17 CARAT

The record

17 CARAT is SEVENTEEN’s debut mini album, released on 29 May 2015 with five tracks. The debut single is ‘Adore U’. The album introduction on Bugs sets out two starting points for the record: the thirteen members arrived through a pre-debut system that made their training public, and the group already contained three units — hip-hop, performance and vocal — inside one team. The same text says all five songs were written by the members.

Reviews

Idology (아이돌로지) carried the record in ‘1st Listen’, its round-up of new releases from late May 2015, as short pieces by five critics. Kim Yun-ha wrote that “the fact that the song was written by a member rather than a famous composer, and that the centre of gravity has moved from melody to beat, made it more interesting still — it feels as though the last ten years of change in Korean idol pop are held in it”, and closed: “a rookie worth watching has arrived.” Beulleok wrote that “another thirteen-piece group was a worry, but happily the group has a clearer colour of its own”.

On the same page O-yo picked the record as that issue’s ‘Discovery!’. Of the debut single he wrote that “the funky guitar riff of the opening and the groove-heavy bass line are unmistakably the centre of the song”, and that “the bridge-to-hook development is lean, with one outstanding melody, the chord progression under it and the instrumentation so well judged that you feel the airiness and the surplus energy only a just-debuted boy group can deliver”.

Billboard’s Jeff Benjamin, writing in the magazine’s year-end list, said SEVENTEEN “came out of nowhere with a cohesive yet diverse set of tracks that showcased all of the group’s promise”.

Among the tracks

‘Adore U’ was written, composed and arranged by the member Woozi. Idology’s Mimyo called it “a deeply impressive song”, writing that “it is pulled along elastically with a little wit, then from the B section stretches out clean and bursts open freshly in the chorus, and immediately after that a guitar steadies the step again — a well-tightened charm”. Beulleok wrote that he liked “the polished vocal line” of the same song.

Beyond the single, Billboard picked out “the anthemic ‘Shining Diamond’”, the “hip-hop jams ‘Ah Yeah’ and ‘Jam’”, and “the rock-pop cut ‘20’”.

Numbers

Billboard placed the record ninth on its list of the ten best K-pop albums of 2015, published on 31 December 2015, calling SEVENTEEN “the most impressive male rookie of the year”. It is the only rookie record among the ten on that list.