Sing for You is the fourth extended play by South Korean–Chinese boy bandExo. It was released by SM EntertainmentinKorean and Chinese versions on 10 December 2015. The album held the record as the fastest selling album in the history of South Korean album sales chart Hanteo,[2] until it was overtaken by Exo's third studio album Ex'Act in June 2016.[3] It is the first Exo record to not feature Tao, as he filed a lawsuit against SM Entertainment and left the group in August 2015.
On 24 November 2015, Exo was confirmed to be releasing their second winter special album, after Miracles in December (2013).[4] Teaser images for the album began to be released from 2 December. The album's track list, including four new songs and a bonus track "Lightsaber", previously released as a single in November, was announced on 7 December. Finally, the mini-album was released digitally and physically on 10 December.
Sing for You's digital album cover depicted an astronaut floating in space alone (apparently Baekhyun as depicted in the music video) and a whale. The album's physical version comes in 18 versions (nine versions for Korean and Chinese, respectively). Each album depicts each of the nine members of Exo who are all facing D.O. in the middle.[5] The album's back cover serve as a puzzle piece when joined together forms the image depicted in the digital cover artwork.
On 10 December 2015, shortly after Sing for You was released, Exo held a showcase with an audience of 1,500 to promote the album at Lotte WorldinSeoul. The showcase was live streamed using the mobile application V Live and afterwards set the record as the most-watched live stream ever on the application.[6] Exo began performing the songs "Sing for You" and "Unfair" on Korean music shows from 12 and 18 December respectively.[7][8] They also added these songs to the setlist of their second solo concert tour The Exo'luxion starting from the Singapore show on 9 January 2016.
On 4 November 2015, Exo was announced to be releasing "Lightsaber", a promotional song for the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens in South Korea, as part of the collaboration project between SM Entertainment and Walt Disney.[9] A teaser video for the song was released on 8 November,[10] followed by its music video and digital release on 11 November.[11] "Lightsaber" was later announced to be included in Sing for You as a bonus track on 7 December. Exo performed the song for the first time at the 17th Mnet Asian Music Awards. The song peaked at number 9 on Gaon's digital chart.[12]
A teaser video for the album's title song "Sing for You" was released on 8 December.[13][14] The song was released along with the EP as well as its music videos on 10 December. It peaked at number 3 on Gaon's digital chart[15] and achieved "triple crown", winning first place three times on KBS's weekly music show Music Bank.
Both versions combined, Sing for You broke the record previously held by Exodus, Exo's second studio album, as the album with the biggest first-week sales recorded by the Korean album sales monitoring website Hanteo with over 267,900 copies.[2] Individually, the album's Korean and Chinese versions debuted at number 1 and 2 respectively on both Gaon's weekly and monthly album charts,[16][17] and later landed at number 2 and 7 respectively on its yearly album chart for 2015.[18]
