Tuesday 12 September 2017

EXO - The War

Hello
안녕하세요 
(Annyeonghaseyo)
こんにちは 
(Konnichiwa)
你好
(Ni Hao)



I'm back with another EXO post and this week it's with their 4th full length album Ko Ko Bop.

Back in June on the 15th SM Entertainment announced that EXO would be making a comeback mid-July, just over a week later they announced that member Lay would not be participating in either the production or promotions of the new album due to schedule conflicts. On the 8th of July EXO's official Twitter and Instagram accounts were made public to help with promotions.
On the 9th of July EXO_The_War_Teaser Clip #Kai was released.
Owned by SM Entertainment
On the 10th of July EXO_The_War_Teaser Clip #Baekhyun was released along with the announcement that their 4th full length album would be called The War.
Owned by SM Entertainment
On the 11th of July EXO_The_War_Teaser Clip #Chanyeol was released.
Owned by SM Entertainment
On the 12th of July EXO_The_War_Teaser Clip #Sehun was released.
Owned by SM Entertainment
On the 13th of July EXO_The_War_Teaser Clip #Suho was released.
Owned by SM Entertainment
On the 14th of July EXO_The_War_Teaser Clip #Xiumin was released.
Owned by SM Entertainment
On the 15th of July EXO_The_War_Teaser Clip #Chen was released.
Owned by SM Entertainment
On the 16th of July EXO_The_War_Teaser Clip #D.O. was released.
Owned by SM Entertainment
Each of the teaser clips contain a snippet from each of the songs on the new album.
On the 17th of July the M/V Teasers were released for both the Korean and Chinese versions of Ko Ko Bop.
Ko Ko Bop (Korean)
Owned by SM Entertainment
叩叩趴 (Ko Ko Bop (Chinese))
Owned by SM Entertainment
On the 18th of July The War was released in both Korean and Chinese both physically and digitally along with the Korean and Chinese M/V's for Ko Ko Bop.
Ko Ko Bop (Korean)
Owned by SM Entertainment

The War reached 807,235 pre-orders making it the K-pop album with the highest number of pre-orders of all time, breaking their own record previously set by their 3rd full length album Ex'Act, which made more than 600,000 pre-orders. Within 1 week of it's release, the album sold over 600,000 physical copies and became the fastest-selling record by the South Korean Album Sales Chart Hanteo, surpassing their previous record held by Ex'Act. The War topped the Billboard World Albums Chart for 2 weeks as well as topping the Gaon Albums Chart for 3 weeks, as of the 15th of August 2017, The War had sold 1,012,021 million copies in the span of 24 days, becoming the fastest album in South Korean music history to sell over 1 million copies, and making EXO the 1st South Korean act to have had 4 consecutive million-selling albums.
Promotions began on the 20th of July with EXO performing both Ko Ko Bop and The Eve, with promotions ending on August 13th.

Chen, Chanyeol and Baekhyun helped to co-write their title track Ko Ko Bop.
Chen helped to co-write track 너의 손짓 (Touch It).
Chanyeol helped to co-write track 소름 (Chill).

Ko Ko Bop won a total of 11 music show trophies with 2 wins on Show Champion, 3 wins on M Countdown, 2 wins on Music Bank, 2 wins on Inkigayo and 2 wins on Show! Music Core.
The War peaked at No.1 on the Gaon Albums Chart, No.1 on the YinYueTai (Chinese) Albums Chart, No.11 on the Oricon Albums Chart, No.1 on the Five-Music (Taiwan) Albums Chart, No.1 on the Billboard World Albums Chart and also No.27 on the OCC UK Albums Downloads Chart.
Gaon Sales (Korean):
808,655+
Gaon Sales (Chinese):
150,762+
Totalling:
959,417+
Oricon Sales (Korean):
21,764+
Oricon Sales (Chinese):
3,823+
Totalling:
25,587+
Combined Billboard Sales:
7,000
Giving a total of 992,004+ copies sold of The War.
Even the M/V's for Ko Ko Bop have gained high views with the Korean M/V gaining 65,745,899 million views so far and the Chinese M/V gaining 5,600,558 million views, giving Ko Ko Bop a total of 71,346,457 million views so far.

The War was released in 3 versions, Regular A Version, Regular B Version and a Private Version, all 3 versions have different covers, photo books and Cd designs.
The Regular A Version comes with 1 of 9 graphic novel illustration cards of the members.
The Regular B Version comes with a random photo card.
The Private Version comes with a random photo card as well as a set of stickers to rectify spelling member Baekhyun's name wrong in the album, the sticker sheet states this is just for the first press release albums, so whether the sticker sheet will also be in future printed copies of the private version, I'm not sure. The only things that are same with all 3 versions is the track list and the fact that all 3 versions are set out in a hardback book style case, there are in total 6 copies, 3 for the Korean version and 3 for the Chinese version, they are all the same whether you get the Chinese or Korean releases.

Track List:
The Eve
Ko Ko Bop
What U Do?
Forever
다이아몬드 (Diamond)
너의 손짓 (Touch It)
소름 (Chill)
기억을 걷는 밤 (Walk On Memories)
내가 미쳐 (Going Crazy)



































I have the private version of the album and if you notice different from my past EXO posts I only have the Korean release so far, I will eventually buy one of the other versions in the Chinese release but there has been so many comebacks lately from the groups I follow that I can't really afford to buy all the versions of all the comeback releases. I'm glad I ordered the private version as it looks like it's more of a behind the scenes album with the pictures mainly being taken by the members. I can't say I was a compete fan of the styling for this comeback and I wasn't a big fan of some of the hairstyles *cough cough* Backhyun's (Baekhyun) mullet but overall I have to say this has to be my favourite full length album from EXO, past albums but there were songs that had to grow on me when listening to it but this album was from start to finish amazing on first listen. Each song sounds different from the last even to the point that some tracks don't sound like something that EXO would do, honestly on first listen some of the tracks sound like songs that NCT 127 would do, especially 다이아몬드 (Diamond) and 내가 미쳐 (Going Crazy). A repackaged album has just been released for this album so like I did with some past albums I'm going to share all the songs but in separate posts, so lets check out some of those tracks now.

다이아몬드 (Diamond)

내가 미쳐 (Going Crazy)

너의 손짓 (Touch It)

소름 (Chill)

What U Do?

Ko Ko Bop
By MBCkpop

MBCkpop
On the 5th EXO made their comeback with their repackaged album and as I mentioned above they've made their comeback at the same time as B.A.P, while I love both title songs seeing the choreography for both tracks made me love B.A.P's comeback that bit more, I was slightly underwhelmed by EXO's choreography for such an amazing track that makes me want to groove along to it, but overall I hope both groups are able to win music show trophies for their comebacks.

Were you a fan of The War?
What did you think to the styling?
Which of EXO's full length albums is your favourite?
Let me know in the comments below.


안녕
(Annyeong)
さようなら
(Sayonara)
再见
(ZaiJian)
Bye

No comments:

Post a Comment