BTS Announce New Comeback Album ‘Map of the Soul: 7’

K-pop sensations BTS have announced a new comeback album arriving 21 February, titled Map of the Soul: 7 via Big Hit Entertainment.

The band confirmed the album’s details on Twitter today, with pre-orders starting this Thursday, 9 January. Map of the Soul: 7 marks the band’s first full-length album since dropping their record-breaking Map of the Soul: Persona, more than 10 months ago which featured contributions from pop singer Halsey (‘Boy With Luv’) and a co-write from Ed Sheeran (‘Make It Right”)’.

Upon announcement, #7isComing became the highest-trending global topic on Twitter.

The group also released a companion album for their mobile game, titled BTS World: Original Soundtrack earlier in 2019, and rang in the new year with a performance on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve event in Times Square.

The album’s title Map of the Soul: 7 could refer the number of BTS members or their time together as a group (seven years), as fans have been speculating.

The past year has been a transformative one for BTS and the global music scene in general, as BTS was one of the first K-pop bands to truly break the US (and UK) market. They became the first Korean act to score a No.1 UK album, the first to perform on SNL and present at the Grammy Awards and cracked the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, including the Nicki Minaj collaboration, ‘Idol’. They also broke numerous Youtube records, when ‘Boy With Luv’ surpassed the record for the biggest 24-hour debut after the video amassed 74.6 million views in one day.

Last year, BTS’s Map of the Soul: Persona sold a remarkable 2.685 million pre-orders in its first five days of release, so expectations are high for the follow-up, Map of the Soul: 7, which will kick off the boy band’s biggest year yet.

Listen to the best of BTS on Apple Music and Spotify.

Format: UK English