Recently when I was doing an inventory list of all of my K-Pop albums, which was basically me making a massive spreadsheet of all the albums I own, I discovered that I was missing an album from my EXO collection. This was a travesty that I remedied a few weeks later when I found myself a copy of the special edition release of the album to add to my collection. There is also a regular release that is a bit cheaper for those of you who don’t want to splurge as much. This version is obviously smaller, and it doesn’t include as many photos, but it still has the music and that is the important part!
This album is a release of EXO’s first “world tour”, which I put in quotes because it was only in Asia, as this was before EXO could have probably sold out venues in other parts of the world. This tour was released in 2014 after Kris and Luhan left the group, but before Tao left to do his own solo work and do Jackie Chan movies and all that stuff… cause you know… he’s basically a ninja. Side Note: I always liked Tao and was sad that he left. On to the photos!
I do a lot of my album shopping on Music Plaza LA. Additionally, if you have never used Music Plaza before, this link will get you an extra 5% off of your first purchase!
You can also order a copy of the album from an eBay, as they typically have good prices. Plus, with eBay, you can save a little bit of money by using the E-Bates extension on your browser, as it will save you 2% on all album purchases, which definitely adds up.
What is E-Bates?
E-Bates is a cashback site that gives you money for purchases you may have already made. They even have an extension for multiple browsers so when you go to a website that uses Ebates, it will automatically pop up the cashback button to make sure you are saving money. I use this all the time, and I got over 80$ back from them for purchases I was going to make anyway. That’s about 3 more albums I can buy!
If you’ve never used EBates before, you can use this link to get $10 when making a qualified purchase of $25 when using EBates. You will also get whatever percent cashback is being offered from the site you are purchasing from. Sephora, typically has 4% cashback, through here. Sokoglam typically has 3%. These percentages Many other major retailers are on there as well.
Things to know about this album:
- The Album is the size of an LP, so it is REALLY big
- Things that come with the album:
- 2 CDs
- Photo card sleeve with 1 card of each member and messages to the fan
- Poster of the world tour locations
- Photobook (72 pages)
- There are 2 CDs inside, each have 18 tracks
- Tao and Lay’s messages are written in Chinese on the photo card
- The album is half in Korean and half in Chinese
- As noted in the first paragraph, there is also a non-special edition version of this album that was released if you just want the music
K-Points: 488/5
So, I really am a true EXO fan, and the packaging on this album is really cool, but I’m comparing it in my head to the EXO’rdium photobook release which in my opinion is 500 gazillion times better. Not only is the photobook at least three times the size of this one, but the actual concert itself is way better, so I would choose to listen to the 3rd tour over the 1st tour any day. All of the songs were remixed in a better style, and the fact that it switches back and forth between Korean and Chinese, as this is during the time that they were still heavily promoting in China, slightly bothers me. What SM should have done with this, as they do with all other EXO releases is release 2 books: one in Korean, and one in Chinese. I personally would have preferred that.
Is this something that you need in your collection? Absolutely not. If you are a serious collector of EXO stuff like I am then I would fill this album in last, just like I did. The music isn’t spectacular on it, as EXO was still pretty new when this came out, and the photobook, although really cool, doesn’t compare in the slightest to the EXO’rdium one. Get that one first. The EXO’rdium book is DEFINITELY worth the higher price tag, this one, I think the $35 I paid for it is definitely reasonable, cause of the fun packaging, even if the music isn’t as on point.
That being said, the packaging had me excited, but that level was taken down slightly once I listened to the whole album. Honestly, all I wanted to do after listening to the first few tracks was put on their more recent tour and fangirl out.
Do you think EXO can 1-Up themselves with the release of the music from their next tour? I sure hope so, K-Nuggets!
사랑합니다!
—Rachel
