BTS' Jimin Tapping Some Deep Beatles Love In New 'Muse'

BTS's Jimin is turning heads worldwide with his new album Muse, his ambitious and experimental solo album. One of the most attention-grabbing tracks is the gorgeous single: 'Smeraldo Garden Marching Band', featuring South Korean rapper Loco. Jimin is explicitly inspired by the Beatles' 1967 psychedelic masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with a playfully experimental theme song for an imaginary band, as the horns went beyond. The video is also clever Sgt. Pepper homage. But the Beatles connection makes sense on a much deeper level. It's a fitting reference point for an artist on the kind of journey of self-discovery that Jimin is on, as he transitions from young pop star to adult artist.

Sgt. Pepper was a turning point for the Beatles – they were done touring, eager to close the teenage hysteria part of their history, determined to let everyone know that they were going to keep evolving and experimenting. They imagined quitting The Beatles and starting over with a new secret identity, pretending to be a whole new band led by the legendary Sgt. Pepper. Paul McCartney got the idea from the “S” and “P” on salt and pepper packets while on a plane, a pretty cool way to stumble upon a huge artistic idea.

The Beatles 'Sgt. Pepper' theme song had the vibe of an old school English band, with new outfits to match. The concept included one of the most innovative and influential album covers of all time. But what Pepper Classic was the fact that the Beatles got to the point with highly imaginative songs like “A Day in the Life,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Fixing a Hole” and “Sgt. The Pepper Itself.

Jimin does the same trick here in “Smeraldo Garden Marching Band”. It's a light track that follows the style of a South Korean band. He sings about the imaginary flower Smeraldo, which to him symbolizes the personal secrets that people keep to themselves because they are too afraid to tell the truth. It's a whimsical image, but it has an emotional weight that also matches its spirit Sgt. Pepper — There is so much grown-up pain and loneliness on this album. “Lucy in the Sky” may be a drug fantasy about “the girl with the kaleidoscope eyes,” but it's also John who dreams of Yoko, before he finally meets her.

Muse is his unified seven-song suite that explores the theme of It's an Experiment in Adult Self-Discovery, from the opener “Rebirth (Intro”) to the climactic “Who.” He made his first solo album last year with Facebut Muse is more complex. Like the rest of his BTS teammates, he had to put music on hold for his mandatory military service. So he returns to his art and to his audience, but as a bigger and different person. He goes on to sing about people trapped in isolation because they're too scared to share their secrets – in other words, it's music for a lonely hearts club.

Sgt. Pepper it has a unique place in pop iconography as the place where artists go to transform. It is a sanctuary that they can enter and come out on the other side as someone different. That spirit is in the way Paul McCartney sings in “A Day in the Life” about getting on the double-decker bus, lighting a cigarette, until “someone spoke and I went into a dream.” It is not a musical gem because artists want to copy or imitate it. It's a place they go because they want to get in touch with the more experimental and adventurous sides of themselves.

That's why the Beatles always embody that spirit for pop artists who want to progress. This spring, Ariana Grande made the ambitious and introspective breakup album, with her self-confessed inspiration Rubber soulthe 1965 classic where the Beatles made their definitive move from moptops singing for girls to artists singing for women.

Prince made the most famous Sgt. Pepper all-time move with Around the world in one day in 1985—after her phenomenon Purple rain, he wanted to prove that it would never be enough to repeat himself. So, he shocked everyone by coming back with the Pepper-style flower-power fluff of it Around the world in one day, with the hit 'Raspberry Beret'. It didn't sound like anything Purple rain the 1999, but for him that was the point. “You know how easy it would be to open it Around the world in one day with the guitar solo at the end of 'Let's Go Crazy?'” he told Rolling Stone in 1985. “I don't I want to make an album like the previous ones. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to play your albums back to back and not get bored, dig?'

Sgt. Pepper The moves are a tradition for pop stars who want to move on from that “yeah, yeah, yeah” energy to a more consciously grown-up level. In the late eighties, when the New Kids on the Block were the hottest boy band, they decided to show their serious side with their cheeky side. Sgt. Pepper “Tonight” tribute. Around the same time, Tears for Fears did exactly the same with 'Sowing the Seeds of Love'. And who can forget when Panic! at the Disco went from emo punk to psychedelic flower power with Enough. Unnecessary;

Like BTS, the Beatles were a highly original pop group from the start, even when people tried to dismiss them as nothing more than the latest teenage fad, bubblegum fangirl stuff. And like BTS, The Beatles proved the fangirls absolutely right. The Fab Four broke out with hits like “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Love Me Do” and “She Loves You,” with their trademark “yeah, yeah, yeah” chorus. Some things never change – people tried to simplify the Beatles the way they simplified BTS 50 years later.

BTS has always been into big ambitious concept albums. Even before their solo careers, they were always going somewhere new with their lofty ideas, as in the always amazing Map of the Soul series, taking off the psychological theories of Carl Jung as well as the philosophy of Frederic Nietzsche. But even then, with such a clear intellectual bent, they were misunderstood in the American industry as mere teenage pop smoothies. They were compared to Beatlemania in the most superficial and clumsy way. The most infamous, in the infamous and disgusting Tonight show appearance where Jimmy Fallon dressed them in wigs and costumes in 1964. He meant it as a compliment – comparing the explosion of BTS to the explosion of the Beatles in The Ed Sullivan Show— but it was condescending to BTS, who had their own decidedly original style.

That's where Jimin comes from Muse and “Smeraldo Garden Marching Band,” as he enters a new era in his life and art. This is not an imitation of the Beatles. It's about finding the newest version of yourself as you let go of the past and reach into the future.