Crush (2NE1 album)

On January 15, 2014, a poster for the group's upcoming All or Nothing World Tour was revealed on their agency's website, with hints about a new album.[1] On February 19, it was revealed the album would contain of a total of 10 songs. All of the songs are new, except two; "Scream", which was previously featured on their 2012 Japanese language album Collection and an Acoustic Version of the album's title track. It was further revealed that the group's leader CL co-composed and wrote lyrics for three and five songs respectively, a first for the group.[2]

The digital download of the album was originally slated for release on midnight local time on February 24, 2014, but was pushed back to midnight local time on February 27, 2014, to coincide with CL's birthday on February 26. Two music videos for its lead single "Come Back Home" were planned for release on February 28: a regular version and an unplugged version, although they were not formally released until March 2.[3] The album in physical format was released on March 7.[4][5] The music video for "Happy" was released on March 2.[3]

Prior to the release of the album, 2NE1 held a private listening party for a group of 21 people selected from fans and music experts.[6] It was revealed the new songs would be showcased for the first time at the opening dates of the group's All or Nothing world tour in Seoul, South Korea on March 1 and 2.[3] On May 20, 2NE1 released the music video for "Gotta Be You".[7][8]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Idology	(positive)[9]
IZM	[10]
Los Angeles Times	[11]
Pitchfork	7.3/10[12]
Weiv	(positive)[13]
Yahoo! Voices	[14]

Following its release, Crush sold over 5,000 copies within four days in the United States and debuted at number 61 on the Billboard 200. In doing so, the album broke two records: the Best-Selling K-Pop Album (the record has since been beaten by Exo's Exodus which sold 6,000 copies) and the Highest-Charting K-Pop album on the Billboard 200, beating the records previously held by Big Bang's EP Alive (4,100 copies) and Girls' Generation-TTS's EP Twinkle (number 126).[15] In South Korea, the album debuted and peaked at number two in the chart issue dated March 2–8, 2014.[16] According to Gaon's mid-year charts, the tracks from Crush have been downloaded over 5.2 million times.[17] The album was chosen as the 'Favorite Girl Group Album' on the "Girl Group Week Readers' Poll" hosted by Billboard, beating Girls Aloud, Little Mix, Destiny's Child and Spice Girls album,[18] as well as being listed by Fuse as one of the "25 Best Albums Of 2014 So Far", alongside artists such as Coldplay, Michael Jackson, Pharrell Williams and Mariah Carey.[19]

Crush received positive reviews from most critics; the record was named by Rolling Stone as the sixth best pop album of 2014—the only appearance from an Asian artist on the list, with Charles Aaron writing "Almost two years after K-pop first giddily barged into America's imagination, the genre hasn't sustained a post-"Gangnam Style" wave, but the Seoul machine [2NE1] keeps humming." He further highlighted the diversity of all its tracks, and identified "MTBD" as the album's centerpiece.[20] Fuse noted the group's "knack for genre-melding" and wrote that "After fans waited nearly four years for their second full-length album, the K-pop phenoms did not disappoint with a slew of forward-thinking, wholly-accessible tracks". They selected "Come Back Home", "Baby I Miss You" and "Gotta Be You" as the album standouts.[19][21] The publication further included Crush in their year-end ranking of best 40 albums of 2014.[22]

Billboard ranked it as the best K-pop album of the year, where they felt that it "proved more than worth the nearly-four-year wait" and highlighted the record's venture into new sonic territory with the fusion of different genres.[23] August Brown of Los Angeles Times stated that "'Crush' has one foot in each country's pop music: K-pop's neon melodies, with sounds from America's trap and bass-music scenes. It's the most coherent LP to come out of this generation of K-pop."[11] Writing for Pitchfork, Corban Goble commented that "The brash all-female Korean pop supergroup 2NE1's new album, Crush, bottles up contemporary trends as well as their usual EDM/reggae/hip-hop/R&B stylemash. But it represents a sleeker, more refined vision for the group." Overall, he felt that they succeed "on their inlaid mission statement—they've made music for anyone."[12]

CL performing edited version of "MTBD" on the tour in Jakarta

Listeners accused the sixth track, "MTBD 멘붕(Mental Breakdown)" of having an audio sample of a young boy reciting Quran verses. This struck social media by storm amongst 2NE1's Muslim listeners, with even death threats being posted on both the group's and CL's social media pages. Because of this controversy, YG Entertainment released an alternate version of "MTBD" which omits the sample.[24]

The Japanese edition of Crush was released on June 25, 2014. The Limited Edition (Type A) contains the both Japanese and Korean versions of the album on 2 CD's, as well as a bonus DVD with music video clips and "making of Crush". The Special Edition (Type B) contains the DVD and Japanese version of the album while the Standard Edition (Type C) contains only the Japanese version of the album, without the DVD. The Fan Club Special Edition (Type D) has DVD footage of a fan club event from 2013. The Music Cards also contain information from the group's 2014 All or Nothing tour.[n 1] All editions have alternate covers.

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Crush.[30]

Discography

Other references

• 2NE1 official site