreads through the whole body like awe, with Jimin's expressiveness. If the first album [FACE] was black and white music that swept from the abyss of Jimin, not as an idol, but as a human being, [MUSE] contains a feast of love and inspiration that he explores and expands as an artist. The ecstasy and confusion, passion and drama that these vivid colors and contrasts create is Jimin's world.

The biggest reason Jimin's music feels so colorful is probably because of the tempo. Before his solo activities, he expanded the sophisticated and bold rhythm and expressiveness that he showed through his performances to the entire album. Just as Adagio (very slow) brings sadness and Fortissimo (very loud) brings excitement, tempo in music leads to emotions and narratives. Jimin's solo album has unique emotions that ripple from his own speed, gliding, jumping, and exploding across the stage. In contrast to [FACE], which focused on establishing his identity with music with a unified mood, [MUSE] changes the musical and narrative genres of each track as if he were going on a fun adventure. This time, Jimin shows his competitive spirit, completing the emotions of each track with careful interpretation and expression, and proving his wide spectrum as a musician. In the music that started from the resonance of his origins, you can feel not only the emotions of Jimin as a being, but also his muscles and temperature.

The first track, <Rebirth (Intro)>, which sings of the joy of love with a fairytale-like sensibility, encapsulates Jimin's world. The first album [FACE] showed Jimin's Birth as a soloist. In the second album, he moves on to 'Re'birth. This song captures the moment Jimin opens the door to a new dimension called [MUSE] and takes his first step. The sharp gaze that faced the abyss of the self in [FACE] changes into a light of wonder and optimism, like an innocent being that just hatched from an egg and looks around the world with curious eyes. The black and white world where ash and fire burned becomes a fresh garden full of spring flowers. <Rebirth (Intro)> captures the peak of seasonal changes from [FACE] to [MUSE], and lets Jimin immerse himself in the mystery of life called music. The Muse in Greek mythology is interpreted as a being that gives creative inspiration. The 'muse' in [MUSE] refers to the mysterious world of creative inspiration that Jimin swims in.

<Rebirth (Intro)> is similar in form to the first track <Face-off> from the first album in that it encapsulates the theme of the album, but in essence, it is connected to the double title <Set Me Free Pt. 2>. This song contains a narrative of liberating the self suppressed by fate and being reborn as a new self. In the music video, Jimin, who was locked in a circular prison and danced a primitive dance and yearned for salvation, finally achieves freedom and enters the world of light. <Rebirth (Intro)> is the story of Jimin being liberated from that circular prison. The "pitch-black me" expressed in the lyrics enters the world of [MUSE] for "true love" in order to be reborn and "sing while making eye contact with you." The main character of [FACE] was the 'past me'. In [MUSE], it evolves into 'the present of you and me'. Through the connection of these two seemingly disparate dimensions, Jimin's true world as a musician is born. As a side note, the development where you and I emerge from the pitch-black past and find ourselves shining is quite romantic.

The pre-released song <Smeraldo Garden Marching Band> is a serenade dedicated to his fans, his other muse. It may be a bit complicated, but [MUSE] has two axes of 'muses'. The muse as creative inspiration explained above, and M'US'E, which embodies the 'fans (US)' within 'Jimin (ME)'. This song was inspired by the Beatles' <Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band>. You can see the influence in the long title that ends with 'Band', the track video that was filmed live with live sound, and Jimin wearing a black suit, which is the first thing that comes to mind when talking about Beatles fashion.

However, what is essentially connected to <Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band> is the 'Lonely Hearts Club'. The Lonely Hearts Club refers to an advertisement posted on a bar bulletin board in search of a special someone to fill the loneliness. <Smeraldo Garden Marching Band> is a song about someone sitting alone at a bar table in a big city on a dark night, drinking beer and looking around, and leading them by the hand to 'Smeraldo Garden'. The background of the track video is reminiscent of the Alpine meadows in the movie <The Sound of Music> (1965). In a fairytale-like world where children sing and dance, pollen flies during the day and fireflies light up at night, Jimin sings with love and blessings like a wedding singer. The featuring of Loco, who expressed honest love, is added to convey Jimin's heart of wanting to gift perfect happiness to his fans through music.

In fact, the real pre-released song on this album is the last track, the fan song <Closer Than This>. Released right after Jimin's enlistment, this song conveys a warm message that he will always be by his fans' side, like the moon, his symbol, even at night and during the day when the moon is not visible.

<Slow Dance> sung with Sofia Carson is the only duet song that has been included in Jimin’s solo album to date. “What if Jimin, who has a high and soft vocal range, sang a love ballad between a man and a woman?” If you’ve been keeping an eye on his journey, you’ve probably asked yourself this question at least once, but Jimin has come up with some very interesting results. <Slow Dance> is a romantic band-sound R&B song about a man and a woman in love holding hands and dancing together, vowing to be together forever. When you listen to the song, you imagine a young couple dancing leisurely, looking into each other’s eyes in a warmly lit dance hall among many people, as if they are the only two people in the world. As the main character of this classic scene where the man leads and the woman gives in and dances in pairs, it was inevitable that Jimin would have to think about the role he should play as a male vocalist. The answer he, a romantic Busan man, found was perhaps to be the one who loves more. Jimin savors the lyrics more gently and delicately, conveying the fullness of love. With the sweet harmony of Sofia Carson's soulful vocals, the song creates a very modern and sophisticated mood despite being a classic story.

