BTS Deep Cuts
None of these was a single. Several of them are better than the singles, and ARMY will fight about which.
12 songs · press play on any of them, no account needed
A single has to do a job: be immediate, be short, survive a radio edit. Album tracks have no such duty, which is where a band like this one gets interesting — and where every long-time ARMY has a song they will insist you have missed.
These are the ones that come up most. If you have done the singles and want to know what people actually mean when they say the albums are the point, start here.
The ones that come up in every argument
↗Whalien 52
BTS · The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2
Named for the whale that sings at a frequency no other whale can hear. A song about being surrounded by people and not reaching any of them, and the most-cited deep cut in the entire fandom.
- ↗
Butterfly
BTS · The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2
From The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2. Almost weightless, and about the fear that the good thing in front of you will turn out not to have been real.
↗Magic Shop
BTS · Love Yourself 結 'Answer'
Written by Jung Kook, addressed directly to ARMY, and built around a psychological technique for putting something painful somewhere safe. It is the song the fandom plays at itself.
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The Truth Untold (feat. Steve Aoki)
BTS · Love Yourself 結 'Answer'
Four vocalists, one piano, no rap verse, no chorus lift. Nothing else in the catalogue is this bare.
The ones that reward a second listen
↗00:00 (Zero O'Clock)
BTS · MAP OF THE SOUL : 7
The vocal line, on the idea that midnight resets the day whether or not you deserve it. Gentle, and much sadder than it first sounds.
- ↗
Louder Than Bombs
BTS · MAP OF THE SOUL : 7
Co-written with Troye Sivan. About the weight of being what a lot of people need you to be, and it does not resolve.
- ↗
Inner Child
BTS · MAP OF THE SOUL : 7
V, singing to the version of himself who had not had any of this happen yet.
↗Dis-Ease
BTS · BE
j-hope's song about not being able to rest, written during a year when nobody could work. Funk bassline, deeply unrestful lyric.
- ↗
Moon
BTS · MAP OF THE SOUL : 7
Jin, on being the moon to somebody's earth. Sounds like a straightforward pop-rock song for about two verses.
The recent ones already becoming deep cuts
↗No. 29
BTS · ARIRANG
The ARIRANG interlude, and the only track on the album RM did not write on. Two minutes, and it is what the album is about.
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Merry Go Round
BTS · ARIRANG
The one people skipped on the first pass through ARIRANG and now put in their top three.
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Please
BTS · ARIRANG
The closing track. Quiet, and it does not tie anything up.
If this is your part of the discography, the albums to sit down with are The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2 (2015), Wings (2016) and BE (2020). All three are short, sequenced deliberately, and better whole than shuffled.
And the honest disclaimer: every ARMY has a different list here and most of them are also right. If yours is missing, that is the button at the bottom of this page.
Keep this list
Turn it into a playlist you can play end to end and share, or write your own version and say why — everything here comes across, and you change whatever you disagree with.
More recommendations
- Where to Start With BTSTwelve songs, in an order that actually works. No chronology, no homework, no thirteen-year discography to get through first.Open
- BTS Songs by What You Already Listen ToBTS are not one genre and never have been. Start from whatever is already in your library.Open
- BTS Songs to Cry ToSorted by which kind of bad night it is, because "sad songs" covers about six different feelings.Open