Why BTS RM’s album Right Place, Wrong Person is on an award-winning spree: A dive into rage, wreckage and discovery

BTS’ RM’s Indigo was a series of poetic reflections. It was many things. The crushing weight of fame. Changing, growing, feeling lost and trapped within invisible webs.  It’s a restless search for answers—and sometimes the search only leads to more questions.

In other words, Indigo, ‘the archive’ of his twenties holds up the mirror to those particular years, of just trying to find yourself, before…well, losing yourself.

And then, came Right Place, Wrong Person, which continues to rack up all the awards, answers the question, if you could hear and see what the inner workings of your mind—what would it be like? Almost as if someone has just written diary entries without any sort of reservations, RPWP is a stark contrast from the introspective Indigo. 

If Indigo is an insight into who RM is and where he wants to go in life, then RPWP shows the mess, the disorganised chaos in him—which is just as poetic. It’s the idea that things have to unravel before they get better, and we’re thrown into different parts of RM’s mind, the lost, the confused, the angry, and the wistful. Moreover, it’s deeply experimental and stands testament to his evolution as an artist, evident in his lyricism, varying use of distorted psychedelic beats and funk bass, and raging guitar riffs. 

While Indigo was carefully constructed reflections, RPWP brings out the unfiltered, raw thoughts that are believed to be hidden in the recesses of his mind. It’s brilliantly unpredictable, takes potshots whenever necessary and he makes it clear in the first half of this 11-track album.

The thoughts spin in circles—what could have been, what isn’t—before coming to a rest. In the end, we see not just RM, but fragments of Kim Nam-joon, the man behind BTS.

The rage and the fragility of being RM

He is glad to not be conform to monumental expectations; he is tired of doing so. He knows he could be the one to hold it all together—but he doesn’t want to anymore.

But why? There’s a reason behind the nuanced cynicism. BTS ARMY has often tagged a catchphrase to the band, 'BTS paved the way', indicating that they opened the doors for Korean music abroad. It's an honourable compliment, overwhelming one at that and while RM, the leader, accepts it with more flair and punch now, the weight of the statement bears heavily on him.

It's a lot to deal with.

The weight of a country’s expectations, along with fanbase that increases by millions, every day. And then there were, and are the trolls, haters, and the cold glares of scrutiny. This career trajectory is also associated with the loss of an actual adolescence; everything was and is, now for the cameras, rehearsals and interviews.

And so, for most of his artist life, RM channeled this frustration, grief, rage into his songs. Some were provocative, unbridled fury like Joke and later Ddaeng.

But the fame didn't stop. It's a blessing and a curse. And sometimes, the pressure was crushing him into the ground, making him and the group mechanical with their music as he mentioned in the emotional BTS 2022 Festa, where he expressed the need for a break, which was later followed by mandatory military service. 

RPWP captures these fluctuations of emotions, and reflects his statement ‘I’m the icon of ups and downs’ In the song Groin, he takes a cue from bandmate Suga and quotes him: Whenever I feel like I’m going to crash, I’ll step on the gas. The song is unfiltered RM—whatever he says politely and eloquently in interviews about carrying the staggering weight of expectations, to the point being the face of South Kora’s cultural scene—he spits out angrily, I’m not a diplomat in the song. What makes this song even more special is that it returns RM of the old days to us—the witty wordplay, and the sardonic hard truths. 

LOST

RM had warned before the album released: Listen to it in order. And it’s clear why. The album begins with his conflicted sense of self, where intrusive thoughts tend to win, till we get to the more upbeat songs, Lost, and Heaven, which still carry the weight of his melancholy thoughts. LOST contains multitudes of meanings, along with a rather layered video that has led to endless discussion and interpretations. In Lost, RM says cheerfully that he is lost, and that ‘he has never been to the club’ before. Yet, despite the weight of these words, which indicate that stardom took most of these chances away, RM seems to have edged closer to peace than he was, before. 

But, what is peace anyway?

And finally, we end with Come Back To Me,  a quiet crooning track, where he finally accepts his journey. Maybe, it’s the closest to peace he gets.