Muse

Sound DNA

• Pop
• Dance-Pop

• polished
• playful
• romantic

About

Jimin returns with his sophomore solo album, <i>MUSE</i>, released while the BTS vocalist and dancer was in mandatory military service. The seven-track check-in is more lighthearted and lyrical than Jimin’s debut. Where <i>FACE</i> was stormy and cathartic, an intentional effort to accept and express the darker feelings evoked by the pandemic, superstardom, and life in general, <i>MUSE</i> hews more closely to a specific, familiar theme: the search for a “good love, real love,” as Jimin calls it on “Rebirth (Intro),” and the inspiration it can bring. In lead single “Who,” an energetic, Jon Bellion-produced pop track that lets Jimin’s emotive vocals loose, the artist is on the lookout for love: “We never met but she’s all I see at night/Never met but she’s always on my mind/Wanna give her the world/And so much more/Who is my heart waiting for?” “Who” is the only <i>MUSE</i> track on which Jimin does not have a writing credit, though Ghstloop and Pdogg, two of Jimin’s frequent collaborators, do. Along with Evan, the four songwriters make up the Smeraldo Garden Marching Band, a fictional band named after a fictional flower from BTS lore. The album’s third track, a <i>Sgt. Pepper’s</i>-inspired song featuring marching-band percussion and a rap from Korean artist Loco, takes its name from the Big Hit production team. “Be Mine,” with its Spanish guitar and unabashed sensuality (“Movin', comin', lovin', yeah, yeah, yeah/I want you to be mine”), feels like a spiritual successor to Jimin’s 2020 BTS solo track “Filter,” while the lilting R&B tune “Slow Dance” featuring Sofia Carson offers “a warm melody/Relax your mind to that rhythm.” The album comes to a close with “Closer Than This,” a gift to fans released after the singer left for the military in December 2023: “'Cause anytime you want me (I'll be)/Right here where you call me (I'll be)/I could never let you go.” In <i>MUSE</i>, it’s all inspiration. Here, the search for love is not arduous, but whimsical, warm, and occasionally a bop—always a yearning worth singing about.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits