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BTS MAP OF THE SOUL : 7: ON, Black Swan and Seven Years Together

Published: 2026-11-06

• Category: Album guide
• Artist: BTS

KPOP NO1 Editorial · Sources checked November 6, 2026

Seven members, seven years. MAP OF THE SOUL : 7, BTS's fourth studio album, came out on February 21, 2020, and the number in its title points both ways. It looks back on the years since the seven members debuted as one team, and it was BTS's fourth straight No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

It's a long album, with 19 songs on BIGHIT's official list. Here's the idea behind it, the two lead songs to start with, the trailers that set it up and the official videos to open.

Black Swan, the song that came first

Black Swan came out before the album as an early-release track, and BTS paired it with an art project. The 'Black Swan' Art Film is a modern dance interpretation of the song, performed by MN Dance Company. It went up on January 17, 2020.

BIGHIT ties the film to a wider aim for the era: bridging fine art and popular art. The same push included CONNECT, BTS, a global art project. BIGHIT album page

The Black Swan music video with the members came later, on March 5, 2020 (Korean time). Watch the art film first, then the MV, and compare how each one shows the same song.

Archival photo: BTS at Wembley Stadium, London, June 2, 2019, during the Love Yourself: Speak Yourself tour, about eight months before MAP OF THE SOUL : 7. Credit: NenehTrainer, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0. Linked from Wikimedia Commons at a smaller size; no other edits by KPOP NO.1.

Shadow and Ego: the two trailers

The album's two comeback trailers bookend the idea. Interlude : Shadow came first, on January 10, 2020 (Korean time).

Outro : Ego followed on February 3. It's the last song on the album.

Our take: the two titles frame the album. Shadow is where the new songs begin (track 6), and Ego is where the album ends. Watch the two trailers back to back before you hear the album.

The 19 songs

Here's the official running order, with lengths from BIGHIT's album page. BIGHIT album page

The first five songs all come from MAP OF THE SOUL : PERSONA, from "Intro : Persona" through "Dionysus." PERSONA album page So the album literally starts where the series started, then moves into new songs with "Interlude : Shadow."

The new material runs from track 6 to track 19. We are Bulletproof : the Eternal, track 18, also got its own music video, listed on BIGHIT's album page.

A fourth No. 1 in less than two years

MAP OF THE SOUL : 7 debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 422,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending February 27, 2020. Of those, 347,000 were album sales. It was the biggest week of 2020 for any release in the U.S. up to that point. Yonhap via The Korea Times

Streaming added up too: the album was streamed on demand 74.79 million times in its first week.

It was BTS's fourth Billboard 200 No. 1 in a row, in less than two years. The run began in May 2018 with LOVE YOURSELF 轉 'Tear', then LOVE YOURSELF 結 'Answer' (September 2018) and MAP OF THE SOUL : PERSONA (April 2019). Billboard said the only band to get four No. 1 albums faster was the Beatles. MAP OF THE SOUL : 7 was also the 10th non-English album to top the chart.

Official MAP OF THE SOUL : 7 videos

Dates are the YouTube publication dates in Korean time.

Keep exploring

Want the chapter before this one? Our MAP OF THE SOUL : PERSONA guide covers the first part of the series. The LOVE YOURSELF 轉 'Tear' guide goes back to BTS's first Billboard 200 No. 1.

Nine months later came BE, made during the pandemic. Read the BE guide next.

New to BTS? Start with the BTS starter guide.

Sources

• BIGHIT MUSIC, MAP OF THE SOUL : 7 album page and MAP OF THE SOUL : PERSONA album page
• Yonhap via The Korea Times, "BTS rocks New York's Grand Central with debut performance of 'ON'," February 25, 2020
• Yonhap via The Korea Times, "BTS' 'Map of the Soul: 7' tops Billboard 200 album chart," March 2, 2020
• Official YouTube channel: HYBE LABELS