Bang Bang Bang (BigBang song)

Did You Know?

• It was sung by Seoul university students during the 2016 South Korean protests for the resignation of president Park Geun-hye.
• The song received four consecutive Melon Weekly Popularity Awards.

Background and promotion

The first poster for "Bang Bang Bang" was released on May 27. YG Entertainment's then-CEO Yang Hyun-suk described the song as "the most powerful music you have ever heard before." Before its midnight release on June 1, the members hosted a live stream on Naver's V app to discuss the new songs and answer fan questions. The first televised live performance took place on Mnet's M Countdown alongside "We Like 2 Party." The group also performed the single on the talk show You Hee-yeol's Sketchbook on June 5. A Japanese version was created for the album Made Series, with a shorter music video, and was performed on Japanese TV shows including Music Station, Momm!!, and Space Shower TV.

Critical reception

Billboard ranked the track tenth on its list of best BigBang songs, calling it "impossible to ignore" and noting its "stuttering rhythm" and "frenzied energy." Sun-Times included it in an unranked list of ten best BigBang songs, stating that "this club-ready track takes classic BigBang swagger to new levels of sophistication." The Muse described the single as "literally, lit," praising its "anthemic trap breakdown." Fuse compared it to the group's 2012 single "Fantastic Baby," hailing both as "nonstop party" tracks. KKBox praised its energetic sound and called it a classical song from the band. Thump selected it as one of the best songs of summer, calling it a "multi-genre banger" that is "fire in any language, in any country."

Commercial performance

"Bang Bang Bang" achieved the highest first-week sales by a group on the Gaon Chart in 2015, with 339,856 downloads. It peaked at number one on the Gaon Digital Chart and topped the monthly digital chart for June 2015 with 681,111 digital sales and 26.472 million streams. On Gaon's year-end chart for 2015, it was the best-performing song, with 1,581,284 downloads. By September 2018, it had surpassed 2,500,000 downloads in South Korea. In the United States, the single held the top two spots on the Billboard World Digital Songs chart alongside "We Like 2 Party," marking the second time the group achieved this, tying with Psy's record. Billboard named it the biggest K-pop song on the World Digital Chart during summer 2015, and it ranked fifth on the year-end chart, becoming the third best-selling K-pop song in the US after Psy's "Gangnam Style" and 2NE1's "I Am the Best." In Europe, it peaked at number 194 on the France SNEP singles chart, number 44 on the UK Indie Singles chart, and number 30 on the Official Finnish Download Chart. The Japanese version peaked at number two on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 in February 2016 and appeared on the year-end chart for two consecutive years, at number 28 in 2016 and number 95 in 2017. It received gold certifications from the RIAJ for surpassing 100,000 downloads in May 2016 and 50,000,000 streams in October 2022. In Taiwan, it ranked second as the most popular Korean single of 2015 on KKBox, and in 2017, the Japanese version ranked first on KKBox's top 10 tracks of the year.

Music video

The music video for "Bang Bang Bang" was directed by Seo Hyun-seung and choreographed by Parris Goebel, who appears in it. Jeff Benjamin of Fuse described it as "an over-the-top affair" with "wild looks, hairdos and fashions in a neon-tinged world." Eric Ducker of Rolling Stone claimed that "nothing from [this year] really beats the explosive grandiosity of 'Bang Bang Bang'." Billboard highlighted the members' "boundary pushing" high-fashion. Stereogum called it an "insanely epic video" and admired its "beautiful, absurd riot of glitter and pink hair and hydraulic low-riders and flamethrowers." Stereogum ranked it number 14 on its list of the 50 Best Music Videos of 2015, the only non-English work. Miami New Times wrote that the "bombastic" video highlights "what the Hallyu is all about." It became the most viewed K-pop group video of 2015 and the second most viewed by a K-pop group at the time, behind "Fantastic Baby." It reached 100 million views on YouTube on January 19, 2016, the second K-pop boy group video to do so, and surpassed 200 million views on January 11, 2017. The group faced criticism for appropriating Native American culture due to the war bonnet worn by Seungri in the video. The Muse described the incident as "another example of K-pop appropriation."