The Guardian ranks BTS’s 20 best songs

The Guardian’s culture section published a ranked list of BTS’s 20 best songs, placing "Spring Day" at number one and "No More Dream" at number 20. The piece describes "Spring Day" as the group’s definitive heartfelt ballad, initially inspired by the 2014 Sewol ferry tragedy; the article notes the video contains visual references to the disaster and that the song’s rapped verses read closer to impassioned spoken word than hip-hop swagger.

At number two the list gives "Blood Sweat and Tears" as an example of BTS absorbing contemporary influences, citing moombahton dembow rhythms. Number three, "I Need U," is called the song that turned BTS into K-pop’s biggest stars, still rooted in hip-hop but more pastel-toned, with lyrics rendered in the piece as "I can't take it!

I don't give a shit!" The list also highlights "Boy With Luv" (featuring Halsey) as light, bubblegum pop and links it to the album Map of the Soul: Persona, which the piece says was allegedly based on Murray Stein's book. The article notes several commercial milestones: "Dynamite" is described as the first US No 1 single by a South Korean band and was apparently intended as a corrective to the Covid pandemic; "Butter" was made to be, in Jimin's words, "easy to listen to" with 1980s-inspired funk; and a Steve Aoki remix of "Mic Drop" gave BTS their first US Top 30 hit and breached the UK charts.

It also records that "Burning Up (Fire)" was the first BTS track to top Billboard’s global digital sales chart.

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