Made (Big Bang album)

Details

Before the official album release, the MADE project was divided into four parts, each of which included two singles that were released under each letter of the word MADE, namely M, A, D, E. The four parts were released on the first day of every month starting from May to September 2015, apart from the final part named E, which was released on August 5, 2015. The last project was to release the full album called MADE. However, due to Big Bang's world tour and busy schedules, the full album got delayed.

Background

On April 17, 2015, YG Entertainment revealed the first teaser picture for Big Bang's comeback. Later, the trailer for Big Bang’s MADE 2015 World Tour was unveiled. YG Entertainment announced the title tracks of Big Bang’s “MADE Series: M” with the release of a third teaser. Two of four teasers for D-1 to D-4 consist of songs info. On May 26 and 27, YG Entertainment teased fans with posters for Big Bang's "A” series titled "BANG BANG BANG" and "WE LIKE 2 PARTY". Their second posters consist of the songs details. On June 26 and 27, YG Entertainment announced the release of the third series D, with two songs "If You" and "Sober", a music video was only made for "Sober". The fourth series "E" was scheduled to be release on August 1, but due to the band's world tour, they released it on August 5, the release including two singles "Let's Not Fall in Love" and GD&T.O.P "Zutter", it's the first time in five years the duo release a song after 2010's GD & TOP. On August 18, YG Entertainment announced the release date of the full album would postpone. Big Bang members would use 3 weeks to add new songs in this album and recharge after 4 months of promotions.

On October 18, 2016, the members started filming new music video for the final release of the album in Cheongju. The second music video also was filmed on 15 October in Seoul. In November 22, YG announced the release of the full album will be on December 12, 2016. On December 6, the first title track information was released under the name "FXXX IT" with a poster promotion for the album. The following two days, the second title track was announced to be a slow R&B song named "Last Dance", later the track list of the album was released, to have 3 new songs with the 8 singles that have been released in 2015.

Promotion

Big Bang hosted an live-broadcasting on Naver V-App on December 12, one hour before the release of the album, to celebrate the release of the first full-album in eight years with fans, which attract more than 1.5 million viewers. The members also appeared on two episodes of the talk show Radio Star, on Infinite Challenge and, lastly, on Weekly Idol to promote the album. They performed on SBS's end-of-year TV festival 2016 SBS Gayo Daejeon.

Reception

The album has been chosen as one of the best Korean albums in 2016 by Billboard, praising the diversity of genre in the album, calling it "it's a testament to the versatility K-pop acts can show in the music and just how truly hard it is to call K-pop a genre." Fuse's Jeff Benjamin described the album as "career-exemplifying," noting how it solidifies the group's artistry and personality. Chester Chin from The Star called the album "cohesive and strong" and claimed that Made would "remind the K-pop audience on the fantastic musical geniuses who will elude them for the next few years." The album was chosen as one of the best Korean albums released in December, and ranked 8th on Top 10 Albums by KKBox.

Single albums

M, A, and D have all received commercial success; M sold over 130,000 copies in just two days and peaked at #3 on the Gaon April chart, with eventual sales exceeding 134,000 in South Korea and 400,000 in China. In two months, the singles sold 988,321 ("Loser") and 828,966 ("Bae Bae"), including combined sales of 17,000 in the United States. In total, M has sold over 5,9 million records worldwide. Furthermore, A sold 93,504 copies in June, and over 800,000 copies in China. The singles sold 2,133,023 (Bang Bang Bang) and 1,206,186 (We Like 2 Party) in South Korea. In US it sold 18,000 copies and Bang Bang Bang is gold certified on Japan. In total, A has sold over 7,3 million records worldwide. The third single D sold over 800,000 copies in China in two weeks alone, and "If You" sold 1,445,147, while "Sober" sold 1,317,469 in South Korea. "If You" was the best selling song of 2016 in the Chinese music service KuGou, surpassing 2,5 million downloads. D has totaled over 7,8 million in sales to date, while E sold over 5,5 million records. Across all of the four singles, over 26 million records have been sold worldwide.

In 2016, the four singles with the V.I.P package have sold over 4.2 million digital copies in China over 460,000 physical copies in South Korea Gaon Chart. In Taiwan, all of the eight singles were selected in top 20 on the best Korean singles in 2015.

Full album

The album was available for pre-order in December 8, in China QQ Music, in the first day the sales for the album reached 170,000. Made surpassed 900,000 digital sales in less than a day after its official release in the site, and with QQ Music, Kugou, and Kuwo, which is considered as China's three major music platforms the album sold total 1,113,494 digital copies in the first day. In less than two days the album sold 1,000,000 in QQ Music.

In the United States, the album debuts at No. 172 on the Billboard 200 with 6,000 equivalent album units, 4,000 of which were in traditional album sales, earning the band their second entry on the chart. They also debuted at No. 1 on the World Albums chart and the Heatseekers Albums.

In South Korea, the limited edition of the album was released on December 23, 2016. Which charted second in Gaon album chart, and sold 100,000 copies. On January 5, 2017 the normal edition was released and charted first on the Gaon weekly album chart, then the Gaon monthly album chart, selling 142,652 in January.

In Japan, the Korean edition charted in no.23 in Oricon weekly chart, selling 2,538 copies. On February 15, the album was released officially in Japan, selling 71,461 in the first day, and topping Oricon daily album chart, and according to Soundscan Japan the album sold 76,668 in the first day. The album later sold 101,364 copies in the first week, earning the group their fourth number one album in Oricon Chart.

Streaming

As of December 25, 2016, Big Bang's MADE album music videos have a total of over 780 million views in YouTube, Chinese video sharing websites such as Youku and QQ Music have a total of over 210 million views and over a billion audio streams, and in Spotify it surpassed 130 million streams.

All eight songs were selected as the biggest K-Pop songs of the Summer by Billboard - "Bang Bang Bang", "If You", and "Sober" took the first three places consecutively, "We Like 2 Party" 5th, "Let's Not Fall in Love" 8th, "Zutter" 9th, "Loser" 10th, and "Bae Bae" 11th. And the most viewed K-Pop music videos were "Bang Bang Bang", while "Sober", "We Like 2 Party", "Let's Not Fall in Love" and "Zutter" took the 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th consecutively.