''Im Nayeon'' ( ) is the debut

extended play An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.

(EP) by South Korean singer

Nayeon Im Na-yeon (; born September 22, 1995), known mononymously as Nayeon, is a South Korean singer. She became a member of the South Korean girl group Twice, under JYP Entertainment, in 2015 as a winning contestant of the reality survival televis ...

of the girl group

Twice Twice (; Japanese: トゥワイス, Hepburn: ''To~uwaisu''; commonly stylized as TWICE) is a South Korean girl group formed by JYP Entertainment. The group is composed of nine members: Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaey ...

. It was released through

JYP Entertainment JYP Entertainment Corporation () is a South Korean multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate founded in 1997 by J. Y. Park. It is one of the largest entertainment companies in South Korea, and operates as a record label, tale ...

and

Republic Records Republic Records is a New York City–based American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). It was founded by Avery Lipman and Monte Lipman as an independent label in 1995, and was acquired by UMG in 2000. Republic was initially an ...

on June 24, 2022. The EP contains seven tracks, including the lead single "

Pop! Pop! were a British pop group consisting of Glen Ball, Hannah Lewis, Jamie Tinkler, and Jade McGuire. The group was formed in the summer of 2003 when they were signed by Pete Waterman. They released three singles on the Sony BMG record label, ...

" and collaborations with Felix from

Stray Kids Stray Kids (; often abbreviated as SKZ) is a South Korean boy band formed by JYP Entertainment through the 2017 reality show of the same name. The group is composed of eight members: Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin ...

and

Wonstein Jeong Ji-won (), better known by the stage name Wonstein () is a South Korean rapper and singer. He debuted in 2018 with the single "Spider Web" under the label Beautiful Noise. He achieved mainstream popularity after participating on the hip-hop ...

Background

On May 19, 2022, it was announced via

's social media pages that Nayeon would release her first

extended play An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record.

, titled ''Im Nayeon'', on June 24. It was accompanied by a teaser image featuring a close-up shot of what appears to be a coffee table, with trinkets such as bottles of nail polish, jewellery and a cup of tea strewn across. Specifics about ''Im Nayeon'' and its impending release were also unveiled in the following weeks, with worldwide pre-orders for the mini-album starting on May 24.

Composition

The lead single "

" was described as a song that "conjures classic Twice" and a refreshing bubblegum pop anthem that sings of a sweet, daring message that she will not hesitate to burst one's bubble. Notably, lyricist

Lee Seu-ran Jam Factory () is a South Korean music publisher which sources song tunes and lyrics for K-pop, J-pop and Mandopop artists from songwriters predominantly based in the US. Writers of the tunes are often songwriters for American companies, such as ...

, and songwriters Kenzie and

LDN Noise LDN Noise (pronounced ''London Noise'') is a British songwriting and record production duo based in London, England. Consisting of songwriter Greg Bonnick and DJ Hayden Chapman, the duo has worked with artists such as Nathan Sykes, Nick Jonas ...

wrote on the song. "Pop!" was composed in the key of

D major D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Ch ...

with a tempo of 97

beats per minute Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ( ...

. The EP features collaborations with Felix of

and Korean rapper

. Other notable names who worked on the EP include

Jade Thirlwall Jade Amelia Thirlwall (born 26 December 1992) is an English singer-songwriter. She rose to prominence in the 2010s as a member of Little Mix, one of the world's best-selling girl groups. With Little Mix, she released six studio albums and ach ...

of British girl group

Little Mix Little Mix are a British girl group, composed of group members Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall, and Perrie Edwards. Jesy Nelson was originally part of the group before she left in 2020. After becoming the first group to win the British ver ...

, production team

The Stereotypes The Stereotypes are a production team created in 2003, comprising Jonathan Yip, Ray Romulus, Jeremy Reeves and Ray Charles McCullough II. In June 2010, they were listed among the "Top 10 Songwriters and Producers to Watch" in ''Billboard'' magazi ...

and American singer-songwriter

Destiny Rogers Destiny Rogers (born September 13, 1999) is an American singer from Lodi, California. Rogers has released two extended plays: ''Tomboy'' (2019) led by the single "Tomboy" and ''Great Escape'' in May 2020. Early life Rogers grew up in the small t ...

. Nayeon participated in writing the lyrics for "Love Countdown" and is credited as the sole lyricist on "All or Nothing", which she wrote while on tour with Twice in the United States. It talks about all the things that helped her overcome hardships during the course of her life.

Title

The album's title, ''Im Nayeon'', is a play on the near-identical spelling of the artist's last name and the contraction "I'm".

Critical reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, ''Im Nayeon'' received a

mean There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the ''arithme ...

score of 78 based on 5 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Commercial performance

Ahead of its release, the ''Im Nayeon'' surpassed over 500,000 pre-orders, the highest number of pre-orders by a female soloist thus far in 2022. The EP debuted and peaked at number 1 on the South Korean

Gaon Album Chart The Circle Album Chart, previously known as the Gaon Album Chart, is a record chart ranking the 100 most popular albums, extended plays and single albums in South Korea based on their Record sales, pure sales. It is a part of the Circle Chart, pr ...

. On the US ''Billboard'' 200, the EP peaked at number 7, making Nayeon the first South Korean soloist to enter the top 10 and highest selling female act of the year upon its release. In Japan, it reached number 7 on the Japanese Digital Albums chart and number 19 on the Japanese Hot Albums chart. In Europe, it charted in Finland, Poland, and the United Kingdom. In August 2022, the EP received a Platinum certification from the

Korea Music Content Association The Circle Chart (), previously known as the Gaon Music Chart or the Gaon Chart (), tabulates the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in South Korea. It is produced by the Korea Music Content Association and sponsored by South Korea's ...

(KMCA) for selling over 250,000 units in South Korea.

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Monthly charts

Certifications and sales

Release history

References

{{Nayeon 2022 debut EPs JYP Entertainment EPs Korean-language EPs Republic Records EPs