Page Two (EP)

Background and release

On April 11, 2016, JYP Entertainment announced via the band's official Facebook and SNS that the group would release their second mini-album Page Two and single "Cheer Up" on April 25. Two versions of the album, pink and mint, were released in CD format. The first press of 30,000 limited edition copies featured a special sleeve designed by member Chaeyoung. The album was also released as a digital download on various music portals.

Composition

The album's lead single, "Cheer Up", has lyrics written by Sam Lewis and music by Black Eyed Pilseung, the same team who wrote Twice's hit single "Like Ooh-Ahh" from their debut mini-album. "Cheer Up" is a dance-pop song that incorporates multiple genres, including hip hop, tropical house, and drum and bass; this blend was described as "color pop". The second track on the album is a remake of Park Ji-yoon's 1998 single, "Precious Love", written by Park Jin-young (J. Y. Park). The song was re-arranged in a house dance style with electronic instrumentation and hip hop rhythms, and features a new rap written by Chaeyoung.

"Touchdown" was described as a "powerful dance number with dynamic rhythms, melodies, and powerful sound effects". "Tuk Tok" is a dance-pop song with elements of soul and trap, inspired by the teaser video for Sixteen. "Woohoo" was described as a hip hop song with "groovy beats", and "My Headphones On" is a pop ballad about a girl's breakup. A seventh track, "I'm Gonna Be a Star" (the theme song from Sixteen) is only available on the CD version of the album.

Music Video

The music video for "Cheer Up" was directed by video production team Naive (Kim Young-jo and Yoo Seung-woo). It went viral on YouTube soon after it was uploaded on April 25, gaining 400,000 views in only thirty minutes. It reached one million views in less than a day, and surpassed seven million views on April 27.

In the music video, the members portray characters from famous films. Mina is Itsuki Fujii from Love Letter, Sana is Sailor Moon, Nayeon is Sidney Prescott from the Scream film series, Tzuyu is Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) from Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Jeongyeon is Faye Wong in Chungking Express. Momo is an action heroine reminiscent of audition "Tomb Raider, Jihyo is a cheerleader from Bring It On, Chaeyoung is a cowgirl (reminiscent of Western films A Fistful of Dollars), and Dahyun is gisaeng Hwang Jini (from the biopic Hwang Jin Yi). In the group dance scenes, the members are cheerleaders at a pep rally in a soccer stadium and a basketball stadium. In another dance scene, they are in front of a house, decorated as if hosting a party, wearing casual clothing.

A special music video, titled "Twice Avengers", was released on May 27 to commemorate the original music video reaching 35 million views on YouTube. In the special video, the members dance in their film character costumes on a set made to look like a planet in outer space.

On June 21, 2016, "Cheer Up" amassed over 50 million views on YouTube, becoming one of the fastest music video from a K-pop group to achieve the feat.

On November 17, 2016, the MV surpassed 100 million views, which makes Twice the first K-pop girl group since Girls' Generation to have more than one music video with 100 million views.

Promotion

On April 25, 2016, Twice held a media showcase at Yes 24 Live Hall in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. They performed "Woohoo", "Touchdown", "Precious Love" and "Cheer Up" for the first time at the showcase, which was broadcast live via Naver's V app. The group then promoted the album with a series of televised live performances on various music shows. Their first music show appearance was on M! Countdown on April 28, where they performed "Cheer Up" and "Touchdown". The choreography for "Cheer Up" was slightly changed after Sana's "shy shy shy" line (pronounced "sha sha sha") became a viral meme. Twice won their first music show award on M! Countdown the following week on May 5, and also won on Music Bank and Inkigayo that same week. They concluded promotion for the album on May 29 with a performance on Inkigayo, winning a total of eleven music show awards. The trophy on the May 27 edition of Music Bank was initially awarded to AOA before the show's producers admitted they had miscalculated the album points.

Critical reception

Kim Hyang-min of Korea JoongAng Daily gave the album a mixed review, describing the songs as "high-spirited and cheerful" and "generally refreshing and witty" but regretting the album's lack of genre diversity. Kim noted that the tension in the title track's lyrics was "well-expressed" through its hip-hop and electronic sounds, though the song was too repetitive, and praised "Touchdown" for its "powerful sound" and energetic feeling.

Tamar Herman of Billboard described "Cheer Up" as an atypical K-pop girl group release that "solidifies Twice's unique style" through its unexpected mix of beats and genres. She further noted that the accompanying music video helped reinforce the members' independent identities while the song showcased of each member's individual voice, "[forgoing] musical wholeness for the sake of eccentricity".

Fuse journalists Jason Lipshutz, Tina Xu, and Jeff Benjamin discussed the release in the K-pop-centric podcast K-Stop, describing "Cheer Up" as a 1990s pop throwback reminiscent of Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time". They praised the single's fun and catchy tone, rap break, and the "incredible" production quality of its music video but criticized its heavily processed vocals and controversial lyrics, which seem to encourage young women to "play games" (i.e., feign disinterest) with their romantic partners. They concluded that, while the group has a lot of potential, they would need to "polish it up" for future releases.

Commercial performance

Page Two debuted at number 2 on the Gaon Album Chart and number 6 on the Billboard World Albums chart, with 80,686 units sold during the month of April. It had the highest first-week sales volume for a K-pop girl group in 2016. According to JYP representatives, the pre-order of 30,000 limited edition albums sold out before its official release. As of September 1, the album has sold over 150,000 units.

The songs from the album also performed well digitally. "Cheer Up" charted at number 1 on the Gaon Digital Chart and number 3 on the Billboard World Digital Songs chart. "Precious Love" and "Touchdown" also charted on the Gaon Digital Chart, at numbers 73 and 86 respectively. "Cheer Up" topped the chart for the second time two weeks later. "Cheer Up" was the second best-selling song of 2016 in South Korea, and the most-streamed song as well.

Personnel

Credits adapted from EP liner notes.

Locations

Personnel