BTS (with Tamar Herman)
Pop Pantheon
DJ Louie XIV
4.7 • 630 Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2022
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Senior Culture Reporter for the South China Morning Post and author of the book BTS: Blood Sweat and Tears, Tamar Herman, joins DJ Louie for a deep-dive on K-Pop phenom boyband BTS. First, Louie and Tamar lay out some of the contours and history of the K-Pop scene and music industry before diving into BTS’ story, how they were initially put together in 2010 by producer Bang Si-Hyuk as a socially-conscious rap outfit on their “Skool Trilogy” in 2013 and 2014, and Bang’s vision for a boy band that broke K-pop norms by giving each member more agency in creating a distinct persona and shaping the group’s music. They then get into the group’s pivot to a more overt pop-oriented sound with mid-2010s output like the "Youth Trilogy", Wings, and the Love Yourself suite, all of which continued the group’s message-forward music while expanding their sound into EDM, R&B, Moombahton and more to massive success in Asian marketplaces and eventually, in the English-speaking world as well. Later, Louie and Tamar discuss just how BTS were able to fully cross-over into the biggest boy band in the world in the later 2010s, breaking into mainstream U.S. popular culture in a way no K-pop act had even whiffed at prior with their Map of the Soul albums, 2020’s BE, as well as on massive English-language hits like “Dynamite” and “Butter”, the unique pressure K-pop “Idols” are under in terms of how the present themselves in public, and how BTS and their success have changed the pop landscape both in their home country, stateside and across the globe. Finally, Louie and Tamar rank BTS in the official Pop Pantheon.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Pop Pantheon, the podcast where we completely overanalyze all of your favorite |
| 0:14.6 | pop stars and then rank them in the official Pop Pantheon. |
| 0:17.4 | This is your host, DJ Louis the 14th. |
| 0:19.6 | And before we get into this week's episode, |
| 0:22.1 | just some very, very quick housekeeping up top. First, I want to say that, as usual, |
| 0:28.5 | please continue to rate, review, and subscribe to Pop Pantheon, wherever you're your podcast. |
| 0:32.3 | We love your ratings, reviewings, and they really help the show get in front of more people. |
| 0:35.8 | So thank you so much to everybody that's been doing that. Hop in our Discord. The link for that is in the show notes of |
| 0:41.5 | this episode and on social media. Really great community of pop fans. Great message board. Great |
| 0:46.3 | smart discussion of pop. Always going on there. Follow us on social media, Pop Pantheon Pod and me at |
| 0:52.0 | DJ L-O-U-I-E-X-V on both Twitter and Instagram. We're still taking submissions for our new audio editor position. If you will have audio editing experience and you're interested in working on this show with us, please get in touch with me at PoppanthianPod at gmail.com and let me know why you're interested and let's set up a time to chat. |
| 1:11.7 | Maybe you can come work with us. Pick up our Pop Pantheon niche legend dad hat in our store at Poppantheonpod.com. Love seeing everybody in their niche legend dad hats. It's really the best thing ever. It's how you let people know you listen to the coolest podcast in the world, guys. It's really important. And while you're over at poppantheonpod.com, fill out our listener survey. |
| 1:11.0 | We're trying to get some feedback from everybody |
| 1:32.0 | on what you like about the show what are your favorite aspects of the show favorite episodes |
| 1:36.8 | etc just get a sense of how we can continue to serve you the quality content that you enjoy |
| 1:41.8 | i also want to quickly offer a correction from the Donna |
| 1:46.1 | Summer episode that was brought to my attention by a listener named Cliff. Cliff and a few other |
| 1:50.8 | people mentioned that we did not mention the 1989 hit. This time I know it's for real, |
| 1:58.7 | which Donna Summer released in 1989 with the collaborator Stock Aitken and Waterman, who are famous for Kylie Minogue's early music, and which did hit the top 10 in the United States. And obviously, we don't have time on the show to talk about every single thing that a pop star does, but I do believe that that's something that should have been mentioned. I don't think it affects where she ended up in the pop pantheon at the end of the day, but it did get brought to my attention by a number of people, and that was an oversight on my part. So this time I know it's a real great Donna Summer song that did reach the top 10 in 1989. So I just wanted to make sure we put that out there. This episode is about something I honestly admit was a huge learning curve for me when |
| 2:35.9 | prepping for this episode. |
| 2:36.8 | I will talk about this a little bit later, but K-pop has not been something that I'm |
| 2:40.6 | particularly well versed in. |
... |
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