ELEVEN

The record

ELEVEN is IVE’s debut single album, released on 1 December 2021. It carries two tracks, ‘ELEVEN’ and ‘Take It’, and the title track is ‘ELEVEN’. Starship Entertainment’s album introduction on Bugs presents the group as six members — An Yu-jin, Gaeul, Rei, Jang Wonyoung, Liz and Leeseo — and says the name carries the reading ‘I HAVE = IVE’. The same text describes the second track, ‘Take It’, as a mix of Latin-flavoured synths and a trap groove.

Reviews

IZM’s Jung Su-min reviewed the single in the month of its release and wrote that it “puts forward an exotic beauty in place of the elegance IZ*ONE went for, and in place of the high-teen concept that swept girl-group concepts from last year into this one”. Jung wrote that “the oriental sound of the opening, the repeating percussion rhythm and the marimba line all pursue restraint and throw the members’ distinctive voices into relief, and that is the proof”, and, of the line that arrives as the tempo drops sharply before the chorus, that “the beguiling vocal is a deliberate killing point”.

Idology, a K-pop criticism webzine, gave the single to three writers in the December 2021 issue of Monthly, its short-notice column on new releases. Simdyang wrote that “‘ELEVEN’, by contrast, opens on a sound so plain it puzzles, and that stirs the listener’s curiosity”, and that “‘ELEVEN’ works like a layer that cannot be edited once it is saved, turning IVE into a group fully prepared to hold the listener”. Simdyang closed with this: “‘ELEVEN’ is a textbook debut song, in that the appealing track, the choreography and the artists who carry both off with ease hold the public’s attention firmly.”

In the same issue Cho Eun-jae called the song “a track like an energy drink with a higher caffeine count than any other debut song, even though the ethnic percussion sound is so pronounced that it might at first seem to aim for something light and cool”. Cho wrote that “past the minimal opening, after a pre-chorus that suddenly slows, a grandeur the song has not shown before drops in, and a forceful vocal and a fast-moving performance arrive with it”, and, of the second verse, that “the chorus widens and adds dynamics before the bridge, and the flow is so smooth that it runs on with force and nothing to snag on”. Erin read the song and the stage together, writing that “the song and the performance of ‘ELEVEN’ maximise the synergy of the group”.

음악취향Y (Eumak Chwihyang Y), a Korean music webzine whose name reads as ‘musical taste Y’, took the song up in Single-Out no. 378, the column in which several writers cover a new single together. Kim Sung-hwan wrote that “the basic arrangement, which mixes a typical Middle-Eastern melody line with an African beat too, is something that has often come out of the sound of several girl-crush girl groups”, then that “the part where the effect of forcibly slowing the playback speed is realised by the vocal itself, just before the verse turns into the chorus, is a fairly radical attempt (though people may divide on it)”. The writer publishing as Yeolsimhi wrote that “through a structure that varies more richly and quickly, and staging of minimal stretches that take things away decisively when they are taken away, they achieve a degree of separation from IZ*ONE”. Yu Seong-eun wrote that “without letting go of girl crush and without undoing the dainty ornament of EDM, they gave it a point as well, through metre changes and variation”. The column prints a star rating per writer: Kim ★★★, Yeolsimhi ★★★☆, Yu ★★★★.

Among the tracks

‘ELEVEN’ is the track all three Idology writers read through its pre-chorus. Jung and Simdyang both treat the sharp slowing just before the chorus as the pivot, and Cho reads the drop that follows it the same way. ‘Take It’ is the second track, which the album introduction describes as Latin-flavoured synths woven into a trap groove.

Numbers

Idology placed IVE among its eight rookies of the year and ‘ELEVEN’ among its ten songs of the year in its 2021 round-up. Both pieces run excerpts of the Monthly notices by Erin and Simdyang. In the rookie piece Erin wrote that “the exact execution of the tutting to a minimal sound shows the group moving as one, and the dynamic choreography that follows the chorus’s widening delivers the changing sections clearly and makes the whole group’s vitality distinct”.

What came after

The music video went up on the label’s official STARSHIP channel the same day. Four months later came the second single album LOVE DIVE, and the third, After LIKE, followed that August.