MUSE
Jimin returns with his sophomore solo album, *MUSE*, released while the BTS vocalist and dancer was in mandatory military service. The seven-track check-in is more lighthearted and lyrical than Jimin’s debut. Where *FACE* was stormy and cathartic, an intentional effort to accept and express the darker feelings evoked by the pandemic, superstardom, and life in general, *MUSE* hews more closely to a specific, familiar theme: the search for a “good love, real love,” as Jimin calls it on “Rebirth (Intro),” and the inspiration it can bring. In lead single “Who,” an energetic, Jon Bellion-produced pop track that lets Jimin’s emotive vocals loose, the artist is on the lookout for love: “We never met but she’s all I see at night/Never met but she’s always on my mind/Wanna give her the world/And so much more/Who is my heart waiting for?” “Who” is the only *MUSE* track on which Jimin does not have a writing credit, though Ghstloop and Pdogg, two of Jimin’s frequent collaborators, do. Along with Evan, the four songwriters make up the Smeraldo Garden Marching Band, a fictional band named after a fictional flower from BTS lore. The album’s third track, a *Sgt. Pepper’s*-inspired song featuring marching-band percussion and a rap from Korean artist Loco, takes its name from the Big Hit production team. “Be Mine,” with its Spanish guitar and unabashed sensuality (“Movin\', comin\', lovin\', yeah, yeah, yeah/I want you to be mine”), feels like a spiritual successor to Jimin’s 2020 BTS solo track “Filter,” while the lilting R&B tune “Slow Dance” featuring Sofia Carson offers “a warm melody/Relax your mind to that rhythm.” The album comes to a close with “Closer Than This,” a gift to fans released after the singer left for the military in December 2023: “\'Cause anytime you want me (I\'ll be)/Right here where you call me (I\'ll be)/I could never let you go.” In *MUSE*, it’s all inspiration. Here, the search for love is not arduous, but whimsical, warm, and occasionally a bop—always a yearning worth singing about.
On his second solo studio album, 'Muse', BTS singer Jimin takes a brighter path as he searches for true romance.