When NME met RM before the release of his debut solo album ‘Indigo’ in 2022, he appeared to be in a period of reflection – wondering what his life would be like if he’d chosen another path, trying to figure out who he was at 29 as someone who had spent his whole adult life at varying levels of superstardom. “I felt like if there’s an artwork of my 29[th year], it should be named ‘Untitled’, because nothing is decided,” he explained at the time. “I don’t know what to do right now – I just made some album and this is me. I’m just figuring it out.”
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That’s a feeling that the BTS leader continues on his second solo album, ‘Right Place, Wrong Person’. If ‘Indigo’ began to untangle the web of RM’s life, who he is and where he wants to go next, then this new record picks things up at a point where the unravelled threads are piling up and spinning chaotic new mazes. Sometimes things have to get messier before they can be cleared up and, here, we’re thrown into the eye of the storm of confusion and feeling out of place.
The idea of right and wrong and being caught with one foot in each permeates the whole album. “Right people in wrong place,” its creator mutters in a low, hypnotic voice, the line taking on a doomy mantra feel in a mesh of ominous synths and bass. A track later, on ‘Nuts’, RM suggests, “I can make this right place for you” – a kind gesture on the face of things, but one that, beneath its surface, hints that all is not at its ideal peak at present.
If you spend your life waiting for everything to be just perfect, though, you’ll be waiting a long time for a satisfaction that will never come. It’s a lesson that the rapper seems to become aware of in the album’s second half when he begins to embrace life’s imperfections as something to cherish. On the shoegazey ‘Heaven’, he invites someone to “come ruin my vibe”, seemingly confident that he’ll be fine even if they take him up on the challenge.
‘LOST!’, meanwhile, takes active pleasure in not knowing where you’re going in life and trying to find your way in new experiences. “I’m goddamn lost,” RM sings cheerfully over the track’s bouncy bassline. “I never been to club before / I hit the club / I never felt so free before.” Later in the song, he looks “up in the sky / I see silver cloud”, a piece of imagery that could have different interpretations – is it a silver cloud of rain, about to unleash a downpour, or more of a silver lining?
The final line of ‘Right Place, Wrong Person’ feels like an emphatic confirmation that, although RM might not have found all the answers to his questions, he’s at least ready to draw the conclusion that the boundary between right and wrong is more blurred than the world would have you believe. “You are my pain, divine, divine,” he shares on ‘Come Back To Me’, accepting that life’s negative experiences can be just as beautiful as the positive.
On his journey to get to this point, the rapper takes us through an exhilarating run of emotions. ‘Nuts’, which deals with the dissatisfaction that can spring up through relationships, is disorientating in its constantly morphing phases, never letting you get fully comfortable in one before switching up again. RM also seemingly let out his rage at critics on ‘Out Of Love’. “All you strangers, you did think you can please me?” he sneers. “Smoking kills, I know / It’s my fucking business / You bitches stop, don’t talk shit.”
‘Groin’ is similarly acerbic and abrasive, if delivered in a more lighthearted tone. “Get your ass outta trunk / Your face, I’m like, ‘Fuck, bitch!’” he chants, gleeful in his scorn. On the flip side, the bitesize ‘ㅠㅠ (Credit Roll)’ is filled with gratitude and ‘Domodachi’ forms an ode to being with friends. “We’re just here for a good time every day,” guest rapper Little Simz illustrates on the latter. “I’ve got my broski’s back til the end / You can’t put one hand on my friend.”
Other features on the albums include Jazz duo DOMi & JD BECK on ‘? (Interlude)’ and Moses Sumney’s sonorous, rich voice on ‘Around The World In A Day’. Though, at its core, ‘Right Place, Wrong Person’ is a team effort. RM formed a group of musicians around him in the making of it, led by Balming Tiger‘s creative director San Yawn. Among them are some of South Korea’s most exciting and interesting artists, from Silica Gel’s Kim Hanjoo to solo artist Marldn, singer and producer Mokyo to HYUKOH’s OHHYUK.
BTS’ RM. Credit: Big Hit Music
Together, the collective have crafted an album that is nothing short of electric. Its often discordant layers viscerally reflect the album’s emotions of feeling out of place and its eventual message of the beauty in life’s imperfections, while it never seems to run out of ideas – whether across the whole record or in each individual song. It’s an album that rewards repeat and close listens, each track full of little details that elevate each go round
It’s not just the sounds on ‘Right Place, Wrong Person’ that capture this idea of good things coming out of the bad, but the whole album’s existence. It’s a gorgeous, intriguing, artful record that would likely not have come to be had RM not experienced – and then interrogated – these feelings of confusion and being out of place, and a perfectly imperfect reminder that life and love, right and wrong, is never just black and white.
Details
Release date: May 24, 2024
Record label: Big Hit Music
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