쿠데타 (COUP D'ETAT)

The record

쿠데타 (COUP D’ETAT) is G-Dragon’s second solo album, released on 13 September 2013 with 12 tracks. The album’s information page marks ‘Black’, ‘니가 뭔데 (Who You?)’, ‘삐딱하게 (Crooked)’ and ‘늴리리야 (Niliria)’ as its title tracks. Missy Elliott, Diplo, Baauer and Zion.T appear on the record, Jennie features on ‘Black’ and Lydia Paek on ‘R.O.D.’. It came four years after the album Heartbreaker and one year after the mini album One of a Kind.

YG Entertainment’s own notice split the streaming release in two — Part 1 at noon on 2 September, Part 2 at noon on 5 September — and issued the album in BLACK and RED editions.

Reviews

Rhythmer, the Korean hip-hop and R&B outlet, ran Nam Seong-hun’s review on 22 September 2013. He read the record as an extension of the mini album before it, and wrote that “the songs on the album divide emotionally into two large parts: the tracks that put self-consciousness out in front and tell their story that way, and the tracks whose subject is love, laid out across the album in a suitable division.” He added that “of course, the scale of all of it has been extended,” and that “in film terms, one could fairly say it follows the formula of a successful blockbuster’s sequel.” He went through the record song by song, tracing which track of the earlier release each one continues.

Pitchfork’s Corban Goble took the record on 20 September 2013. He described ‘Crooked’ as a single with the joy of a soccer chant, and wrote of ‘Niliria’ that G-Dragon and his go-to producer Teddy spin traditional fare into something new there, in a promising template where he thrives. Of the pre-release single ‘MichiGo’ he wrote that it approximates a ‘Crayon’-like frenzy and shows how G-Dragon can carry a song on pure energy.

AllMusic’s David Jeffries picked ‘MichiGo’ and ‘I Love It’, with Zion.T and Boys Noize, as the record’s highlights. He wrote that the listener should then be shocked when this flashy and slick effort goes deep, sampling Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ during the title track.

The music webzine weiv took the record on 9 September 2013 in its weekly weiv column, as comments by two writers. Choi Min-woo wrote: “But it is also true that this is a record where carefully built sound and a challenging attempt stand out. In that sense it is a result that inherits the strengths of One Of A Kind.” Han Myung-ryun picked ‘Black’ and ‘Crooked’ as the tracks that catch the ear, and wrote of Teddy, by then YG’s leading writer, that “he seems to be working to find a way of showing a step forward without wholly dismantling the idioms he used to reach for easily in melody or rhythm.”

Among the tracks

Of the four title tracks it is ‘Crooked’ that has a music video, uploaded to the official channel on 5 September 2013. Circle Chart placed the song at number seven on its Digital Chart for week 36 of 2013 (1 to 7 September), the week the streaming release began, and at number three the following week. The song took best dance and electronic song at the Korean Music Awards the following year, and An Byung-jin, who wrote the selection note, said that “an easy, spare melody that catches the ear the moment you hear it, and a rhythmic, powerful beat, are this song’s first appeal”, and that “expressing the loneliness and sorrow of a youth that looks precarious, as if standing on some border, in a crooked and impassioned way is also the point at which the young find themselves in this song.”

‘MichiGo’ came out as a pre-release single four months before the album, and The Singles Jukebox — where a panel of British and American music writers each file a short note of their own on one single — covered it on 8 May 2013. Patrick St. Michel wrote: “Despite the very, very busy sounds, G-Dragon still finds a way to shuffle through all the clutter and let his personality shine through.” He added that the song brings to mind brostep and trap, smashed into something even more maximalist. Anthony Easton wrote that “the siren at the end of this, whistling like a bomb, clearing out most of the noise for a bit, letting the pitbull (not Pitbull) vocals dominate, is ace”, and Katherine St Asaph called it “2012 in urban and EDM, made ten times more bracing with distance and curation.”

Missy Elliott appears on ‘Niliria’, which the album carries in both her version and G-Dragon’s own. Jennie features on ‘Black’, which was at number two on the Digital Chart in the week the streaming release began.

Numbers

Circle Chart made the record number one on its Monthly Album Chart for September 2013 and counted 198,489 copies for the month. On the Yearly Album Chart for 2013 it placed eighth.

All 12 songs were on the Digital Chart for week 36 of 2013 (1 to 7 September), the week the streaming release began: ‘니가 뭔데 (Who You?)’ at number one, ‘Black’ at number two, ‘Coup d’Etat’ at number five, ‘R.O.D.’ at number six, ‘Crooked’ at number seven and Missy Elliott’s version of ‘Niliria’ at number nine.

The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that G-Dragon took four awards at the 2013 MAMA on 22 November that year. At the 11th Korean Music Awards the following year, ‘Crooked’ from this record took best dance and electronic song and G-Dragon took the netizens’ musician of the year (male).