M

The record

M is the first single in BIGBANG’s MADE series, released on 1 May 2015. It carries two songs, ‘LOSER’ and ‘BAE BAE’, and both were promoted as title tracks.

YG Entertainment’s album introduction said the series would run one release a month — M, A, D and E — and be collected as a full-length album that September. The same text called it the group’s first release together in 1,157 days, since ALIVE in 2012, and described the monthly schedule as a return, nine years on, to the way the group put out singles when it began. The album that collects the four, MADE, arrived later than announced, on 13 December 2016.

Reviews

Jeon Min-seok of IZM took ‘LOSER’ in the outlet’s May 2015 singles column. He opened on the members’ harmonies and set the two songs side by side: “The unfamiliar ‘BAE BAE’ made easy, the obvious ‘LOSER’ made rich — that is the strength of veterans.” Of the lyric he wrote, “Words that are not about love or a night out also catch the ear. An interesting choice from the very top.”

Idology (아이돌로지) covered the single twice. On 5 May four writers each contributed a note to ‘Draft’, the outlet’s fast column on new releases. Kim Yun-ha wrote that “through these songs BIGBANG keep twisting and turning over their own established image — the world-touring superstars, the ones taken for the front line of hip — and they do it in a very humorous way.” Yoo Je-sang put it this way: “This single is the frankest confession there is about the question of what one can possibly do after the peak of a career.” Three more writers returned to the record in ‘1st Listen: early May 2015’, published on 16 May.

Ju Min-hyeok of weiv published a piece on the single on 6 May 2015. He opened by writing that “it is clear that a record worth hearing has come out of K-pop, and of the idol market in particular, which had looked to be in something of a lull,” and went on: “The hard, rock-leaning beat of ‘LOSER’ is striking too, but the song that shows where BIGBANG have arrived right now is ‘BAE BAE’.”

Among the tracks

‘LOSER’ is the song Billboard named its best K-pop song of 2015. Jeff Benjamin, writing the outlet’s 20-song list on 31 December 2015, called it “what can essentially stand as BIGBANG’s thesis statement for their brand of emotional hip-hop” and wrote that “‘Loser’ proved that a subtle take on all the things that make a group unique can speak so much louder.” He described the song as taking “the previously heard brilliance in songs like ‘Bad Boy,’ ‘Lies’ and ‘Blue’” and stripping “away all trendy elements for a straight-forward, acoustic-leaning take”. Idology’s Masitneun Pahita placed it in the same line. “If you asked me what BIGBANG’s greatest strength is, I would answer: lyricism,” he wrote; the run of dramatic, lyrical songs he traced through ‘거짓말’ (Geojitmal), ‘하루하루’ (Haru Haru) and ‘MONSTER’ continues on this record, he added, with ‘LOSER’. MRJ, in the same column, took the arrangement apart — “the appealing instrumentation, a basic but smooth drum loop, a little piano and an acoustic guitar that adds the highlight, builds an atmosphere that departs completely from the song’s message, and it is a very convincing and well-devised way of doing it” — and closed: “A cleverly assembled set of contrasts, and a surprisingly interesting, well-balanced song.”

‘BAE BAE’ came 15th on the same Billboard list. Benjamin wrote that it “saw the phenoms taking the popular trap genre and turning it K-pop with flecks of electronica and bizarre samples, paired with animated rapping and heartfelt croons”. Kim Ban-ya of IZM chose it as one of ten in the outlet’s ‘2015 singles of the year’ that December and opened, “This is BIGBANG’s boldest song of the year.” After describing how the group paired a crowd-facing song with an experiment on each release, she wrote: “‘Bae bae’ is an unusual song in which that popular appeal and that experiment fit together perfectly.” Ju Min-hyeok of weiv described its sound: “A beat steeped in Teddy’s colour holds the centre of the song, and G-Dragon and T.O.P shape a lyrical, unique sound that keeps a certain distance from the trap that is everywhere right now.” He added that the chapssaltteok line in the chorus is what makes the song particular. Mimyo of Idology read it as “meta-K-pop, teasing statelessness from inside a stateless context.” The Singles Jukebox, where British and American writers each file a note on one single, covered the song on 13 May 2015; there Alfred Soto wrote, “Some of its hairpin turns work, like the Young Thug mimicry in the second verse and the guitar hook throughout.”

Afterwards

A followed a month later, and D and E came in July and August.