BLUE

The song

‘BLUE’ is the song BIGBANG released ahead of their fifth mini album Alive. Its music video went up on the group’s official channel on 21 February 2012, and the record followed eight days later, at midnight on 29 February. On the mini album it is the first song after the 44-second intro, and one of the six the group declared title tracks.

YG Entertainment’s album introduction says the early release swept the streaming charts and that its video was widely watched. The same text explains the record’s title and intro song, ‘ALIVE’, as standing for a challenge and a passion for music that are still alive in the group, and calls every song on the record a product of that.

Reviews

The Singles Jukebox, where a panel of British and American music writers each file a note of their own on one single, covered the song on 8 March 2012.

Sabina Tang heard the boys hold back and go for something breathy and tender. “The arrangement does likewise, landing closer to Saint Etienne than David Guetta on the 4-4 dance pop continuum,” she wrote, and: “Like early spring sunlight, it’s slight but easy to welcome into one’s life.” John Seroff wrote that “the variety of vocal approaches from the boys in ‘Blue’ provide some pleasant thematic variation on what’s otherwise a restrained offering,” and heard each of them shedding a different coloured light on the melody.

Writing about the whole mini album for weiv on 4 March, Choi Min-woo put ‘BLUE’ beside ‘Bad Boy’ as the two songs on it in which a will to change — or, he allowed, an appetite for what gets called maturity — comes through clearly.

Numbers

Circle Chart placed the song at number one on its Digital Chart for week 9 of 2012 (26 February to 3 March), the week the mini album was released. All seven of the record’s songs were on that week’s chart, with ‘BAD BOY’ at number two and ‘FANTASTIC BABY’ at number four. The song was at number one again the following week, week 10 (4 to 10 March).