Mamacita (Super Junior album)

Background

The group went on hiatus for two years and one month while waiting for their leader, Leeteuk who was serving in mandatory military service. In 2013 and the beginning of 2014 the sub-units Super Junior-M and Donghae & Eunhyuk actively worked on their own albums and touring, while the full group successfully completed their World Tour Super Show 5 and achieved some accolades and records overseas.

With the discharge of Leeteuk coming sooner, the members of the group started to hint they were recording a new album and also some of them updated their SNS with pictures in the recording studio. A week before the discharge of Leeteuk, they also uploaded a picture of the full group rehearsing together, causing great excitement. One of the pictures revealed that the famous choreographer Tony Testa was working with them.

It was announced in August 2014 that the group would be making their comeback later that month with a full album and new world tour Super Show 6. The title of the album was revealed, increasing the anticipation, with around forty teaser images released in the following days. Finally the group released an image video teaser with a Western storyline, a music video teaser showcasing parts of the choreography and the chorus of the song and a Highlight Medley of the studio album.

Production & Composition

The album is full of new sounds, different beats, old school R&B and Pop. It was revealed that Teddy Riley, Jason J. Lopez and Yoo Young Jin worked on the title track, which is described as an "urban new jack swing track with an Indian percussion base and piano melody that is reminiscent of a DJ remix."

The album has a total of 10 songs, and features composers Don Spike, Team One Sound and Hitchhiker. Member Donghae contributed music and lyrics to the song 'Shirt,' and also 'Islands' which is about the group's friendship and loyalty.

Release

Super Junior held a press conference at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Gangnam, Seoul on August 28, 2014 with 200 reporters in attendance. A few hours later the official music video was dropped reaching one million views in less than 9 hours and two million views in less than 22 hours. On the Chinese site YinYueTai Super Junior became the second group on achieve a perfect 100.00 score for the music video (Super Junior-M's Swing music video, being the first one).

On August 29 at 00:00 (KST) the album was dropped in digital format in South Korea. Over the next few days, the album also became available through iTunes for oversea fans. The physical version of the album was available for pre-order a week before and became sold out in Synnara Store. On September 1 the album hit the stores and peaked at #1 in charts right away, despite a controversy with an error in the second print run of the album.

Live Performance

The group made their comeback performance on the Korean music show Music Bank with the songs "Shirt" and "Mamacita" on August 29 and kept promotions going on Music Core, Inkigayo and M! Countdown. On September 10 the group did two fan signing events at different locations in Seoul.

Super Show 6

Super Junior kicked off their third World Tour on September 19 at Seoul. The tickets for the first dates in their hometown were sold out in just 9 minutes, and the group celebrated their 100th concert on September 21. They also confirmed five stops in Japan as well, in Tokyo Dome and Osaka Dome.

Critical Reception

Billboard released an article about Super Junior's new album highlighting the experimental variety of music styles. The website Critical Kpop also named 'Mamacita' a front-runner for album of the year in the 2014's K-Pop industry, praising it as "Every song on Mamacita fits seamlessly together, and more revealing, every song on Mamacita is better for being included together, in this smooth, sophisticated, funky package. Now that's an album". Allkpop also praised the album writing that composers "crafted a pretty masterful piece of work here" and giving them a 9,0 score overall.

Commercial Performance

The album hit the #1 spot on Hanteo chart, making it the best selling of the week with more than 65,000 copies sold. It became #1 on iTunes in many countries such as HongKong, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand and placed in the Top 10 in many countries such as Japan, Indonesia and México. The album topped Billboard's Album World Chart with just three days of sales, selling 1,000+ copies according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Super Junior also ranked high in other domestic charts in Asia, coming in at #1 on KKBOX Weekly chart in Taiwan and Hong Kong, #2 on Tower Records chart and #3 on Oricon charts, Japan.

Personnel

Credit for Mamacita are adapted from the album.

Album Chart

Mamacita

Single Charts

Mamacita

Others Songs Charted

MV Charts

Mamacita