[Today’s K-pop] EXO floats teasers for special album

EXO shared teaser photos of Xiumin and Dio for its forthcoming special album on Monday.

The band is rolling out “Don’t Fight the Feeling” on June 7 and its label, S.M. Entertainment, dropped the first batch of photographs of the two since they returned to the music scene after serving their military duty. It is the first album the two performers have taken part in since 2018. 

Although Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Suho and Chen would not be able to join the promotional activities -- they are currently performing their military service -- they all joined forces for the EP. It was the band’s first record since its sixth LP, “Obsession,” from November 2019. 

The new album consists of five tracks, and the promotional poster hinted at a grand theme with words such as “Exo-Ship Saga” and “Parallel.” The title track is a dance number that mixes the upbeat rhythms of synthesizer and bass with lyrics urging the young to believe in themselves and leap forward. 

Shinee drops title track from Japanese EP in advance

Shinee unveiled “Superstar,” a track from its upcoming Japanese EP slated for release July 28, Monday.

It has been close to three years since the band has released an original song in Japanese. Shinee’s “Sunny Side” came out in 2018.

The prerelease is a dance number with catchy beats, and the lyrics encourage listeners to believe in themselves instead of comparing themselves with others.

The quartet gave fans the first taste of “Superstar” at an online fan meet with Japanese fans on Sunday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its debut there. Its last concert tour before the COVID-19 pandemic was in 2018 in Japan, with two shows in Osaka and two in Tokyo, which drew over 180,000 audience members in total.

Its seventh studio album, “Don’t Call Me” from March, topped Oricon’s weekly digital albums chart and the LINE Music top 100 albums as well as ranking No. 1 on iTunes top albums charts in 47 regions.

The band will mark its 13th anniversary on Tuesday with a livestream on Naver’s V Live.

GOT7’s Bambam to release solo debut album in June

Bambam of GOT7 announced that he was coming out with his first solo album July 15.

His agency, Abyss Company, posted a photograph that showed the musician with his back turned to the camera wearing a suit that was tied with a big ribbon.

Although he has had solo songs on the band’s albums, this is the first album he is putting out as a soloist since his debut in 2014. He signed with Abyss Company in March, after the seven bandmates’ contracts with JYP Entertainment expired in January.

“What I’m working on is quite different from before. I’d have to show a different side of me. Who Bambam really is,” the musician told a local magazine last week. He will focus on activities in South Korea for the time being as he can find peace only once he is fully recognized here, he added.

Blackpink’s dance practice video draws 700m views

Blackpink’s dance video for “How You Like That” surpassed 700 million views on Monday, according to label YG Entertainment.

This is the first time a K-pop musician’s dance performance clip has reached the milestone.

The video of the quartet’s dance performance was uploaded in July last year and drew 100 million views in 15 days.

“How You Like That” topped iTunes songs charts in 64 regions upon its release and ranked No. 2 on Spotify’s global top 50 chart. It also was picked as song of the summer by MTV’s video music awards in 2020 and made it to No. 1 on YouTube’s list of global top summer songs.

Blackpink now has seven dance videos with over 200 million views and 28 videos in total with more than 100 million views. With 61.4 million subscribers to its YouTube channel, the band is right on the heels of Justin Bieber, who has the most subscribers on the platform.

Over the weekend Blackpink’s “Kill This Love” music video surpassed 1.3 billion views on YouTube, following “Ddu-du Ddu-du,” and the band became the only K-pop band with two music videos to achieve the feat.

By Hwang You-mee (glamazon@heraldcorp.com)