Map of the Soul 7
Persona, Shadow & Ego in the World of BTS
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Beyond summarizing the three volumes on Persona, Shadow and Ego in the Map of the Soul series, this latest book explores the entire BTS album, start to finish, revealing profound insights into the collective psyche of BTS. The title of BTS’s latest album, Map of the Soul: 7, captivates the mind with its suggestive and alluring imagery. It came as a surprise to many fans. Expected was an album that would follow upon Map of the Soul: Persona with songs about Shadow or Ego. While the new album does indeed include songs with these themes, it is much more complex and broader in vision than expected. The number 7 suggests mystery. It catches the mind’s attention with its symbolic significance. What does this number mean in relation to the idea of a “map of the soul?” This book dives into this mystery and explores the unconscious reaches of our mind. Fans of BTS from around the world will marvel at the depth of meaning in the songs contained in Map of the Soul: 7. They take the listener into deep reflection upon the meaning of striving and ambition, the dangers of worldly success, and the amazing resiliency of the human spirit to recover and go on despite the pitfalls on life’s journey. The songs themselves function as a map for souls who are setting out in life and engaging in challenging relationships. The songs are reflective, mirroring what we find within ourselves in our struggles to become and to thrive. When you stand on the threshold of a new land, it is useful to have a map as your guide. The great psychologist of the 20th Century, Carl Jung, created a Map of the Soul that many people in his time found more than a little helpful, even lifesaving. It is even more so now, for people in the 21st Century, caught in the profound complexities of modern life. Armed with this map, people are better able to find their way successfully through life’s journey. Today, BTS is putting this map into the hands of their fans. For this great service we are profoundly very grateful.
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This was a book club book, but has been on my personal list for a while. Firstly I'm glad this is out there in the world, because it does shed light on how amazing BTS' lyrics are and how they aren't just belting out love tunes, but actually thinking long and deep about the music they are making and most especially how they tied in the psychology of Carl Jung's Persona, Shadow & Ego into their personal experiences on the stunning album Map of the Soul: 7.
Having said that, I did find that the interpretations of a lot of the songs seemed off to me. Like someone who doesn't REALLY know BTS and their journey just looked at the lyrics and analyzed it to fit the psychology they wanted to share and didn't actually deep dive into the personal experience behind it. There were a number of instances where I actually completely disagreed with their conclusions.
A small example is where they were dissecting Interlude: Shadow and made the statement that the lyrics “Please don't let me shine, Don't let me down. Don't let me fly” is of being rich and fearing poverty. Sorry...what? The whole song in my opinion and of many other analyses that I have watched or read has this song being a fear of fame growing so large and high that there is only one direction you can go afterward (down) and a fear that the fame comes with all kinds of pressures, expectations and responsibilities that they never anticipated and it has all become very restrictive and is sometimes causing them to not love it in the way they used to. Now this was only one example, but there were many others that I thought weren't really quite right.
As far as the psychology part, I can't really comment on it, as I've never taken any kind of psychology course or read really anything else other than fluffy pieces online. What I can say is that I did find it very interesting and certainly found myself fitting these concepts to my own life experiences and dissecting them through that lens, which I actually did enjoy.
Overall I felt like it leaned a bit too heavily on the psychology and not as much on the BTS aspect, which is why I wanted to read it in the first place, so I'm not sure I was really satisfied with that aspect of the book.