Rough (song)

Did You Know?

• The song made Billboard's 20 Best K-Pop Songs of 2016 list at number 13.
• Billboard stated the group "solidified their place as one of the top new girl groups" and "perfected their formula of synthesizer-driven pop with dramatic violin lines".

Release and promotion

"Rough" was revealed as the lead single of Snowflake on January 14, 2016, and released with the EP on January 25. It is the final song in GFriend's "school series" and represents the end of a school year. The group maintained their "powerful-innocent" concept, wearing school uniforms and performing synchronized dance choreography. The music video, inspired by the anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, was produced by Zanybros and directed by Hong Won-ki. GFriend first performed the song at a showcase at AX Korea in Gwangjin District, Seoul, broadcast via Naver's V app. They promoted the EP with music show performances starting January 26 on SBS MTV's The Show. In the second week, the song won first place on every music show with a chart system, accumulating 15 music show trophies by February 28, including "triple crowns" on M! Countdown, Music Bank, Show Champion, and Inkigayo. This placed GFriend second among girl groups for most wins for a single song, behind Apink's 17 wins for "Luv".

Chart performance

The song debuted at number 2 on the Gaon Digital Chart for January 24–30, 2016, with 298,228 downloads and 4,598,171 streams. It remained at number 2 in its second week, then topped the chart the following week, becoming GFriend's first number one single in South Korea. It held the top spot for two consecutive weeks and spent seven weeks in the top 10. On the monthly chart, it placed at number 14 for January 2016 with 325,098 downloads and 5,287,188 streams, then topped February's chart with 454,065 downloads and 22,466,115 streams, also topping the Streaming Chart. On the year-end chart, it was the third best-selling song of 2016 with 1,903,126 downloads, topping the Download Chart, and accumulated 98,910,973 streams. It surpassed 100 million streams in January 2017 and 2,500,000 downloads in June 2018.