Album: RM – Indigo
First came devastation: In June 2022, BTS, the biggest band on the planet, announced an indefinite hiatus. A month later, J-Hope became the first member of the septet to release a debut solo album, Jack in the Box, which charmed BTS’s fandom, ARMY, with its ambitious rap-rock. JIN released the pop-rock single “The Astronaut,” co-written by Coldplay’s Chris Martin. Jung Kook featured on an inescapable Charlie Puth bubblegum pop hit, “Left and Right.” It seemed as though, like clockwork, each member would endeavor to make a name for themselves. So where did that leave RM? BTS’s leader—known for his penchant towards the literary, artistic, innovative—had yet to release any solo material. The pressure was on: BTS was the first K-pop boy band to truly break in the West, to access the same sort of global ubiquity afforded Anglophonic boy bands, and as its frontperson, surely he’d bear the brunt of Justin Timberlake, Harry Styles, and Michael Jackson comparisons? Was the world waiting for him to step out, eclipsing the careers of others in the process? If that is the case, RM’s elected to ignore such expectation. Indigo, his debut LP and first release since the band’s break, is an experimentalist’s dream.