The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the postponement of the North American leg of BTS’s Map of the Soul tour, but that hasn’t stopped the pop supergroup from keeping themselves busy.
Billboard reports that Suga, one of the group’s members and producers, has shared more details about the group’s upcoming new album. Group leader RM -- real name Kim Namjoon -- had already revealed a week ago that the group was working on new music.
On a YouTube livestream, Suga -- real name Min Yoogi -- said that the group is working on the new album and have even divided roles amongst themselves. According to the rapper-producer, there will be a member overseeing visuals, another overseeing music, and so on. Suga also teased that a video showing that process would also be released.
As reported by Metro, the revelations happened during an almost hour-long livestream where Suga started painting a picture.
This new detail about the upcoming album is the latest gift BTS fans -- known as ARMY -- have received from the group. A couple of weeks ago, the group’s agency BigHit Entertainment staged “Bang Bang Con,” a two-day streaming event that used footage from previous concerts.
“Break the Silence,” a multi-part documentary series, is also set to be released on May 12. The documentary series covers the year it took for the group to transition from their Love Yourself tour to their Speak Yourself stadium tour. The documentary series will be shown on Weverse, a proprietary app that also hosts the fourth season of the band’s “Bon Voyage” reality travel show, as well as the earlier “Bring the Soul” docu-series.
The documentary series as well as “Bang Bang Con” has been the band’s most recent moves to stay connected with the ARMY as the coronavirus pandemic makes it impossible for musical acts to tour. It is a move being replicated by other music companies, such as Warner Music, who recently held the virtual music festival PlayOn Fest for COVID-19 relief.
With cases of COVID-19 continuing to rise around the world, it looks like projects such as “Bang Bang Con” might become the new normal for the music industry. There are now 2,804,797 confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world, according to the Apr. 26 situation report provided by the World Health Organization. New cases make up 84,900 of that number. Fatalities caused by COVID-19 are at 193,710 people, with new deaths at 6,006.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update for Apr. 25 says the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States is at 928,619 people. Deaths in the United States caused by COVID-19 are now at 52,459 people.