Alisopur fellowship Dimapur

K-pop superstars BTS released their new album “Map of the Soul: 7” Friday, breaking records even before it came out as the country’s most pre-ordered album ever and its lead single making its debut on video app TikTok. BTS -- or Bangtan Sonyeondan, which translates as Bulletproof Boy Scouts -- have gained a huge global following, becoming the first K-pop group to top charts in the US and Britain with a string of sold-out shows in Los Angeles, Paris and London’s Wembley Stadium.

Their latest effort was given a simultaneous worldwide release online at 6 pm South Korean time (0900 GMT).

Just 30 minutes later, the video for its lead single “ON” -- a song about the artists’ aspirations and sense of purpose -- had been viewed by nearly half a million fans on YouTube, with more than 134,000 comments.

“We’ve voluntarily entered this beautiful prison,” the song’s lyrics read. “Even when we fall, we rise again, as we always have.”

T h e h a s h t a g #BTSComeback2020 trended following the release, as well as #WeONWithBTS, with fans posting videos of themselves in tears after listening to the album.

“Can we just appreciate how perfect the choreography, those moves, those voice, and those faces? I’m speechless,” one fan posted on Twitter.

Another wrote: “I’ve been crying listening to the songs without knowing the meanings of the lyrics... how am I gonna cope when lyric translations come out?” - Seven years - The album’s title alludes to both the number of members in the band and the time since the group made their debut.

The song “ON” is “like a diary of our past seven years”, member RM told Apple Music before the release.

“We stumble from time to time but we got back up,” he said. “It’s like a declaration that we have admitted our destiny.”

The group had managed to “expand out musical spectrum”, RM added.

“In 2013 we had a performance in front of 300 people, 500 people. But now we are doing stadium tours, so everything’s got bigger and happier.”

“Map of the Soul: 7” was the most pre-ordered South Korean album of all time, with more than four million copies sold before its release.

The group had rolled out a 30-second preview “ON” exclusively on TikTok Thursday, momentarily causing the app to crash.

They are the first band to introduce a single via the short-form video platform, and the snippet offered a challenge calling on fans to use the music to create their own videos.

More than 33,000 videos were made using the track by Friday morning, showing fans dancing to the song in classrooms, bedrooms, airport terminals and elsewhere. But one dark cloud on the band’s otherwise stellar horizon has emerged: a high-profile concert initially scheduled for March 8 in Daegu has been cancelled due to the novel coronavirus outbreak in the city. (AFP)

Hollywood veteran Al Pacino doesnt like to remember the 1970s because it was “a dark period” of his life.

Pacino forayed into the digital space with “Hunters”, a series about vigilantes seeking to bring justice to Nazis hiding in 1970s in the US.

Asked if doing the show took him back to the era, Pacino said: “Nothing takes me back to the ‘70s, no. I just can’t go back there. No. I’m, I’m in the ‘70s right now as I speak to you, and there’s no ‘70s costumes going on. It’s a dark period of my life. It was very fruitful for - you know, I was in very good movies at the time, and lots happened to me. But there’s something dark about where I was at, at that time. I was a little bit more, I think getting, you know, taking drugs and drinking and all that in the 1970s. It was a bit, a little over the top,” he added.

“Hunters” is a conspiracy thriller, produced by the award-winning Jordan Peele. It follows a group of Nazi hunters in New York. The group is known as the Hunters. Set in the late 1970s, the show is about Pacino’s character Meyer Offerman, who is on a quest to find a team who will help him violently hunt down Nazis living in the city and planning to start the Fourth Reich in the US. The series went live on Amazon Prime Video on February 21.

The series also stars Josh Radnor, Kate Mulvany, Tiffany Boone, Greg Austin, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Carol Kane, Saul Rubinek, Dylan Baker and Lena Olin.

(IANS) Al Pacino: 1970s a dark period of my life

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Issued by; Nrio Patton, Elumyo Village WC-72 I ndian music maestro A.R. Rahman forays into script writing and film production with the upcoming musical-romance drama “99 Songs”. The experience, the Oscar-winning singercomposer says, was quite a challenge.

“When you are composing the music of a film, you have a director who is very experienced, you have a lyrics writer and there is the producer, too. So, we usually sit, and then jam and exchange ideas. But in this film, I am the writer. So, the writer does something which the producer doesn’t like -- who incidentally is also me (laughs). Then, if I come out it, he (points at the film’s director Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy) doesn’t like it. So, we did three to four versions of each song with different tunes and arrangements.

Till three months back, a lot of things were changing and now it is in front of you. It was an exhausting but beautiful experience,” said Rahman, while interacting with the media at the music A.R. Rahman set to debut as writer-producer with ‘99 Songs’ launch of the film. He was accompanied by co-writer and director Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy and film’s lead actor Ehan Bhatt.

Besides winning two Oscars for “Slumdog Millionare” (Best Original Song and Best Original Score), Rahman has also won six National Film Awards, two Grammy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award, besides numerous popular awards in Bollywood and down South. In 2010, the government of Indi awarded him Padma Bhushan, the nation’s thirdhighest civilian award.

Does his stature as a world figure in contemporary music make it easy for his film to find a worldwide release? “That’s the hope. Jio (Studios) is involved with our film and they have the plans. Whatever we will do, we will follow their plans.

We are just like students waiting for them to say the magical words. They have been great so far and I hope they push it up and take your (media) suggestion seriously,” he said. Backed by Rahman’s production company YM Movies, “99 Songs” is presented by Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Studios. Set to release in the summer, the film will play in three languages, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

‘99 Songs’ is directed by Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy, former frontman of the hardcore band Scribe, who has previously helmed the MTV shows “The Dewarists” and “Bring On The Night”.

Besides co-writing and producing the film, Rahman has also composed the original score and 15 songs for the film, starring newcomers Ehan Bhat and Edilsey Vargas. The film also features Rahul Ram of the rock band Indian Ocean, composer Ranjit Barot, with actors Manisha Koirala and Lisa Ray.

(IANS)

Tetseo Sisters and Task Force for Music & Arts (TaFMA) mentor Classical Maestro and Grammy Awardee Padma Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt performed a collaborative fusion music concert at the SBI Wealth Annual Investment Conclave program held on February 17 at Taj Bengal Kolkata. Seen in picture, Tetseo Sisters flanked by bassist Timothy Aonok, guitarist Mhaseve Tetseo, Panditji and his tabla accompanist.

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