The Process of Finding Pure Desire Expressed in the BTS’s Album Series - Focused on the 「LOVE YOURSELF」 Series -

Abstract
This paper is studied for the purpose of exploring how to interpret popular music from a new perspective. For this purpose, this paper analyzes the lyrics and video expressions in BTS’s「LOVE YOURSELF」series based on the theory of pure desire in Lacan’s psychoanalysis. Pure desire refers to the inherent desire embodied in the form of life that exists to deviate from being equal to others, which is what Lacan says in the ethics of desire. The ethics of desire is a theory that informs the imperfections inherent in the universality or rationality based on our lives. The research method is to conduct a qualitative study to analyze the music video of 「LOVE YOURSELF」 based on the theory of pure desire shown in Lacan’s 『Seminar 7: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis』. Through the meaning inherent in the song lyrics of 「LOVE YOURSELF」, this paper figures out the correlation between the album trilogy and Lacan’s Imaginary Stage, Symbolic Order, and Real Order and analyzes the meaning of pure desire. The necessity of this study is to show that a certain area of popular music aims for pure desire, and suggest that popular music researchers pay more attention to pure desire.