"Call Me Baby" is a song recorded by South Korean–Chinese boy band
Exo, as the lead single of their second studio album ''
Exodus''. It was released on March 27, 2015, through
SM Entertainment, in both
Korean and
Chinese.
The song peaked at number two on South Korea's
Gaon Digital Chart
The Circle Digital Chart, previously known as the Gaon Digital Chart, is the music industry standard record chart ranking the 200 most popular singles in South Korea. It provides rankings on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, which is based o ...
, and ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
''s
World Digital Songs chart in the United States. Its entry at number 98 on the
Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 is a music industry record chart in Canada for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. The Canadian Hot 100 was launched on the issue dated March 31, 2007, and is currently the standard record chart in Canada; a n ...
, made Exo the only K-pop act other than
Psy to rank on the charts in that territory at the time. "Call Me Baby" ended 2015 as the seventh best-performing song overall in South Korea, and ''Billboard'' ranked it as the ninth best K-pop song of the year.
By September 2016, "Call Me Baby" had sold over 1.2 million copies domestically. In 2019, ''Billboard'' included it on its list of the 100 greatest K-pop songs of the 2010s, at number 12.
Release and promotion
To promote the release of ''
Exodus'', a series of videos referred to as "Pathcode", featuring one Exo member each and are set in various locations, were released on
YouTube. The first letters of these locations' names—
Colorado,
Arizona,
London,
Lyon,
Marseille,
Edinburgh,
Barcelona,
Almaty
Almaty (; kk, Алматы; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata ( kk, Алма-Ата), is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to ...
,
Berlin and
Yunnan—would spell "Call Me Baby", the title of the album's lead single. It was released digitally on March 27, 2015, three days ahead of the album. Exo began performing the song on South Korean music TV shows on April 2, 2015. After the press conference for the album's release, member
Tao was absent from promotional activities and would later withdraw from the group, making "Call Me Baby" the last Exo single he participated in.
Music video
The Korean and Chinese music videos for "Call Me Baby" were released on March 30, 2015. The videos mainly feature Exo's performances of the song at a warehouse setting and against a white backdrop, and were filmed in a
one shot style. The Korean version later became the third most-watched K-pop music video on
YouTube in 2015.
On September 23, 2018, the Korean music video surpassed 200 million views on YouTube, becoming their second music video to do so.
Reception
Writing for ''Billboard'', Jeff Benjamin commented that while "Call Me Baby" "sounds wholly inspired by the late '90s/early '00s sound", Exo "is not only bringing in the nostalgic feel, but doing it at a 200 percent intensity." The song reached number two on both South Korea's
Gaon Digital Chart
The Circle Digital Chart, previously known as the Gaon Digital Chart, is the music industry standard record chart ranking the 200 most popular singles in South Korea. It provides rankings on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, which is based o ...
and the ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
''
World Digital Songs chart.
It also entered the
Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 is a music industry record chart in Canada for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. The Canadian Hot 100 was launched on the issue dated March 31, 2007, and is currently the standard record chart in Canada; a n ...
at number 98, making Exo the second South Korean artist, after
Psy, to appear on the chart.
"Call Me Baby" went on to win first place 18 times in total on South Korean music TV shows for the entire month, and the all-time second highest number of wins. ''Billboard'' ranked the song at number 9 on their list of top 20 K-pop songs of 2015.
Credits and personnel
Credits are adapted from album liner notes.
*
Exo – vocals
*Jo Yoon-kyung – songwriting
*
January 8th – songwriting
*Kim Dong-hyun – songwriting
*
Teddy Riley – songwriting
*DOM – songwriting
*Lee Hyun-seung – songwriting
*Jason J. Lopez – songwriting
*Dantae Johnson – songwriting
*Maxx Song – vocal directing, recording, editing
*Jung Eui-seok – recording
*Lee Ji-hong – editing
*Jin Nam-koong – mixing
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Sales
Accolades
References
External links
*
*
{{authority control
Exo songs
Korean-language songs
2015 singles
2015 songs
SM Entertainment singles