BTS go Disco with "Dynamite"

BTS are back (did they ever leave?) with their song "Dynamite". Marking their first all English release, which was only a matter of time following their mammoth success in the US. The sound is very of the time, with it being a straight-up Disco cut, which is the sound of the moment in both the US and the UK. But the switch doesn't feel wholly contrived due to BTS having skirted to Disco adjacent sounds such as funk with"Could You Turn Off Your Cell Phone" and "Look Here", and going full Pop with "Boy With Luv". The latter of which feels like it has a greater connection to the visuals of "Dynamite", with both videos looking like they're set in the same world or universe.

BTS Cinematic Universe?

Bitch, maybe.

The song is cute. But I struggled to make out what was being sung during the verses because of the diction and then the auto-tune slapped over the chorus. It's like BoA's English album situation all over again, with auto-tune being used as a necessity rather than a stylistic choice to make the song sound better. This logic is so wild to me. I don't know what it is about producers using auto-tune on the premise that it can make not-so-perfect English sound better. Because it doesn't. If a vocal take doesn't have good diction, then auto-tune won't magically correct it. And when you're stacking those vocals, it can sound real muddy and incoherent, which is exactly what happened with "Dynamite", half the songs on BoA's album, and some of Namie's shit when she started singing in English. I don't see the point in making an artist sing in English if you're going to throw effects on their vocals to such a point that it can't be understood.

"Dynamite" would have been better served if the vocal producers had spent more time with BTS on their diction and actually produced and arranged the vocals in a way which made them easier to make out. From the offset I was thinking about how I'd rather hear the song in Korean, because there's a high likelihood that the vocals would have been produced differently. 'But can you even speak Korean?! If you can't understand it anyway, what difference would it make!?' There's a huge difference between not being able to make out what's being sung because of how something is being sung and how the vocal has been produced, versus not understanding something because it's in a different language.

I can also smell a remix featuring US Pop star on the horizon. Ain't no way BTS is gonna drop their first English language song and not hook up a guest feature down the line. I vote Katy Perry. The sound of "Dynamite". The look of the music video. She would suit it down to a tee.