Dark & Wild

In August 2014 BTS released their first full studio album, Dark & Wild, closing out their earliest period with one of their rawest and sharpest releases yet. If the previous albums brought rebellion and first infatuation, this one dug deeper, into the darker, more painful side of young love. Even the album's own motto, the thought that love hurts and makes you dark and wild, reveals its tone.

As their first full album, Dark & Wild gave the group room to show the full breadth of their sound. Across fourteen tracks it moved from fierce hip hop to more emotional moments, and production wise it was more ambitious than anything before it. The title track Danger speaks of the insecurity and frustration of a relationship in which feelings aren't returned equally, while War of Hormone brings a raw, almost reckless energy of youthful infatuation and longing.

What makes this album special is its honesty about the harder sides of love. Instead of idealized romance, BTS spoke about jealousy, confusion and pain, about feelings young people genuinely go through but rarely hear sung about. It was a bold move, one that presented the group as more mature and more complex than before.

Although Dark & Wild didn't bring major awards at the time of its release, it was an important step in their development, since it rounded off the so called school era and signaled the transition toward what would come next. Already in it you can sense a group ready to step into a new, more mature chapter, the one that would follow with the era about the most beautiful moments in life.

For fans, Dark & Wild has remained special as their first true album and as a kind of bridge between their rebellious beginnings and the artistic maturity still to come. In it you can hear a group growing up, unafraid to show both its darkness and its wildness, and drawing its strength precisely from those contradictions.