The K-Pop girl group TWICE released its first full studio album “Twicetagram” on Oct. 30. Their sixth single “Likey” (which is the first song on the album) reached 45 million views and one million likes within only eight days of its debut on YouTube.
“Twicetagram” itself has 13 different tracks, at least four of which have lyrics written by the members of the group. The album peaked at number one on Taiwan’s “Five Music” charts as well as U.S. Billboard’s.
TWICE was formed as part of a South Korean contest competition survival show called “Sixteen.” Originally the group was only supposed to include seven members, but in the end the number was pushed up to nine.
The group is made up of Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, Mina, Sana, Momo and Tzuyu. Not all of the girls in TWICE are Korean, however. Tzuyu is Taiwanese while Mina, Sana and Momo are all Japanese.
Their first single “Like Ooh-Ahh” was released on Oct. 19, 2015 as the title track to their EP “The Story Begins.” The music video hit 50 million views on YouTube within five months of their debut and became one of the most-viewed debut music videos for any K-pop group.
TWICE’s second single “Cheer Up” debuted on their second EP “Page Two.” This title track won them their first award one year after the Sixteen originally aired. By August, the album had sold over 150,000 copies. This meant that TWICE was the first girl group to have a sales record over 100,000 sold units in 2016.
Jan. 3, 2017 saw the group’s third single’s music video “TT” that was featured on their album “Twicecoaster: Lane 1” hit 100 million views on YouTube and became the fastest K-pop group music video to do so. This beat out their own record that had previously been held by the single preceding “TT.”
Later in the year they beat their record a third time and turned it into the first video by a K-Pop female act to surpass 200 million views.
A reissue of the previous single called “Twicecoaster: Lane 2” was released on Feb. 20 with the song “Knock Knock”. The album alone sold 266,645 units within the month of its debut.
Their fourth EP titled “Signal” was released on May 15 along with the music video. This EP included six tracks total, including one that was co-written by members Jihyo and Chaeyoung.
A compilation album of their first five singles was released under the name “#TWICE,” and sold 136,157 copies within a week of its release.
On Oct. 18th, they released their first Japanese single called “One More Time,” though the music video had debuted on the 6th of the same month. The single album achieved the biggest first-day sales and became the fastest-selling album of any South Korean girl group in Japan.
The success of TWICE is undeniable, especially among the fan club that formed for them with the title of ONCE. Fans hope that the group continues on and garners even more attention and that future releases will be as loved as their other singles were.
Erika Brandenburg
Reporter