BATTER UP

The song

‘BATTER UP’ is the debut digital single BABYMONSTER released on 27 November 2023. It is the first song by the first girl group YG Entertainment had launched since BLACKPINK. A seven-member re-recording of it went on the first mini album BABYMONS7ER four months later, and a remix closed the first full-length album DRIP the following year as a bonus track.

YG Entertainment’s album introduction on Bugs calls it “a hip-hop song built on a dynamic track and an addictive hook”, and says the title — the call for the next batter in baseball — stands in for the group’s own ambition. The same text points to “a strong bass line and a signature sound” and to a structure that gathers force toward the end, and credits the member Asa on both the lyrics and the composition.

Reviews

The Japanese music site Real Sound ran the song on 19 December 2023 in its column on Spotify’s Daily Viral Songs (Japan) chart, where it was the week’s number one. The writer, Z11, said the song “was finished as a fanfare that declares a debut out loud”, and wrote that “what rides the track — trap beats and glittering electro sound fused dynamically — is a lyric that shows a strong will close to self-boasting”. The same piece read the title, a baseball call sign for the next batter, as saying the group is already prepared to turn the scene over, and noted that baseball motifs are scattered through the music video in step with the song’s concept.

Numbers

NME reported on 28 November 2023 that the music video drew 22.59 million views in its first day on YouTube, the most for a K-pop debut music video in 24 hours. The same report attributes the figure to the label, YG Entertainment, by way of the Korea JoongAng Daily. On the Spotify chart the Real Sound column was reading, the song was number one on Daily Viral Songs (Japan) dated 13 December 2023.