Full disclosure: I’m not ARMY. I’m an NCTzen first and a MONBEBE second.
That said, I also enjoy the music of many other K-Pop artists. Of those, BTS is definitely in my Top 10. I first discovered them through their song “We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2” on Pandora several years ago. Later, I painstakingly collected their albums, five songs a week, through the Freegal Music library service. They made my Top Songs list every year from 2017 to 2020. Most importantly, I like and respect them, both as a group and as individuals.
I was intrigued when the group announced that they were releasing a book called Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS (with the help of author Myeongseok Kang and translators Anton Hur, Slin Jung, and Clare Richards). First off, I was curious about what a K-Pop memoir would be like. Second, the book comes directly from BTS, unlike the millions of unofficial books, magazines, and documentaries out there. Third, I figured that this would be the perfect way for me to learn more about their history since I haven’t seen most of their older content before.
So, I borrowed the physical and digital versions of the book from the library. Beyond the Story turned out to be a fun read and a thorough reference book.
The Book’s Design
First Impressions
As a rookie technical writer, I wanted to take a minute to study and admire how the book is put together. Beyond the Story is a beautiful hardback. It’s black, with turquoise-colored text on the spine for the title, silvery-green text on the back for the chapter names, and seven rainbow-colored lines streaking across the front and back sides that I’m guessing represent the members’ timelines.
A white dust cover wraps around the bottom half of the book. It’s decorated with a 3×3 grid of pictures and text. The book’s title is situated in the grid’s center square, with BTS and Mr. Kang’s names in the square to its left. The rest of the grid is populated by small headshots of the BTS members. They look very angelic against the white backgrounds. RM’s photo is in the top left corner and everyone else goes clockwise from oldest to youngest through the top row, down the right side, and across the bottom.
Meanwhile, the back of the dust cover features the book’s description, the front inside flap has short bios for Mr. Kang and BTS, and the back inside flap has small QR codes for BTS’s official sites and social media accounts.
The Text Elements
The book creatively uses QR codes throughout the text to direct the reader to specific videos and websites. All I had to do was point my phone’s camera at the code and a link would magically unfurl on the screen for me to tap. Following along with these QR codes while reading is fun, almost like taking a guided tour through a BTS museum.
Within the text, the QR codes are formatted like footnotes. Small dots (up to three) appear next to the key word for the link and are paired with a QR code located in the left, bottom corner of the page that has the same number of dots above it. The dots are a light shade of purple (of course!) that I’m going to call periwinkle. Even though the dots are a tad too small and often disappear behind the quotation marks, this QR code system is very efficient. Print books usually just list shortened URLs that you have to manually enter on a device, which is tedious and easy to mess up.
There’s a consistent formatting system for quotes and other kinds of notes too. Regular footnotes use periwinkle superscript numbers that direct you to the corresponding comment, which is separated from the rest of the text with a line break at the bottom of the page (also done in periwinkle). The text for direct quotes from the BTS members are indented, set off with an em dash, and gray. Translated song lyrics are periwinkle, italicized, and center aligned.
Lastly, there are numerous pages scattered through the book that bear nothing but a short quote from one of the members from the preceding pages. The entire page is periwinkle and the text is white. These pages function like pull-quotes do in an essay or blog post: they amplify an important or poignant statement while giving the reader a brief rest from the text.
The Visual Elements
Beyond the Story includes plenty of full-color, standard definition photos. Each member gets three headshots at the beginning of the book in the same style as the ones on the cover, only bigger. The shots are labeled with their stage and birth names written in English and Hangul. Additionally, there are several two-page spreads of the group concept photos for each era at the beginning of each section.
The standout features in my opinion are the album overview pages. Each BTS album and EP has a Wiki-like graphic that features information like the cover art, original release date, track listing (including hidden tracks and digital-only songs), and QR codes for its associated music videos and other special content. These pages usually appear just as the group discusses the album rather than bundled together in one location. I found them to be very useful in helping me determine which songs I’m missing. I imagine they could be similarly helpful to others, especially new fans.
