Take Off Your Clown Noses, ARMYs: RM Confirmed A Major Album Title Theory

The BTS ARMY can't stop replaying BTS' new Map of the Soul: 7 album. With lyrics referencing the group's early days, the album serves as a reflection on BTS' seven years together — hence the title. While ARMYs appreciate the meaning behind the album, it took a while for them to get used to its title because they initially thought it was going to be something totally different. However, RM's comments about BTS' MOTS: 7 delay prove ARMYs were on the right track.

On Feb. 23, BTS held a global press conference to discuss MOTS: 7, which dropped on Friday, Feb. 21. To kick off their chat, Jin discussed what message the group is sending with the album.

"Map of the Soul: 7 is an album that looks back at the seven years spent by the seven members as a team," Jin said, according to a translation by Soompi. "In this new album, we wanted to deal with different things such as our experiences that brought us here and the candid emotions we feel in the moment. It reveals our deep inner selves that we had wanted to hide, and at the same time, we are confessing our discovery that these are also our true selves."

RM then addressed a topic that's been on everyone's mind since BTS announced MOTS:7 on Jan. 7: the album title. After BTS dropped Map of the Soul: Persona in April 2019, fans believed the group's next two albums were going to be Map of the Soul: Shadow and Map of the Soul: Ego. This theory was all thanks to RM's "Intro: Persona" comeback trailer, which featured a chalkboard with the words "Persona," "Shadow," and "Ego" written repeatedly in that order.

When BTS announced MOTS: 7, fans made jokes about their theories being totally off, especially since "Shadow" turned out to be Suga's MOTS:7 solo song, and "Ego" turned out to be J-Hope's solo song. However, during BTS' press conference, RM revealed "Shadow" and "Ego" were actually supposed to be on two separate albums, but that all changed due to BTS' extended break they took last summer.

"Because Map of the Soul: 7 was our first comeback in 10 months, we wanted to share a story of higher quality, so we came up with the idea of combining Shadow and Ego," RM said.

Watch RM explain the title change below.

After the press conference, ARMYs couldn't believe their theories about BTS' album titles were right after all.

However, it also left them with a few burning questions, like what songs would have made each album, and what the other title track would have been.

The truth is ARMYs can never anticipate BTS' next move, and that's what makes their comebacks so exciting.