Five things we learned from Jimin of BTS’ new documentary ‘Jimin’s Production Diary’
Back in March, Jimin released his debut solo album ‘FACE’ and made history with ‘Like Crazy’, becoming the first South Korean soloist to score a Billboard Hot 100 Number One. It was an impressive start to the singer’s solo chapter, especially given he had only previously worked on a handful of his own songs outside of BTS.
Like his BTS bandmates J-hope and Suga before him, his solo debut is now the subject of a new documentary, Jimin’s Production Diary, which captures the making-of process of the record, from its very beginnings to taxing days and nights trying to perfect it and reflecting on the album at its end. Here are five things we learned about Jimin’s approach and the making of ‘FACE’ from Jimin’s Production Diary.
‘FACE’ was made without much of a plan
Sometimes an artist knows exactly what they want to make when beginning work on a record, and sometimes their vision begins to take shape as they experiment and play around. The latter was true for Jimin on ‘FACE’ and Jimin’s Production Diary shows him and his production team coming up with the ideas that turn into the album’s final songs from pressing keys and buttons. ‘Face-off’, in particular, starts life like that, with Jimin jokingly playing a chord sequence he says he used to do “with friends when I was young”.
Jimin is always dancing or pacing around while working on music
Throughout the documentary, it’s rare to see Jimin sitting still. Instead, the singer is often either dancing around to the sounds he and the team are creating, or pacing around the room as he tries to think of lyrics. “I’m like this every day,” he shares with his collaborators. “When I am alone at home too, I walk around the sofa. I walk around while on the phone.”
RM offered his thoughts on how Jimin should approach the story behind the album
RM worked with Jimin on ‘Like Crazy’ but the BTS leader didn’t just contribute lyrics or musical ideas. In the film, we see him sitting in P.Dogg’s apartment and giving Jimin advice on what he needs to think about when writing songs. “For me, it’s about the intention of the song,” RM explains. “I think that you shouldn’t focus on just writing the lyrics, but it will be much better to work on your narrative.” Prompts he offers include why Jimin wrote the song and what he wants to tell his listeners.
P.Dogg inspired the idea to put dialogue in ‘Like Crazy’
‘Like Crazy’ opens with a moment of dialogue between a man and a woman and, in Jimin’s Production Diary, we see that idea being sparked in the studio. Producer P.Dogg tells the singer: “If there’s a good line from a movie, I want to just use that – I think it will feel awesome to have a conversation between a woman and a man.” Taking his cue, Jimin immediately suggests Like Crazy and the team add in a snippet of conversation from the movie before replacing it with the final dialogue.
The most emotional part of ‘Alone’ wasn’t recorded how you might expect
When you picture any song being recorded, it’s likely with the singer standing up in a vocal booth, singing into a mic behind a pop shield. For the most emotional part of ‘Alone’, though, Jimin took a different approach. The documentary shows the BTS singer recording multiple takes crouching down on the floor of a room in P.Dogg’s apartment, lowering his body as he lowers his voice and spirit to match the words he’s singing.
Jimin’s Production Diary is available on Weverse
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Rhian Daly
NME
