TEEN, AGE

The record

TEEN, AGE is SEVENTEEN’s second full-length album, released on 6 November 2017 with thirteen tracks. The title track is ‘Clap’. The Korea Herald reported on the day of release that all thirteen songs were composed and written by the members. In the same report Woozi said at the showcase: “‘Clap’ is an upbeat song, while it spans a lot of meanings. The song shows how a boy, who has been living in solitude, grows up by stepping into a bigger world.”

Reviews

Idology (아이돌로지) carried the record in ‘1st Listen’, its round-up of new releases from the first half of November 2017, as a short piece by Mimyo. He summed up SEVENTEEN’s work at this point as “mixing hip-hop and electronic music, ‘genre K-pop’ and ‘genre ballad’ into Korean pop, drawing a wide drop of style and feeling within a single song”. Of the title track he wrote that “on ‘Clap’ they mixed rock and hip-hop and aimed at a haughty older-brother charm”, and noted in the choreography that “more than usual, the shape where the whole team is lined up across the stage while one member at a time adds a variation stands out”. He wrote that “those elements blow a cheerful wind into this light, West Side Story sort of song”, and closed by calling it “a persuasive piece of work, whatever it does commercially”.

IZM’s Jeong Yu-na wrote in her single review of the title track that “‘Clap’ deliberately keeps its distance from Chainsmokers-style electronic music”. She wrote that it “delivers a manly, forceful energy at a greater amplitude than ‘Mansae’ or ‘BOOMBOOM’”, and that “the guitar that blows funk into it, and the way it runs densely on while rap and vocals fill the gaps, are things this team does well”.

Among the tracks

‘Clap’ is the song The Korea Herald’s Kwon Yae-rim placed fifteenth when she ranked SEVENTEEN’s thirty best songs in July 2020. She wrote that “this energetic track returns to the band’s retro funk vibe with punchy vocals and upbeat guitar riffs”.

Mimyo picked out three B-sides. He wrote that “‘Without You’, which feels like a re-finished ‘Don’t Wanna Cry’, and the grand, sensuous ‘Lilili Yabbay’ show the dramatic direction well”, and added that “‘Change Up’, which builds a spare arrangement carefully to add interest, is a pleasure too”. Kwon placed the performance unit’s ‘Lilili Yabbay’ eighteenth on her list, describing it as a song about “meeting their significant other in an otherwordly place”.

Numbers

weiv listed the record among the albums it chose for 2017 in its year-end round-up, and ‘Clap’ among that year’s tracks. The label ships English titles for the songs in its own distribution metadata: ‘박수’ is Clap, ‘모자를 눌러 쓰고’ is Without You, ‘13월의 춤’ is Lilili Yabbay, ‘날 쏘고 가라’ is Bring It, ‘바람개비’ is Pinwheel and ‘캠프파이어’ is Campfire.