The Credits List In BTS’ New Album ARIRANG Is Honestly Insane
Like what do you mean they got JPEGMAFIA for one of the tracks
There has never been a better time to be a hip-hop, EDM or RnB fan in the BTS army. Last night, the K-pop act dropped the track list and credits for their much-awaited comeback album, ARIRANG, and boy is it full of surprises.
For starters, if the track names are anything to go by, the album is going to be quite different from what fans had initially thought would be mostly love songs and ballads. I mean, come on, tell me all the heart-and-roses “What is your love song?” marketing did not make you think of Love Yourself: Tear or MOTS: 7. Instead, tracks like Body to Body have fans guessing that this will be a more mature album (after all, these are men in their thirties, in case you forgot).
I remember coming across a tweet comparing the situation to how fans thought Jungkook’s song Seven would be a tribute to the seven members of the group, but it turned out to be a song about making love seven days a week. Anyway, enough about the names of the tracks.
What’s more interesting, actually, is the credits list. Besides longtime BTS producer Pdogg and the members themselves - Jin has been touring and working on his solo albums for much of the past two years to be involved in production for ARIRANG - the fourteen-track album boast names from the biggest names in music right now.
For starters, there’s Kevin Parker, the heart of psychedelic pop group Tame Impala. Fresh off the success of a collaboration with BLACKPINK’s Jennie in Dracula, he and co-writer Sarah Aarons are credited as a producer on the eighth track, Merry Go Round. American DJ Diplo produced four of the fourteen tracks. Tyler Spry, the name behind Bad Bunny’s Grammy winning DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, has worked on Please and the lead single, SWIM. For fans of Latin music, there’s also Hooligan, produced by Rosalia collaborator El Guincho.
Even more stacked are the hip-hop tracks. Besides the rapline (especially RM) having writing credits for every song, JPEGMAFIA is credited as a writer for FYA along with Diplo, Flume and NITTI. Mike WiLL Made-It (Kendrick Lamar’s HUMBLE and Rihanna’s Pour It Up) produced Aliens and 2.0. Teezo Touchdown has writing credits for the first and last tracks, Body to Body and Into The Sun, respectively.
Lastly, there’s the secret sixth track, No. 29, whose producers have not been revealed yet. Chances are, it could be the only song on the album to have a collaboration with another artist. If Twitter (now X) is anything to go by, the track might feature Charlie Puth. Source: J-hope posted a video of the Attention singer’s shenanigans with Jungkook on his Instagram handle some time back.
All said and done, it will be a rather diverse sound for the group, which has not shied away from exploring different genres. Ever since promotions for ARIRANG began, members have been teasing how it’s a very different album from what they generally do, while also a return to their roots. For the unversed, BTS’ sound was very different when they debuted, centering more on gritty hip-hop, with touches of R&B, EDM and pop.
ARIRANG, Bangtan Sonyeondan’s tenth studio album, is scheduled to release on March 20, 2026, accompanying the act’s comeback stage, which will stream live on Netflix.