The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2

Background

Earlier in September, the group announced their comeback with a prologue trailer, featuring a new track called "Butterfly". They also announced a domestic concert from November 27 to 29, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: On Stage, where they would unveil their new single. The news of the upcoming album made #화양연화 trend and rank first in trending topics worldwide on Twitter. On November 17, BTS released an animated comeback trailer featuring "Nevermind", another track featuring member Suga's rap from the album. The video showed clips of a boy playing basketball and later chasing a butterfly. Five days later, BTS revealed concept images labeled with a bottom caption: "Je Ne Regrette Rien", which means "I regret nothing" in French; a second set was revealed with the captions, "Papillion", which means "butterfly". A music video teaser was released on the 24th, revealing the name of the new single, "Run".

At the press conference for their concert, BTS explained the concept of their album. They stated: "Part one explained how youth is tiring and difficult, and it also touched on how we feel like we're always on edge. Part two will have a more adventurous and daring feel to it. That's why our title song is 'Run'." Rap Monster added: "We didn't want to just blankly say 'cheer up' or 'be strong'. We really wanted to comfort people our way, by producing the music and writing the lyrics ourselves. We poured our heart and soul into this amazing song".

During their concert tour in support for their album, Rap Monster explained that "Run"'s "B" part, with the lyrics, "make me run more", was not working out during the song-writing process. A melody was suggested by Jungkook but was later rejected as it was deemed "too good that...other parts could not stand out that much". For the final composition, V's melody was ultimately used with Jungkook's original lyrics.

Promotions

The three-day concert in support for their album was announced on September 16, 2015. Reservation tickets for the event were sold out in less than a day, while several servers crashed upon their release. The group also held Butterfly Dream: Open Media Exhibition, where they invited six hundred fans to view the exhibits as well as celebrate the release of their fourth mini-album. BTS performed their first comeback stage at the 2015 Mnet Asian Music Awards. On December 4, 2015, the group made their music program comeback on Music Bank.

Music videos

Seven and a half minutes long, the music video for "Run" was released on November 29, 2015. It depicted the members having fun and acting recklessly, as well as the members acting disillusioned and violent. After the credits, the last scene shows Jimin sitting in the bathtub (a similar scene from the "I Need U" music video), burning a polaroid of the members. The music video was directed and filmed by Lumpens. It received nearly two million views in less than 24 hours.

Commercial performance

On November 26, it was reported that The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2's pre-orders had surpassed 150,000 copies, with a high volume of sales coming from not only South Korea, but internationally as well. All nine tracks from the extended play were present on Gaon and World Digital charts, with "Run" at number eight and three respectively.

The album debuted at number 171 on the Billboard 200 with 5,000 copies sold in the US, a high for an act not signed to YG Entertainment or SM Entertainment. It also topped the World Albums and Top Heatseekers charts. BTS became the first K-pop act to have the same album spend more than one week on top of Billboard World Albums chart, with four weeks at number one in all.

Reception

Fuse stated that "The band has said that their albums and EPs look to express different points of youth, and Pt. 2 encompasses the moment that a young adult is beginning to think about the world in more complex ways than "I love you"/"I hate you"—something their fanbase will soon experience, too."

Variations

Two different colored albums are available including a blue and a peach one, with both variations having a 98-page photobook, CD, a photo card, and blurred out butterflies decorating the cover. Although the track list remains the same in both variations, the CD design corresponds to its respective album color. If the two covers of the last extended play are aligned on top the two covers for The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2, all four covers create a full image of flower petals and butterflies.