The book ends with a four-page timeline of BTS’ major milestones from 2013-2023. Each entry is marked with a symbol that tells you what it represents. While there’s no key for the symbols, they’re easy enough to decipher. For example, a diamond represents an award won on a major awards show, a darkened circle with a hole in the middle represents an album release, and the BTS logo represents a fandom-related event. The entire timeline is accented in—you guessed it—periwinkle.
The e-Book Version
Naturally, I had to take a quick gander at the e-Book version of Beyond the Story too, which I read through the Libby app on my iPad mini and phone. You’ll be pleased to know that it is largely the same as the hardback version, with minor changes made to accommodate the digital format.
For starters, the e-Book ditches the QR codes altogether except on the album overview pages (which are actually image files). Instead, it uses tappable, lowercase superscript letters that lead to a list of shortened hyperlinks at the end of each chapter. This is a reasonable change. It would be difficult to use a QR code if you’re reading the book on a phone.
The footnotes are similarly reformatted. They’re still represented by numbered superscript links, but instead of being at the bottom of the page, they point to a Notes section at the back of the book. That’s pretty much the standard way that digital books handle footnotes.
Lastly, the photo spreads no longer span two pages. They’re much smaller and stacked, so that they fit on one or two pages. This was most likely done to keep the file size down to 80 MB. Likewise, all of the color accents and symbols in the timeline are gone.
The Book’s Content
Overview
Beyond The Story, whose title continues the running theme of the “BTS” acronym taking on multiple meanings over the years, has 496 pages that are split into seven chapters (wink wink). If you’ve ever watched a documentary-type show like Dateline or 20/20, you’ll recognize the format: Mr. Kang frames the situation at hand with some background information, then he weaves in quotes from BTS to add more details and context as he fleshes out the story.
It’s very accessible to both K-Pop newbies and full-blown ARMY. Between the extras, general tidbits about music shows and chart calculations, and occasional explanations of inside jokes (like the “Dumpling Incident”), every reader should have everything they need to dive right in.
And it should go without saying—the book’s primary focus is the whole group. It does, however, briefly mention some of the members’ solo activities, such as j-hope and Suga’s mixtapes Hope World and Agust D respectively (Chapter 6 “The World of BTS”) and V’s acting role in the Hwarang K-Drama (Chapter 4 “Inside Out”).
Laying the Foundation
I learned lots about BTS that I didn’t know before. The most interesting discovery for me is how deeply they studied rap. Jimin says that they were “indoctrinated into the hip-hop mindset” by RM. They listened to a wide spectrum of hits and even worked directly with a few famous rappers (I need to watch that content next). I appreciate that they made the effort to truly understand rap’s roots, especially the members who admit they weren’t initially into the genre. They treated it like a serious art form and the respect shows.
The creative process for how they make their albums is also fascinating. For example, they talk about how each new title track has to be familiar enough that it won’t alienate the fans yet different enough to keep things fresh. Easier said than done! There’s a point where Mr. Kang mentions that RM “had to compose a staggering twenty-nine versions of the rap lyrics for [“No More Dream”].” I can’t even imagine that.
Even after all of that work, they still struggled through what they call a “sweet, bitter, sweet, bitter” cycle with their first four releases. A hit, then a dud. I couldn’t believe it! I was yelling, “Are you kidding me?! Some of my all-time favorite BTS songs are on those so-called ‘bitter’ releases!” But then I had to face the evidence sitting in my own music library: I only collected three of the ten tracks on O!RUL8, 2? and three of the fourteen songs from Dark & Wild.
The takeaway here? The myth of an artist blowing up overnight has once again been debunked. Even a group as talented as BTS didn’t hit it out of the park every time when they first started out. And that’s okay! Those failures only helped them grow and fine-tune their sound.
Going International
In the latter half of the book, BTS talks about their work outside of South Korea. I was excited to hear about their English-language songs—which weren’t written by them and were mostly released during the pandemic—and their featured Western artists.
