IT'z ME

The record

IT’z ME is ITZY’s second mini album, released on 9 March 2020 with seven tracks. The title track is ‘WANNABE’. It followed IT’z ICY by eight months.

The album introduction on Bugs sums the record up in one line of its own — “I am perfect when I am just me” — and says ‘WANNABE’ carries a message about refusing to be held to anyone else’s standard. By the same text the writing team GALACTIKA, who made the debut song ‘달라달라’ (Dalla Dalla), worked with the group for a third time, and ‘WANNABE’ puts elements of EDM, house and hip-hop into one track. The introduction credits the fourth track ‘NOBODY LIKE YOU’ to Yubin, formerly of Wonder Girls, on lyrics and to collapsedone on composition and arrangement.

Reviews

On 23 December 2020 Billboard published its critics’ picks of the twenty best K-pop songs of that year and placed this record’s title track ‘WANNABE’ at number 15. The note is signed with initials only, so its writer cannot be named.

The outlet wrote that ever since their debut the group have “encouraged uncompromising self-love by modeling it themselves”. Of the song it said: “On ‘Wannabe,’ they invite us again to dance, gilding a shapeshifting electro-pop beat and 2000s guitar-pop chugs with whimsical flourishes: flexatones, DJ scratches, the crank of a winding key.” It closed: “They know the dancefloor is an oasis for enlivening self-expression, and they’ll drag you there by hand if they need to.”

Among the tracks

Billboard’s Jeff Benjamin, writing a chart story nine days after release, put the record’s most striking difference in a sound that had become harder and leaned further into electronic production. He described ‘WANNABE’ as bubblegum-pop melody over a churning combination of house and hip-hop-pop, and quoted the line “I don’t wannabe somebody, just wannabe me”.

The same story singled out two collaborators: the Dutch producer Oliver Heldens on the second track ‘TING TING TING with Oliver Heldens’, and the producer SOPHIE on the closing ‘24HRS’. Benjamin read both as the group carving out new ground for themselves.

Numbers

By that story the album gave ITZY their first top-five placing on the United States World Albums chart, passing the number 11 start of IT’z ICY. The title track ‘WANNABE’ entered World Digital Song Sales at number four, selling 1,000 copies in the week ending 12 March. By the time the story ran the group had five entries on that chart in total.

The 2024 album introduction for BORN TO BE records that ‘WANNABE’ was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.