K-Pop Corner: Exo’s Baekhyun makes solo debut
Six-track EP ‘City Lights’ puts a spotlight on his smooth yet expressive vocals
Exo’s lead vocalist Baekhyun made a stunning solo debut with first EP ‘City Lights’ released on July 10.
Fronted by ‘UN Village’, the six-track EP puts a spotlight on his smooth yet expressive vocals with various R’n’B songs: ‘Stay Up’, ‘Betcha’, ‘Psycho’, ‘Ice Queen’ and ‘Diamond’.
Fans have taken a liking to the lead single and its cinematic music video as Baekhyun sings about looking to spend time with one’s lover while enjoying the moonlight in the posh Hannam-dong residential neighbourhood of Seoul.
His massive loyal fan base, Exo-Ls, posted and trended a series of hashtag-related tweets of the K-Pop singer showing their excitement at his solo debut. UAE-based Exo-Ls even managed to get the title track and EP to the top of the UAE iTunes chart for two consecutive days.
Back in Korea, the seductive lead single topped the domestic real-time charts of major music sites: Naver, Sorbida and Bugs.
In addition to charting on China’s QQ Music and KuGou Music, ‘City Lights’ took over the domestic physical charts and iTunes album charts in 65 other regions, including Australia, Egypt, Bahrain, Greece, Indonesia, Jordan, Oman, Armenia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Thailand. This led him to break Exo’s record for topping iTunes in 63 countries from their previous release as well as bandmate’s Lay for having the highest-selling solo album.
Adding to his achievements, his debut EP holds the record for the highest first-day sales for a male artist in Korea’s Hanteo chart history for selling 260,000 copies last Wednesday.
Fans were anticipating his solo debut so much that the EP exceeded more than 400,000 pre-order sales as of last Monday.
Baekhyun is the second member after Chen to debut as a soloist. His bandmates Sehun and Chanyeol are also scheduled to drop their first EP, ‘What a Life’, on July 22 as part of the ‘Exo Month’ project, the K-Pop group’s monthlong promotion.