| "Lights" / "Boy with Luv" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
&sq=&lang=&file=File:BTS_-_Lights_and_Boy_with_Luv_regular.png) Digital and regular edition cover | ||||
| Single by BTS | ||||
| from the album Map of the Soul: 7 ~ The Journey ~ | ||||
| B-side | "Idol" | |||
| Released | July 7, 2019 | |||
| Genre | Electropop | |||
| Length | 4:52 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Songwriter(s) |
| |||
| Producer(s) |
| |||
| BTS singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| BTS Japanese singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Music video | ||||
| "Lights" on YouTube | ||||
"Lights" is a song recorded by South Korean boy band BTS for their fourth Japanese-language studio album, Map of the Soul: 7 ~ The Journey ~ (2020). The song was released as a double A-side single with the Japanese version of "Boy with Luv" on July 3, 2019, through Universal Music Japan. This marked the band's first original Japanese single in two years since 2017's "Crystal Snow". The song was written by Sunny Boy, Yohei, and UTA, with the latter of the three solely handling production. Musically, it is an electropop power ballad in the style of dance music, featuring a bassline and piano-driven chord progression. An uplifting song, the lyrics describe BTS and the listener as each other's light.
Upon release, the song received generally favourable reviews from music critics, who praised its lyrical content and the band's vocal performance. "Lights" was a commercial success in Japan, debuting at number one on the Oricon Singles Chart, selling 637,000 physical copies in its first week. The song also peaked at the summit of both the Billboard Japan Hot 100 and US World Digital Song Sales chart. It was the sixth best-selling single of 2019 in Japan and received a million certification from the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) only a month after its release, making BTS the first male foreign artist to achieve this. The single album was later awarded as one of the top five singles of the year at the 2020 Japan Gold Disc Awards.
An accompanying music video was uploaded to YouTube on July 2, 2019, and depicts the band interacting with each other inside a movie theatre. The song was BTS' first Japanese single in four years to receive the music video treatment since "For You" (2015). The band performed "Lights" live as a part of their fifth Japanese fan-meeting concerts in Chiba and Osaka in 2019.