When the final four members of BTS announced their enlistment for December of 2023, the Admin Team kicked the plans for ARMY Project 529 into full swing, planning a launch for January 1st, 2024, with our blog (writing about BTS’ discography chronologically) set to last the 529 days between then and FESTA 2025. We had no clue as we began the AP529 journey that while we fulfilled our original plan, we’d ALSO be covering a slew of NEW content and releases that the members had all prepared prior to enlisting. Some of that new content included solo songs and albums. Early 2024 brought us releases from V, j-hope, and RM. Naturally we began to speculate about the others, Jimin included, as well. He’d released FACE before the military, and then the single “Closer Than This” shortly after enlistment, but… did he have more coming out before his return?

On March 24, 2023, Park Jimin released his debut solo album, FACE. The pre-release track, “Set Me Free Pt 2” had dropped a week previously, showing all of us a VERY different Jimin from the one we were used to. This Jimin was dark—determined, and maybe a little angry? The world was really just completely shaking off the weight of the Pandemic at this point, still not quite used to living life at a normal pace again. Unable to fully move past what had happened to us all. When he began doing promotions for FACE, Jimin said several times that the album was a reflection of himself, and his personal struggles and emotions, mostly stemming from the Pandemic. It made sense—as you listen to the album, Jimin’s words seemed to echo what many of us were feeling at the time. FACE is full of contradictory emotions—frustration, anger, and intense loneliness one moment, and then liberation and a profound sense of gratitude in the next. Writing the album was how Jimin processed and overcame his struggles. Thinking back to what RM told him when he was trying to write “Promise”, he let music be his solution. This week we’ll examine what that process looked like for Jimin, and how his search for freedom led him to peer at the feelings deep within himself. His first album let him “face up” to the shit going on in his life and broke Billboard Music records at the same time.

In 2018, BTS was riding a huge wave of success, but they were also struggling to regroup after nearly disbanding at the beginning of that year. Outside, it was business as usual. There were comebacks to produce and promote and a tour to rehearse and prepare for. Inside, the members worked on reconnecting with not only each other, but their passion for being in BTS. Jimin—throughout WINGS two years prior and then in the beginning of the “Love Yourself” era—struggled extensively with imposter syndrome. Logically, he knew he had talent but he still didn’t think it was enough. That he was enough. Determined to find more he could contribute, he turned his hand to songwriting. He knew he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how to do it. So he went to RM for advice, who told him, “Music is the solution.” In other words, trust the process and just be honest. So Jimin got back to writing, defaulting quite simply to what he does best—encouraging others. When he feels lost and depressed, he reaches out to make others happy, whether it’s ARMY or his other members. Over the next few years, we’d see this play out time and time again, including throughout the Pandemic. While he often can’t see the forest through the trees, what Jimin really is to BTS (and to his fans)—more than his astronomical talent—is love. And that love is more than enough.

It was when he was in middle school that Park Jimin became interested in dance and started attending Just Dance Academy, where he learned popping and locking. He decided to audition for an entertainment company a few years later at the suggestion of a teacher at his high school. This led him to Big Hit Entertainment—he passed his auditions and joined the company in 2012. Jimin jumped into his training head first, waking up earlier and going to bed later than everyone else. It was this work ethic, which his dance teachers had noticed in him years before, that would earn him the final spot in the lineup of the group that would become Bangtan Sonyeondan. Over the years after BTS’ debut this drive would lead Jimin down a path of intense self-criticism, soul-searching, and self-realization. While he would begin his career desperate to live up to the image everyone else had of him, eventually he’d come to realize that the best person he could give to BTS and his fans was just himself…

I could start and end with just that sentence alone, and anyone who has watched this man over the last ten-plus years would agree. He's an angel on earth. A place of safety, acceptance, and pure love for many. And everyone who has been exposed to THE Park Jimin agrees that once you JimIN, you can't JimOut.