Press It

Background and release

On February 15, 2016, SM Entertainment announced Taemin would release his first full album entitled Press It on February 23. On February 22, a performance video for "Drip Drop" was uploaded to YouTube. The official music video for the album's single, "Press Your Number", came out the next day on February 23. Prior to the album and "Press Your Number" music video release, Taemin performed two showcases for the press and fans on February 22. The fan showcase was streamed live through Naver's V app.

Composition

"Press It" was an album produced over the course of 1 year and 6 months. The title track, "Press Your Number", was originally written by Bruno Mars with a composition by The Stereotypes. The demo was originally made years prior to Taemin's release and the track was purchased by SM Entertainment. Taemin in many interviews said that he did not actually meet with Bruno Mars to work on this song. Taemin did however pen new lyrics for the song in order to appeal to the Korean market. In addition to that track, another song given to him for this album was a track called "Already" written and composed by Shinee's Jonghyun. While on Jonghyun's Blue Night radio show Taemin talked about how he took special care in selecting every song on the album himself even though he didn't write them all. "Soldier" was the first song he's written for an album and it was conceived during his travels abroad. During an interview Taemin mentioned that one of the songs from this album was originally supposed to be included on his Ace EP, but he decided to save it for later. On Kim Changryeol's Old School Radio he revealed that the song was "Hypnosis".

Release and critical reception

Released on February 23, "Press It" peaked at No. 1 on iTunes charts in Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Finland, and Hong Kong, while peaking within the top 5 in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sweden and Norway and top 10 in Russia, Turkey and Denmark. It was also the #1 album sold on Korean Hanteo & Synnara charts during its first week. The first week of album sales in Korea ended with "Press It" breaking the record for 1st week physical album sales for a solo artist with 68,500+ copies sold. The previous record was held by G-Dragon's One of a Kind (2012). On US Billboard, "Press It" ranked #2 during its first week on its World Music Chart and #7 on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart. On March 1, Taemin received his first music show award for "Press Your Number" on SBS's The Show and during the same week won awards for Show Champion, M!Countdown, and Music Bank.

Track list

Credits adapted from MelOn.