Six years since her first solo single “The Baddest Female” and three since her most-recent solo single “Lifted,” CL returned on Tuesday (Dec. 17) to show the world exactly what it’s been missing over the past few years with the release of her In the Name of Love EP, her first-ever solo album.
Featuring six tracks from the South Korean star, CL dropped two songs from the album each week in the lead-up to the album’s arrival, sharing a bit of herself, and her past, through its reflective tunes. With each song exploring a different style, varying between the likes of laidback alt-R&B tunes, tropical dance melodies, dynamic raps, and ballads, each track is dated, beginning with “+Done161201+” and ending with “+Thnx190519+,” recalling when they were each written.
Each song was released with an accompanying music video, and yesterday also saw the arrival of the dance-focused “+ONE AND ONLY180228+,” which features CL donning a traditional Korean mask depicting a bride as she performs alongside a team of dancers, and “(THNX)190519,” which features a series of animation.
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First, it depicts the preparation and creation of a meal, then shows the passing of time and things being put away, ending with cherries being buried at the end, in what may be metaphor for the preparation of the album itself, which has been in the works for years and features music through which CL spends much of the time expressing how she’s moving on, putting it succinctly on “+I Quit180327+.”
In the Name of Love is CL’s first release since leaving former company YG Entertainment earlier this year, which she has been with for over a decade. She rose to prominence first as a member of K-pop girl group 2NE1, which debuted in 2009, and also as a soloist in her own right, and debuted on the Hot 100 chart in 2016 with “Lifted.”
She reached a global audience when she performed during the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
Take a listen to CL’s In the Name of Love EP below.