Helicopter (CLC song)
"Helicopter" is a song recorded by South Korean girl group CLC. It was released by Cube Entertainment and distributed by Kakao M on September 2, 2020. An English version of the song was released on the same day. This is the group's final song as a seven-member group overall, following member departures from Cube between 2020 and 2021, and subsequent hiatus starting June 2022.
The song is produced by Hyuk Shin of 153/Joombas Music Group, who has worked on albums with Justin Bieber and Exo; Melanie Joy Fontana, who has co-written songs for artists such as f(x), BTS, Twice and Dua Lipa; Michel "Lindgren" Schulz; and Jisoo Park, also of 153/Joombas. The song is written by Jo Yoon-kyung, CLC's Jang Ye-eun, and BreadBeat with Melanie Joy Fontana credited on the English version of the song. The song is told to be a telling of “the story of CLC” and their “autobiographical era”.
“Helicopter” is described as a song whose central theme is “curiosity about the future”. It serves as a metaphor for the group taking off anew with confidence, ready to take on any obstacles that they may encounter. In this song, CLC express the trials and tribulations they've faced in the music industry and their determination to succeed. The song is a trap pop and EDM Powerhouse song with an addictive chorus completely in English. An accompanying music video for the song was directed by Jang Jaehyeok and Lee Kyeongsoon of BIBBIDI BOBBIDI BOO and uploaded onto CLC's official YouTube channel simultaneously at the time of release.
Commercially, the song peaked at number 6 on the Billboard US World Digital Songs chart and number 87 on the Billboard K-pop Hot 100 chart. On November 6, 2020, the lyric video for the Chinese version of the song was released on CLC's Bilibili account.
Background and release
On August 13, 2020, it was reported that the group will return in early September, almost a year after since "Devil" was released in September 2019. It was also revealed that the music video for the song was already filmed. On August 26, in a TV appearance on Weekly Idol, the group performed a snippet from the song.Commercial performance
On September 10, it was reported that the group sold 12,834 physical copies in its first week—a figure over 3.5 times higher than CLC's previous first-week sales record of 3,574.The song failed to enter the Gaon Digital Chart, but debuted at number 116 on the Gaon Download Chart, for the week ending September 5, 2020. The song peaked at number 6 on the US World Digital Song Sales, for the week ending September 12, becoming their sixth Top 10 single on the chart and third Top 10 in 2020, after "Me" and "Devil". It also peaked at number 87 on the K-pop Hot 100 for the week ending September 26, their first entry on the chart.