While they had some exciting experiences, it seems like they had a lot of rough moments too. What bothered me the most was how they were treated by some of their collaborators. They speak highly of Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Becky G, but it was very disappointing to read RM’s take on the others:
“We run into several kinds of artists overseas. There’s the kind who’re like ‘Oh, you guys are famous these days, good job, I guess. Go for it,’ and seem to look down on us a little, and those who’re all business and go, ‘I really want to do a song with you!’ And there’s a third category of people who are oddly positioned between those two.”
The music industry is transactional at best and cut-throat at worst. Nothing new there. But there has to be some basic respect between the artists. BTS’s accomplishments alone should entitle them to a certain level of regard. It doesn’t hurt that they seem like nice guys either. They shouldn’t be patronized by their supposed peers or treated as lesser than because they’re a K-Pop boy band. I bet I can guess who falls into each category too.
Lastly, they touch on their Grammys snubs. Mr. Kang says in Chapter 7 (“We Are”), “In truth, BTS had hoped to win a Grammy in 2021.” And they should have! They were robbed! Of course, they handle the topic more maturely than I would have. They downplay the losses with the usual clichés like (and I’m paraphrasing here) “it’s nice to be nominated” and “we get our validation from the fans.” But the underlying disappointment comes through loud and clear anyway. RM says at one point, “It’s not like the Grammys are our friend, or anything…(laughs),” which reads like a joke used to take the sting out of a jab. They know they deserved to be recognized for their hard work, but instead, they were used and discarded. Again.
Personally, I still have my fingers crossed that BTS will get that Grammy one day. One way or another.
Controversies and Criticisms
K-Pop acts have to be very careful about rehashing certain things. Most prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak. Not BTS. They don’t shy away from discussing the group’s past issues and missteps, even when Mr. Kang gives them the option to do so. This is a big deal. Some of the incidents they get into include B-Free’s insults (Chapter 2 “Diss”) and their misogynistic lyrics scandal (Chapter 3 “Love, Hate, Army”).
Mr. Kang generally glosses over the incidents themselves. With the B-Free situation, for instance, he says, “As the recording may be found with a quick YouTube search, it will not be reproduced here.” I often did have to google the incidents for more details, having never heard of most of them before. This is the best approach, though. What happened isn’t as important as how the incident affected them, what they learned from it, and how they bounced back. Are there other incidents that I wish they had discussed? Absolutely, but it is what it is.
I did not expect them to bring up one particular subject: their vocals. Now, I often see brave haters dragging BTS’s vocal line (except for Jung Kook) on social media, saying they can’t sing and whatnot. Mr. Kang frames such criticism as a misunderstanding of BTS’s deliberate musical choices, saying that “the absence of the spectacular high notes that decorated other idol songs made it seem as though BTS’s vocal capabilities were not up to par.”
Jimin, however, is more direct on the subject when he speaks about their experiences in the music show green rooms as rookies in Chapter 2. He says, “There was a clear difference in our team’s and the other singers’ vocals…” and “It wasn’t just me, I think V and Jin also felt an inadequacy in their respective vocal skills.” Not only does he make it clear that they’re aware of what people are saying about them, but he also admits how much these comments hurt.
It takes true professionals to acknowledge their perceived weaknesses and work through them. Maybe their vocal line isn’t as technically strong as, say, the “holy trinity” that is Chen, D.O, and Baekhyun of EXO, or the magical one-two punch that was Jonghyun (RIP) and Onew of SHINee. So what? Very few groups, past or present, can compete in that arena. No shame, no shade. A lack of power doesn’t make BTS bad singers, in my opinion. I still enjoy their voices.
And let’s be fair—there are groups out there right now whose vocal lines are much weaker than BTS’s.
Conclusion
Definitely pick up Beyond the Story! I’m pleased with the amount of thought put into the book’s packaging. It’s a simple yet elegant collectible that I would love to have on my own bookshelf one day.
Moreover, Mr. Kang does a great job of helping BTS present their history. He balances out being respectful of the group while remaining (mostly) impartial. There are so many raw moments where I genuinely felt bad for the members. They have dealt with so much loneliness, self-doubt, and stress. Someone was seemingly always on the verge of quitting. It can be hard to read. But it’s important to see that despite the money and fame, they are real people with trials and tribulations to overcome.
I’ll be waiting for a second volume in ten years.