링가 링가 (RINGA LINGA)

The song

‘링가 링가 (RINGA LINGA)’ is a digital single Taeyang released on 8 November 2013, about three years after his first full-length album Solar. It appears again on RISE, the album he released the following June. The album introduction on Bugs describes it as a hip-hop track built on rhythmic, powerful rapping over a plain but polished melody line, and says his own grooved singing carries the soul in it while hip-hop swagger sits alongside. The same text states that it took him a while to find the inspiration to stand on a solo stage again, and that in the meantime he travelled and began working with the artists and producers he met. Billboard credits the track’s production to Shockbit and its writing to G-Dragon and Jose E. Luna.

Reviews

Billboard covered the song on its singles page on 22 November 2013, one of five that week. Jeff Benjamin placed it as a track that should reach listeners of EDM and hip-hop, and wrote: “The track serves as a robust example of K-pop’s flair for blending genres.” The item opens by noting that BIGBANG’s international presence was felt throughout 2013, on the strength of a world tour and G-Dragon’s solo work. Kim Ban-ya, reviewing RISE for IZM the following year, picked the song out inside the album: the record places ‘Body’ and ‘Ringa Linga’ at its centre, the review says, to clear the air and to answer, for a moment, the thirst of anyone missing Taeyang’s groove.

Numbers

On the list of the twenty most-viewed K-pop videos in America in 2013, which Billboard published on 23 December that year from YouTube’s own figures, the music video for ‘RINGA LINGA’ came in at 16 and the dance performance version, which carries only the choreography, at 18. It is the only song on those twenty places represented by two videos.