The BTS leader – and a collective of some of Korea’s most exciting musicians – casts artful gold as he searches for belonging and direction 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.” 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 s.