Blue Valentine

The record

Blue Valentine is NMIXX’s first full-length album, released on 13 October 2025 with twelve tracks and a title track of the same name. Star News reported it as the group’s first full-length album, three years and eight months after their debut. It followed the mini album Fe3O4: FORWARD by seven months, and its last two tracks return ‘O.O’, from the debut single album AD MARE, to the two songs it was mixed from: ‘O.O Part 1 (Baila)’ and ‘O.O Part 2 (Superhero)’.

JYP Entertainment’s album introduction describes the title track as a pop track built on a blue mood, a dynamic change of BPM and a chorus that catches. The same text names ‘Reality Hurts’ as the group’s first song written in English, with Lily among its lyricists, and credits Haewon on the lyrics of ‘PODIUM’ and ‘Crush On You’.

Reviews

IZM’s Nam Gang-min reviewed the record on 18 November 2025. He opens: “There is no regrettable compromise here and no long-winded persuasion.” Of the record as a whole he wrote: “Blue Valentine, the sweet first full-length that arrives in their fourth year, is the first chapter of the essence of NMIXX, and it hands over a pleasure you cannot predict.” On the order of the tracks: “Where the title song ‘Blue valentine’ takes some of the old boldness out and builds around a chorus that catches, ‘Spinnin’ on it’ and ‘Phoenix’ after it give weight to energy and speed and lower the sense of friction.” And on the middle of the record: “The Latin-based hip-hop of ‘Rico’ presses down heavily in the low register, and the warm melody of ‘Game face’ is wrapped in harmony; across a range of shapes the album walks a middle line without tipping.” What settles it, he wrote, is that “the decisive blow is having widened the reach of MIXX pop, rather than only having found the golden ratio of genre fusion.”

A month earlier, reviewing the title track for the same outlet, Shin Dong-gyu wrote that “the choice to focus on the voices, the way a spirit that does not sink meets the lyric, the natural handling of pace and the unlaboured wit of crossing between beat and rap — none of it sits awry”, and called it “music that is like NMIXX and can stand on its own even taken apart from the record”. His piece closes: “It drew a clear rise and fall, and in the end it climbed into orbit.” That December IZM placed the record among its Korean albums of the year, and So Seung-geun, who wrote the entry, said the tracks “raised the standing of the six-member Korean girl group NMIXX — dance-pop, Latin, EDM, hip-hop, reggae, jazz, hyperpop, electronic and pop-punk, maximised in effect against the dark, heavy EP Fe3O4: Forward released earlier in the year.” He closed: “Their change is growth and their variety is progress.”

Idology carried the record on two of its year-end pages. Yemi, writing the entry among the twenty albums of 2025, said: “The moment you step over the low threshold that is ‘Blue Valentine’ and fall under ‘SPINNIN’ ON IT’, you follow NMIXX’s adventure toward MIXXTOPIA without noticing you have.” Of how the record is built: “It borrows a range of genres inside the borders of pop — R&B, electronica, reggaeton, rock — while staging an uncompromisingly maximal sound around hard-hit drums, and lays over it voices that handle melodies of wide range with strength and freedom, drawing the image of release perfectly.” Of the closing pair she wrote: “At the end of an album that shows the NMIXX of now drawing energy through their voices, the two parts of the debut song ‘O.O’ are placed so that you look back at where the group began.” Erin, writing among the twenty songs of the year, called the title track “the most polished answer they have reached through everything they have tried”, and set out its shape: “The song’s build — deliberately handling speed and vocal tone in the pre-chorus to draw tension, then bursting a dramatic melody in the chorus — carries out the mixing element of MIXX pop faithfully.”

Two English-language pages also placed the record on their year-end lists. Billboard put it second among its 25 best K-pop albums of 2025 on 18 December, and the entry, signed J.B., says: “NMIXX’s long-awaited full album, Blue Valentine, is a long-form declaration and dedication to the group’s genre-splitting insights, now poised to thrive in a full-length experience.” Of the closing pair it says: “It’s recognition that even when the songs aren’t in their MIXXed-up forms, they still stand as strong pieces of music.” And it closes: “But in the larger K-pop culture, Blue Valentine shows the importance of using the album template to prove that sticking to a vision from the start can pay off in the long run.” NME picked the record forty-ninth among its 50 best albums of 2025 on 5 December, writing: “The girl group’s debut album ‘Blue Valentine’ doubles down with songs running the gamut from pop-rock to reggaeton to EDM – sometimes all in just one track. Energetic, experimental and a blast to listen to.”

Among the tracks

IZM marked five songs as recommended in the tracklist printed with its review: ‘Blue Valentine’, ‘SPINNIN’ ON IT’, ‘Phoenix’, ‘Game Face’ and ‘Crush On You’.

The title track is the track IZM’s Shin Dong-gyu and Idology’s Erin each wrote a piece on. Of its chorus Erin wrote: “With an affecting vocal added to the chorus’s sharp melody in particular, it secured the musical reach to draw a wide body of listeners.” The album introduction describes melancholic synths and a guitar riff leading the song, with a boom-bap rhythm that slows and quickens crossing through it.

The second track, ‘SPINNIN’ ON IT’, is the song NME placed first among its 25 best K-pop songs of 2025, on 10 December. The entry writes: “A stupidly catchy bass riff with R&B sway pulls you in instantly before the production snaps into a lithe call-and-response structure that ricochets between bruised pleas and full-tilt intensity.” It closes: “It’s an emotional whiplash that only NMIXX could’ve polished into the year’s most exhilarating pop spectacle, fanned by their undeniable vocal firepower.” The album introduction calls it an alternative-pop song marked by a catchy bass riff, powerful drums and R&B vocal phrasing.

The fourth track, ‘Reality Hurts’, is the group’s first song written in English, with Lily among its lyricists, and Haewon shares the lyric credit on the seventh and eighth tracks, ‘PODIUM’ and ‘Crush On You’. By the album introduction ‘PODIUM’ is a pop song built on a reggaeton rhythm and ‘Crush On You’ a pop song with a jazzy feel.

Numbers

On Circle Chart’s weekly album chart the record entered at number two in week 42 of 2025, the week of release (12 to 18 October), with 531,051 copies sold that week. On the same chart’s monthly count it was number six for October 2025 with 538,919, while a separate POCA edition was number 15 with 120,151 and an LP edition number 43 with 19,306.

The title track entered Circle Chart’s weekly digital chart at number 14 in week 42, was at number two in week 43, and held number one for four weeks from week 44 (26 October to 1 November) through week 47. It was still inside the top ten in week 9 of 2026. Billboard’s year-end entry says the song is the group’s most successful on the Korean charts and on the Billboard Global 200, and their first to break into the upper half of that chart. On 21 December 2025 IZM named NMIXX its artist of the year.