In 2020, TWICE made a comeback with a full album. With the album titled Eyes Wide Open, TWICE tried to show a more mature and daring concept. The year 2020 was marked as their 5th Anniversary since their debut on October 20th, 2015. Debuting with a chic concept and then making their breakthrough with cute songs like “Cheer Up”, “Signal”, and “TT”, TWICE then tried to approach various concepts. The tracks in Eyes Wide Open are of the retro, RnB, groovy dance pop, city pop, latin pop, and many other new genres TWICE hadn’t tried before.
Background of “I Can’t Stop Me”
Before the release of Eyes Wide Open, TWICE released the mini-album More & More in June 2020 that gained big success. This inspired JYP to announce that TWICE would release their second full album after three years. Their full album Eyes Wide Open was set to be released on October 26th, 2020, just a week after their 5th anniversary. The title song of Eyes Wide Open is “I Can’t Stop Me”. “I Can’t Stop Me” is a retro-style synth-wave song influenced by 80s music.
Story of “I Can’t Stop Me”
The song “I Can’t Stop Me” is an alluring song about bad and good desires. It’s a song that describes anxiety, growth, and seductive ambiance. The lyrics were written by Michel “Lindgen” Schulz, A Wright, Melanie Joy Fontana, Park Jin Young, and Shim Eun Jae. While the producer of this song is Michel “Lindgren” Schulz. The engineers of this song are Eunjung Park, Sehee Eom, and Hyejin Choi who is also responsible for mixing the song alongside Tony Maserati. The lyrics of “I Can’t Stop Me” display the ambiance of the danger of standing within the boundary between the good and the bad. This concept of the song surprised a lot of people because they saw a new side of TWICE they hadn’t seen before.
“I Can’t Stop Me” is also a sequel to a song TWICE released before, that is “More & More”. Both “I Can’t Stop Me” and “More & More” have the same theme: a journey toward maturity. What makes a difference is that “I Can’t Stop Me” is more focused on the temptation toward freedom and the anxiety of losing control as freedom can also bring about some danger.
MV of “I Can’t Stop Me”
TWICE open the “I Can’t Stop Me” MV with the dance of the lotus that blossoms. The giant lotus where they dance is located in a space that symbolizes the unknown. The music video of “I Can’t Stop Me” is produced by Lee Gi-baek of the production company Tiger Cave. The concept of this video is TWICE dancing non-stop in several places: a giant lotus, a white subway station with the train that is flashing in the windows. They are wearing yellow-colored outfits, the same outfit they wear when they board the train. The color of the outfits they wear in the MV is kinda different from the concept of the album teaser that came out in a black and white theme with gray suits.
The MV of “I Can’t Stop Me” was released at the same time as the album, on October 26th, 2020. In the first 24 hours after its release, the MV gained 18,9 M views with 2,1 M likes on YouTube. 77 days after the release of the MV, it had already surpassed 200 M views.
“I Can’t Stop Me” Performance
To commemorate the release of the Eyes Wide Open album, TWICE held a showcase and performed several songs from the Eyes Wide Open album. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the showcase took place online and it was live streaming via their Vlive Channel and their YouTube Channel. They communicated with fans through the online showcase and shared the story of the album.
Other than doing the special live, TWICE also promoted “I Can’t Stop Me” on music shows. They made a comeback on M! Countdown on October 29th, 2020, and also sang their b-side track “Up No More” which was written by Jihyo. TWICE also promoted “I Can’t Stop Me” in other music shows, like Show Champion, SBS’s Inkigayo, and Show! Music Core. Unfortunately, due to anxiety issues, Jeongyeon couldn’t promote “I Can’t Stop Me” with the rest of the members and had to take a hiatus during this comeback. On November 30th, 2020, TWICE performed on US Television and debuted by appearing in #PlayAtHome which is part of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and sang “I Can’t Stop Me”.
“I Can’t Stop Me” Achievements
As one of the biggest idols in South Korea and Internationally, the release of “I Can’t Stop Me” also brought quite impressive charts. Just 24 hours after its release, the song charted 26th on Melon, while on November 1st, the charts for “I Can’t Stop Me” are in the list below. Not only the song charted well on music streaming sites, TWICE also won several awards on music shows with their “I Can’t Stop Me” performances: the list of awards they received is below. Their win on M! Countdown made them one of the groups that have received the most awards on a music show. When the promotion of “I Can’t Stop Me” ended, the song didn’t disappear for music streaming. “I Can’t Stop Me” is still one of the songs that people often listen to. The chart performance of “I Can’t Stop Me” shows that the song even became one of the longest-standing songs on the Billboard Global 200 that charted at 15. In 2021, the number of song streamings for “I Can’t Stop Me” reached 85 million, making TWICE the fourth girl group to reach this mark. Along with the release of “I Can’t Stop Me”, on November 30th, 2020, TWICE released the English version of “I Can’t Stop Me” that had the same alluring lyrics bringing the dark and good side of TWICE.
