"Wake Me Up" is a song recorded by South Korean girl group Twice. It is the group's third Japanese maxi single, featuring three other tracks. The song was pre-released as a digital single on April 25, 2018, and the CD single was released on May 16 by Warner Music Japan.
The single album surpassed 200,000 sales in its first week, first foreign artist in Japan to achieve for three consecutive release.[2] It exceeded 500,000 shipments by May 28 and became the first single by a foreign female artist to be certified Double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ).[3][4][5]
Background and release
On April 1, 2018, Twice announced the release of their third Japanese single titled "Wake Me Up", along with the news that Twice would appear in a television commercial for ABC-Mart and Nike Air Max. The commercial, featuring "Wake Me Up", began airing nationwide in Japan on April 5.[6][7] The full song was first revealed on Tokyo FM's School of Lock! on April 24 and it was pre-released as a digital single on various online music portals the next day.[8][9] The full music video was also released online on April 25.[10]
Composition
"Wake Me Up" was composed by Atsushi Shimada, Louise Frick Sveen, and Albin Nordqvist, with lyrics written by Natsumi Watanabe.[11] It was described as an upbeat dance song that "encourages people not to give up and keep going forward".[12]
Music video
The full music video of "Wake Me Up" was uploaded online on April 24, 2018. It was directed by Jimmy of BS Pictures, the same team that produced Twice's previous music videos, "TT (Japanese ver.)" and "Brand New Girl".[13] The music video ranked at No. 10 on 2018 YouTube's Top Trend Music Video in Japan, the third group's song on the list.[14]
The CD single debuted atop the daily ranking of Oricon Singles Chart with 129,275 units sold on its release day, breaking Twice's record of the highest first day sales for Korean girl groups in Japan.[18][3] It topped the weekly Oricon Singles Chart with 262,658 copies sold,[19] while debuted at number 14 with 5,939 downloads on Oricon Digital Singles Chart.[20] It also topped the Billboard Japan recorded 299,195 unit sales from May 14–20, 2018.[21] This is Twice's third consecutive release to surpass 200,000 sales in its first week, making the group the first foreign artist in Japan to achieve this.[2]
It was also reported that "Wake Me Up" sold 471,438 copies in pre-orders, and it exceeded 500,000 shipments by May 28.[3][4] On June 8, it became the first single by a foreign female artist to be certified Double Platinum by the RIAJ.[5][22]
^"第60回 日本レコード大賞 各賞発表 Awards" [60th Japan Record Awards Awards Announcement] (in Japanese). November 16, 2018. Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
