EXO “Power” Review

The music video for “Power” by kpop artist EXO recently hit one million likes and 16 million views after being released Sept. 5.

Under SM Entertainment, EXO debuted as a Korean-Mandarin group with a total of 12 members; four Mandarin members and eight Korean members. They released their first album XOXO in 2013 and sold over one million copies. The album also won them both the Disk Daesang at the 28th Golden Disk Awards and Album of the Year at the Mnet Asian Music Awards. EXO was ranked as “the most influential celebrity” by Forbes Korea Power Celebrity in 2014 and 2015.

Unfortunately, SM Entertainment has had some legal issues with the Mandarin members and three out of the four Chinese members left. The only Chinese member left, Lay, is now speculated to be leaving the group as well. Lay was not present for either the “Power” comeback or the “Ko Ko Bop” comeback in Aug. He has been promoting and working on his solo career.

“Power” is a part of a repackage of the album The War, called The Power of Music. The repackage includes all the songs from The War with three extra songs: “Power”, “Sweet Lies”, and “Boomerang”. The War has an overall slower beat and a more soulful sound. The three extra songs add contrast due to the very techno feel to them. “Power” and “Boomerang” are upbeat songs while “Sweet Lies” carries over the slower beat from the original album.

The “Power” music video plays into a concept that EXO and SM Entertainment have been building on since their debut. SM Entertainment wanted EXO to have an ongoing theme of space and out-of-this-world; not all of their comebacks or music fall into this concept but it does keep popping up. All of EXO’s tours are called Exoplanets with their first tour being The Lost Planet, the second being EXO’luxion, and their most recent tour being EXO’rDIUM. The members each have an “outworldly” power as well: Kai’s power is teleportation, Chanyeol’s is flame, Suho’s is water, D.O.’s is force as in gravity, Baekhyun’s is light, Sehun’s is wind, Chen’s is thunder, Lay’s is healing, and Xiumin’s is frost.

In the music video, EXO is seen fighting an evil robot of some sort with their powers. The music video overall is very fun with scenes of members acciendtly shocking or blowing themselves up. The techno vibe from the music matches nicely with the futuristic, spacey visuals from the video.

At the end of the music video, member Baekhyun is seen falling from space, where most of the video takes place, into an ocean. The ending scene is of him floating while the beginning of the song “Sweet Lies” begins to play.