Sofia Carson's dreamy voice reminds me of the lover's cruel whisper in <Like Crazy>, "I think we could last forever. Trust me." <Slow Dance> is like a happy lucid dream that Jimin in the <Like Crazy> world struggles in the vast loneliness and doesn't want to wake up from.

<Be Mine> follows the lineage of Jimin's 'know-what' songs. It is an Afrobeats song with a lyrical Latin melody that contains a faithful courtship to share love from sun to sun on a tropical island with a hot temperature. It was as popular among fans as the title song <Who>. This is probably because it accurately captured the wish of 'I wish he would do a song like this once'. <Be Mine> is reminiscent of BTS's solo song <Filter> included in [MAP OF THE SOUL: 7] (2020), which is the ancestor of the 'know-what' lineage. It is a seductive and sophisticated Latin pop song, and it received an explosive response that literally turned the fandom upside down when it was performed at a concert. The passionate climax unique to Latin melodies, the exotic percussion sounds that hit deep into the heart, and the unpredictable development are a perfect fit for Jimin, who has a special sense of rhythm. But while <Filter> focused on expressing a seductive atmosphere, <Be Mine> is dedicated to expanding Jimin’s strengths as a vocalist into the genre. Jimin’s solid voice, which adheres to a tight and realistic sound, creates a groove and gives a refreshing and cool feeling.

Sexiness is probably the charm that Jimin can express most easily and overwhelmingly. That is why Jimin is wary of a seductive mood in his solo album. Although <Like Crazy> contains seductive lyrics, it feels like a means of self-defense to hide an intense lack. <Be Mine> is the song that Jimin finds easiest, and therefore requires the most complicated thinking. Fortunately, Jimin seems to have found the answer to how to handle his special weapon.

The title <Who> is a song about emptiness. Emptiness is a longing for something that cannot be reached, a longing for something that has already been lost before it can be had, and yet a completely contradictory emotion that remains absent. Jimin is good at expressing complex emotions. This is because he has an outstanding talent for separating and embodying even the smallest beats. Also, his delicate and unique vocals create unique resonances depending on the composition and harmony, just like an instrument. The spectrum of emotions that he can convey is wide. However, the reason why <Who> has ranked in the upper ranks of the Billboard Hot 100 chart even after 7 months of its release and has broken countless first and best records is not because he has the exemplary conditions to express emptiness. It is because he deeply understands that emotion. <Who> is filled with the despair and wandering, patience and maturity that he confessed in [FACE]. And true music always captures the hearts of the audience.

The music video is reminiscent of the night streets where the main character time-leaps into the future at the end of the movie <Back to the Future> (1985). In a street full of flashing neon signs, screaming protesters, and gusts of wind that can blow away cars, Jimin dances as if he can't hear anything and acts out his loneliness in the crowd. The reverse performance in <Like Crazy> makes his loneliness even more fateful. In <Like Crazy>, Jimin is trapped in his own darkness and rejects all those who reach out to him, so he becomes alone. In <Who>, he approaches first. The pair choreography, which is the climax of the <Like Crazy> performance, where they dance as if facing mirrors but end up not being able to touch each other, is reversed, and he breaks the barrier and goes inside. However, he is unable to find 'Who' in the end, and is left alone in the night streets, completing the emptiness.

Jimin's vocals are particularly outstanding in this song. As a song about an active journey to find 'Who', he shows off his singing style that is as if he is speaking firmly. Jimin controls the chaos of tension and pleasure where sharp guitar riffs and synthesizer sounds boldly collide with his powerful and unique vocals. At the climax where he exclaims refreshingly, "Who is my heart waiting for (Who is the one my heart is waiting for?)", he explodes with the pain of not being able to find 'Who', adding a sense of realism to the song's narrative. The retro sound of early 2000s pop style combined with Jimin's unconventional vocals also allow one to feel an interesting sense of the times. He even released an acoustic version remix recorded right before his enlistment, breaking all the attempts he had made as a vocalist through <Who>.

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The Birth of a Game Changer

For a solo singer who started out as a group member, the second album is more important than the first. The first album shows identity, and the second shows direction. In less than two years, Jimin has released two albums that are like his alter ego, in which he personally participated in the composition and arrangement of the songs. Not only has he solidified his own identity and direction, he has also achieved unprecedented commercial success. While making ample attempts as a soloist, he has also expanded the group’s narrative by incorporating symbols of the BTS worldview, such as the Smeraldo flower, as the main concept. And despite all this, he is only 29 years old. As a new game changer in the global music market, Jimin’s future is limitless.

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