Psy 9th

The album was originally planned to be released in July 2019.[7] On July 15, Psy exclusively pre-released the music videos for "Everyday", "Celeb", and "Happier".[8] On December 30, 2021, Psy's company P Nation announced the album would be finally released in the following year after multiple delays due to his personal schedules and management of his company.[9]

On April 29, 2022, Psy did a press listening party at a hotel in Seoul.[10] Regarding his reasons for releasing a physical studio album, he said he felt that CD is an outdated format since despite CD being a popular goods for K-Pop idols, nobody has a CD player and felt releasing a CD felt like a very exhausting move in this digital age and thought releasing a digital single might be more long lasting, but he felt that as an artist who is in a "waist" position that connects his juniors and seniors in K-Pop, he wanted to balance the old and new in K-Pop and have a retro album in the digital age.[11]

Psy revealed that the songs on the album has different creation dates, where the earliest songs were made back in 2018 expecting to be released then. and latest are made in 2022.[12] "That That" was produced for Psy in the autumn of 2021 by Suga, however, he revealed that he does not intend the album to be interpreted as an album marketed towards the foreign market, as it was "Gangnam Style" in 2012 that was a mega hit not him as an artist, compared to the success of BTS or Blackpink which gained popularity as a personality and thus has a more lasting quality to their popularity.[13] Psy said at the time, he tried to move away from his previous edm songs yet wanted a song that still has a not so slow tempo so he liked the latin dance genre of "That That".[14]

"Ganji" was requested to Jessi while she was performing her latest single "Zoom" and Psy attempted new flow styles in the song and reflected the frustrations of translating Jessi's english lyrics into korean.[15] Psy requested Sung Si Kyung to feature in the Song "You move me", and said that despite being a frequent collaborator with Sung, it was more awkward to request to him to participate in the song. The song is about life and Psy felt the song was finished with Sung's special dictions regarding the song's korean lyrics.[16] "Sleepless" was recorded in a single day and Psy hopes it to be a song that heals people's souls that are tired from a hard night at work.[17] "Happier" was finished in 2019, before Crush became part of Psy's company P nation.[18] "Celeb" was originally going to be released in 2019, but was delayed due to Psy's attempt to pair the emotional song such as "celeb" with a typical party song like "champion" to balance the album, which was a strategy he tried to keep throughout his previous albums.[19] Psy wrote "Forever" at dawn when he feared that he would miss the fullness of his performances and that feeling might not come.[20]

The music video for "Celeb" was filmed in three days, with Bae Suzy intensely practicing the dances for four consecutive days.[19]

Notes

• "9Intro", and "Ganji" are stylized in all caps.
• "ForEver" is stylized as "forEVER".