After four long years of waiting, ARMY finally got their idols back from the military: BTS’s comeback happened on March 20. 

Arirang, their comeback album, has 14 songs on it. “Swim” is the featured single for this album, and it’s garnered over 185 hundred thousand listens. In addition to making a music video for “Swim,” the band also made music videos for “Hooligan” and “2.0,” both of which have risen sharply in popularity since. Unconfirmed rumors from band members suggest that “Body to Body” and “FYA” may be the next songs to get music videos.

BTS’s theme in this album is for their fans. The meaning of Arirang is “the one we miss and love,” showing that BTS’s members missed their fans during their mandatory two-year military hiatus, which all seven members had to complete. BTS debuted under HYBE Entertainment back in June of 2013 with their album 2 Cool 4 Skool. 

Originally, Map Of the Soul: 7 was BTS’s most popular album, but Arirang has passed it already, garnering 1.58 billion listens on Spotify. “Swim” has the most listens with over 248 thousand, and its music video has 107 billion views on YouTube. “Dynamite,” on the other hand, is the most viewed music video with over two billion views. “Dynamite” was the group’s first all English song, released back in August 2020. 

Arirang is the first album to spend its first three weeks at No. 1 since Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl racked up its first seven of 12 total weeks atop the list in October-November last year, according to Billboard. 

Zoe Aguilar Huerta, sophomore, has been a fan of BTS for nearly a decade, since the release of Love Yourself.  However, since Arirang was released, “My favorite song is probably ‘One More Night’; I really enjoy the new concept and the change in music,” Aguilar Huerta said. “One More Night” has 82 million streams on Spotify. It’s one of the more popular songs on the album. 

When BTS returned on March 20, they held a live stream in collaboration with Netflix. Their “one-hour programme marked the first time all seven members – Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook – [had] performed together since October 2022, when they went on hiatus to complete their mandatory military service,” wrote Fan Wang on  BBC. 

The one-hour live event had over 18.4 million viewers on Netflix. When the live stream began, there was severe lag, and the captions were incredibly delayed, which was incredibly annoying to fans worldwide, who complained on social media. However, the live stream allowed fans who couldn’t go to South Korea to see the concert. 

The concert was held in Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, South Korea.  According to NBC News, “BTS were granted special permission by the Korean Heritage Service to perform at Gwanghwamun Square, the main gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace, a landmark dating back to the Joseon Dynasty,” Their performance was historic because no K-pop group had ever been allowed to perform in the square before. 

As BTS is currently on a world tour, ARMY all over the world are excited and getting ready to see them in person. Back from their four year military service, BTS plan to keep making music without any interruptions.