''Realiez'' (stylized in

all caps In typography, text or font in all caps (short for "all capitals") contains capital letters without any lowercase letters. For example: All-caps text can be seen in legal documents, advertisements, newspaper headlines, and the titles on book co ...

) is the fifth Korean-language

extended play An extended play (EP) is a Sound recording and reproduction, musical recording that contains more tracks than a Single (music), single but fewer than an album. Contemporary EPs generally contain up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 1 ...

(EP) (sixth overall) by South Korean singer and songwriter

Kang Daniel Kang Daniel (; born Kang Eui-geon, December 10, 1996), stylized as KANGDANIEL, is a South Korean singer-songwriter, actor, television host, and businessman who rose to fame in early 2017 as the first-place winner of the Produce 101 Season 2, s ...

. It was released on June 19, 2023, by

Konnect Entertainment Konnect Entertainment (; stylized as KONNECT Entertainment) was an independent South Korean entertainment company founded on June 5, 2019 by Kang Daniel. The company was based in the Gangnam District of Seoul in South Korea. It previously manag ...

and distributed by

Sony Music Korea This is a list of record labels owned by, or associated with Sony Music Entertainment (SME). According to the Sony Music official website, the main labels are Columbia Records, RCA Records, Epic Records, Arista Records, Legacy Recordings, Sony Mus ...

. ''Realiez'' contains five tracks, including pre-released single "Wasteland" and the EP's

lead single A lead single (or first single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date. A similar term, "debut ...

, "SOS". The EP debuted at number five on South Korea's

Circle 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 Koreabased on their Record sales, physical sales. It is a part of the Circle Chart, ...

Background and release

First news of the project came on May 26, 2023 when

uploaded a teaser video onto their social media channels, entitled "Kang Daniel - Prequel". The sixty second video depicted a

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronom ...

dystopian A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmenta ...

-style desert car chase scene, followed by an unidentified person pointing a gun at a masked Kang. The teaser video ended with a black screen displaying

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

verse Matthew 10:28, followed by a date, "2023.06.19". The EP's title was officially announced four days later, along with the start of pre-order availability. According to Kang, the title, ''Realiez'', is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of three words: "real", meaning truth, "lies", a lie disguised as truth, and "realize", the process of realizing the truth and lies. On June 2, Konnect announced that "Wasteland" would be released ahead of the EP on June 7. The song, recorded entirely in English, was said to contain the central message of the album. The EP's track listing and production credits were released on June 14, confirming the

's title, "SOS", followed two days later by audio samples of all songs. ''Realiez'' was officially released on June 19, 2023, along with lead single "SOS" and its accompanying music video. The EP was Kang's final release under Konnect Entertainment, which was dissolved in mid-2024 after Kang filed a criminal complaint against the company's largest shareholder for embezzlement, forgery, and fraud, among other things. Kang's next Korean EP, '' Act'', was released under a new agency, Artistic Round Alliance (ARA).

Composition

''Realiez'' is described as a exploring a variety of genres, such as synth-pop, modern pop, rock, and grunge. The opening song, "Wasteland", is recorded entirely in English and written by Kang. The song is described as a

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s ...

track with a dark ambiance. The EP's

, "SOS", is an electronic-rock influenced track with arpeggio synthesizers, aggressive electronic guitar riffs and powerful drums. "Supernova" is a pop-rock track with funk influence. "Liar" is a pop track with "interesting" instrumentation and "spacious" sounding reverb and synths. The final track, "Dreaming", is a softer track with choir backing. The EP explores themes of dystopia and apocalypse, which were conveyed through the graphics and visuals leading up its to release. This continued with the music video for "SOS", which was filmed in the desert near

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

and was compared to ''

Mad Max ''Mad Max'' is an Australian media franchise created by George Miller and Byron Kennedy. It centres on a series of post-apocalyptic and dystopian action films. The franchise began in 1979 with '' Mad Max'', and was followed by three sequels: ...

''.

Commercial performance

''Realiez'' debuted at number five on South Korea's

for the week ending June 24. A second version of the EP also charted at number seven, for a combined total of 149,455 copies sold in the first week. On the monthly chart, the two versions of ''Realiez'' peaked at numbers seventeen and twenty-nine, respectively, for June 2023. As of August 2023, the EP has sold 169,996 copies in South Korea.

Track listing

Track listing and credits adapted from the EP's liner notes.

Charts

Weekly charts

Monthly charts

Release history

Notes

References

{{Kang Daniel Kang Daniel albums 2023 EPs Korean-language EPs 2020s Korean-language albums Sony Music EPs Konnect Entertainment EPs