K-pop fans celebrate BTS's return from military service. What you need to know

The main event in modern music was the return to the stage of the most famous K-pop group in the world, BTS. A South Korean boy band has released a new album for the first time in four years and will hold a free concert that will attract more than a quarter of a million listeners. The long break was due to the service in the army, which her artists had to go through. Why the return of BTS will become one of the main cultural events of the year and what explains the phenomenon of their popularity is in the Izvestia article.

The return of BTS

• For the world of pop music, one of the main events of 2026 will be the return to the stage of the South Korean band BTS, the most popular boy band in the history of K-pop. The band of seven vocalists and rappers has not performed or released new songs for four years due to a break from military service for almost the entire band. After demobilization, they reunited, and now the band once again intends to become one of the main actors of modern music.

• BTS's comeback began with the release of Arirang's fifth studio album. It is named after a Korean folk song included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. The musicians started recording in the summer of 2025 and by November had completed a record of 14 songs, of which Swim was chosen as the main hit. Over 20 million people watched her video on YouTube in the first ten hours.

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• Arirang's album premiered on March 20, and the very next day, BTS scheduled a grand free concert in support of it. The band will perform songs from the new album at Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul. It is expected that the first live performance in four years will gather 260 thousand people, which will be the largest event in South Korea since the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The country's finance minister, Koo Yun Chol, said that BTS's performance would bring "trillions of won" to the republic's economy (1 trillion won is equal to $667 million — Ed.). The concert will take place despite the fact that two days before it, BTS leader RM injured his ankle and will not be able to perform all the dance numbers.

• Shortly after the free concert, BTS will release a documentary about their comeback and begin a world tour that will last almost an entire year. The band will perform 82 concerts in 23 countries around the world, and a special feature of the tour will be a performance on a 360-degree rotating stage. BTS sold out 2.4 million tickets in North America and Europe within hours of opening sales. The band is expected to earn $2.4 billion and surpass Taylor Swift's record for the most profitable concert tour. The excitement surrounding BTS's return led even Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to write a letter to South Korean leader Lee Jae-myung asking him to hold more concerts in her country.

What else is BTS known for

• BTS traces its history back to 2010, when the Big Hit label began forming a hip-hop group around the famous Seoul rapper RM. Soon it transformed into a boy band, which was supposed to perform in the K-pop genre. The name BTS was originally an abbreviation of a phrase that translates from Korean as "Bulletproof Boy Scouts", but later became deciphered from English as Beyond The Scene.

• Since the band's founding, they have been rehearsing and creating material for three years before they started performing and recording in 2013. From the very beginning, the BTS producers gave the band members a certain creative freedom and the opportunity to choose their own song themes, which set them apart from other K-pop bands that are completely production projects. This gave BTS a boost in popularity, which grew rapidly during the 2010s. By 2022, the group had become the leader of the "Korean Wave," a global interest in South Korean pop culture.

• Despite record record sales and earnings from concert tours, in 2022 BTS announced the suspension of musical activities so that the band members could complete their mandatory 18-month military service. Six musicians served in the army of the Republic of Korea, and another completed alternative service as a social worker. Some of the group's members served in the immediate vicinity of the border with the DPRK.

The K-pop phenomenon

• BTS's return to the stage will reignite interest in K-pop itself, which is no longer so much a genre of music as an entire musical subculture. In many aspects, K-pop can be contrasted with Western standards of music, which has made it a special phenomenon that has achieved global recognition.

• K-pop artists have a special approach to launching a career. Future singers and dancers are selected through production agencies and have been undergoing years of targeted training since adolescence to become a member of a popular band. They must not only masterfully sing and dance, but also learn English and East Asian languages, master acting skills and learn how to communicate with fans. Long, grueling training sessions later become part of the performer's story of overcoming on the path to fame and arouse sympathy among listeners.

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Musically, K-pop is a hybrid genre that has incorporated many components typical of modern pop music, such as electronic music, rhythmic, and hip-hop elements. This is done in order to make the genre "global" and easily recognizable to any listener, even if the songs are performed in Korean. K-pop also pays special attention to the visual component. He became famous in many ways because of the most complex synchronized choreography, which all vocalists and rappers certainly master. The appearance of the artists is also carefully thought out and must meet certain standards that are recognizable to the public. K-pop artists have thoughtful and diverse images within the same group that attract a wider mass of fans.

• K-pop culture is also characterized by a deeper involvement of fans, who cultivate the illusion of intimacy with their idols. Performers spend much more time than their Western counterparts communicating with the audience, holding social events, running social networks and participating in streams. Entire fan communities are organized around the most popular performers, whose membership may be more valuable to fans than the music performed by the artists. The success of K-pop is explained not so much by artistic reasons as by psychological ones, as this genre gives a deep sense of belonging to large groups of listeners.