Every BTS Solo Song Ranked

“Why is being different a sin?” J-Hope asks in “= (Equal Sign).” “Starting with myself/You must know that the victims of prejudice are none other than ourselves.” The song is his plea for equality, especially for marginalized communities who are afterthoughts, if thought of at all.

Jung Kook mines emotional depth in this sweeping song that was produced by Suga. The dreamy song was recorded for the soundtrack of 7Fates: Chako — the BTS-based fantasy webtoon.

Jin closes Echo with “To Me, Today,” an optimistic number that gradually builds in tempo to a frenetic finish. “Come on and lessen your worries,” Jin says. “Live in the present … /This very moment.”

Piano meets synth meets J-Hope yearning to be a force for good. “Someone’s strength, someone’s light/I wish I could be a piece of peace,” he sings. This song is nothing if not full of hope.

Jung Kook questions whether he can love again after a breakup. Rather than being bitter or angry, he wonders, “Am I ever gonna feel again?” The sparse instrumentation suits the ballad, allowing Jung Kook’s pleas to make a powerful impact.

Le Sserafim’s Huh Junjin trades verses with J-Hope on a pop song that captures the excitement of a new relationship and the uncertainty that it could end just like that: “You believed that I would never leave your side/Oh, I can’t believe it all.”

Jin collaborated with Taka from the Japanese rock band One OK Rock on “Falling.” Less rock & roll than some other songs on Happy, the collaboration resulted in a pleasant soft-rock song with both singers’ voices sounding eerily similar throughout the track.

RM doesn’t sing or rap here. He speaks. Maybe it’s the jazz instrumentals or the thoughtful aura he exudes, but even when he speaks commonly used idioms like “What goes around comes around,” he sounds wise.

An eerie piano starts off the song. Someone opened Pandora’s box and unleashed a feral J-Hope. Thanks, Pandora!

Jimin’s lovely Christmas song from 2020 was enough to almost make us forget about the Covid-19 hellscape that dominated that year.

RM has talked about how he can read a thousand positive comments, but if he spots a hateful post, that’s something that becomes wedged in his psyche. In “P.D.D.,” he’s telling himself — and even the “suckers and the haters and the wankers” — to chill out and “please don’t die.” The song has good flow and a smooth West Coast-vibe, courtesy of rapper Warren G.

It’s strange to think Jimin initially trained to join BTS’ rap line. Can you imagine his unique falsetto not being heard on tender ballads and lush pop songs? Here, his winsome voice is complemented by soft guitars on this acoustic number.

Before he became RM, he was Rap Monster, a 21-year-old who hated being dismissed as an artist because he knew his worth as a musician. While modest in interviews, RM will unleash his bravado in his music. He starts the song off by pointing out that his height is similar to a model’s. (His loudest haters were notoriously short — not that there’s anything wrong with that!) For a song that’s got as many disses as “Monster” does, it is also a declaration of having pride in who he is: “R to the M, I’m a motherfucking monster!”

In this bright, smooth track, Suga sounds optimistic, even as he works through his ennui: “Yeah, somebody does love/But I’m thinking about you.”

With a series of metronomes loudly ticking a monotonous beat, RM rattles off a list of music genres: “I’m not pop, I’m not rock, I’m not funk, I’m not R&B or hip-hop.” To quote Ricky Nelson via his song “Garden Party,” “You can’t please everyone/So you’ve got to please yourself.” Or in RM’s abbreviated way, “Do you.”

Not to be confused with Suga’s “Interlude: Set Me Free,” Jimin’s “Set Me Free Pt.2” looks forward to the future. Sonically, it includes a choral introduction and modulations of Jimin’s voice to make it sound futuristically dehumanized. But by the end of the song, Jimin is free and so, too, is his voice.

This first track on Indigo begins and ends with samples of the Korean abstract painter Yun Hyong-keum gently talking about the goodness in humanity. “Yun” is an homage to the late artist, whose words remind RM to reflect on what it means to be human. The song, which is set to a classic boom-bap beat, benefits from Erykah Badu’s extraordinary vocals. “You be a human, until the death of you,” she reminds him, echoing Yun’s own words.

Jin hits all the high notes in this pulsating song about resilience — a bold and dramatic alt-rock number with a 1970s vibe.

The song starts with a heavily processed and jarring high-pitched voice taking on the role of a lover who tells V that they are still waiting for him. “I wish I could stay with you,” he croons back. “I would give it all up for us.”

After addressing his critics and his own self doubts on his mixtape RM, the rapper embraces who he is with the final song, “I Believe”: “No matter where I am or what I do, I believe.”

The highlight of this simple funk-pop track is how good J-Hope and Jung Kook sound playing off of each other. Jung Kook closes the song singing, “This love right now/It’s all we’ve got, all we need.”

RM grapples with his identity as a serious artist who is looked down upon for being in the music business. “My colleagues stab me in the back while saying that I became a moron for joining a company,” he bitterly points out. But he answers his own worries with the realization that being famous and rich isn’t so bad. “Yeah, fuck you, I’m an idol/At one time I hated it, but now I love that title.” “Awakening” utilizes the beats from Big K.R.I.T.’s “The Alarm.”

J-Hope’s self-produced debut mixtape, Hope World, kicks off with the jubilant title track. The first sound you hear is gurgling, like something’s underwater. This doesn’t make much sense until he later references Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. J-Hope could be equating himself to Captain Nemo, who created the futuristic submarine everyone mistook for a monster. But it’s more likely he views himself as the vessel who can protect those who have faith in him (and his music). As he says in the song, “Shout out to my Hope World, whoever you may be.”

A bittersweet song of longing in which RM begs the person he’s interested in to “just stay where you are,” almost as if he knows the relationship is doomed from the start. The collaboration with Paul Blanco and Mahalia works well, especially when the focus is on the latter’s emotive vocals. There’s an answering-machine announcement that adds to the desolate nature of “Closer,” illustrating that even when we’re connected, it’s not so easy to remain close.

The piano melody that kicks off this low-fi song transports you to a jazz bar from an era long since past. But then V’s phone pings, reminding listeners that while the modern era is filled with inconvenient conveniences, they’re not always horrible, especially on rainy days.

RM raps a bit in “Lonely,” but the best parts of the song feature his underutilized singing. An uncomplicated pop song, it reflects on being alone and lonely. After listening to this thoughtful, melancholy song, go listen to “Groin” to balance your mood.

After hitting Number One on the Billboard Global 200 chart, “Seven” broke Spotify’s record to become the fastest song ever to reach 1 billion streams on the platform. Jung Kook doesn’t apologize for singing about things that men his age (and younger) do. There are two versions of “Seven,” with one promising his lover he’ll be “loving you right,” and the other making a similar promise using a coarser verb. Latto’s lyrical skills are a good match for Jung Kook’s, as she promises that she’ll “make him never think about cheating.”

“Joke” is the answer to every naysayer who accused BTS’ rap line of being inauthentic wannabes. The lyrics are profound and profane. RM also throws out one of the best slams ever to all the rappers who mocked BTS’ rapping abilities. “Bastards who can’t rap more than three characters/Bibidi babidi bubidi nimini namini jikimi jakami.” Bibidi babidi bubidi, indeed!