As If It's Your Last

As If It's Your Last
"As If It's Your Last" is a song recorded by South Korean girl group Blackpink. It was released as a standalone single through YG Entertainment on June 22, 2017. The song was written by Teddy Park, Brother Su and Choice37, whilst production was handled by Future Bounce, Teddy Park and Lydia Paek. Musically, "As If It's Your Last" is a synth-pop, house, reggae and moombahton song with its lyrics revolving around finding and losing love.
Commercially, the song debuted atop the Billboard World Digital Songs chart, in addition to number two on the K-pop Hot 100 and number three on the Gaon Digital Chart. The single garnered over 2,500,000 digital downloads and 100 million streams in South Korea as of 2018. In Japan, the song was certified gold in streaming by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ). Blackpink promoted the single with live performances on the music programs Inkigayo and Show! Music Core in the weeks following its release.
Background and release
The demo for the track was originally given to 2NE1 with the title "Blame It On Your Love", where it was proposed as a single for their second studio album Crush in 2014. However, the group ultimately turned the demo down. In mid-May 2017, YG Entertainment officials had confirmed that Blackpink were working toward a June comeback, and on June 5 it was revealed that Blackpink would be filming the music video for the new single during that week. On the same day, YG Entertainment's CEO Yang Hyun-suk released a photo of Blackpink on the filming location of the new music video, confirming that Blackpink would make a June comeback, which is 7 months after the group's last release Square Two (containing the songs "Playing with Fire" and "Stay") in November 2016. The next day on June 6 it was announced that Blackpink would likely release the new song between June 15 and June 20.
On June 13, 2017, YG Entertainment revealed a teaser of the new single and confirmed the release date to be June 22. Subsequently, from June 16 to June 18 each of Blackpink's members' individual teaser was released. On June 19, the title of the single was revealed to be "As If It's Your Last", and the time of the new release was confirmed to be 6 pm KST on June 22. It was further explained that this song would be a surprise for fans while Blackpink prepares for Square Three (which later became Square Up), the next release in the Square series after Square One and Square Two.
Composition
"As If It's Your Last" is described as Blackpink's most exciting and upbeat song that they have released so far. Blackpink member Jisoo said that the group had thus far in their history only had "Black" concepts up until then, and that this new single would be a "Pink" concept. The song is a mix of dance, "shimmery"synth-pop, house, reggae and moombahton music with disco grooves, a change of sound from their previous releases.
Commercial performance
In South Korea, the song debuted at number four on the Gaon Digital Chart on the chart issue dated June 24, 2017, with 182,000 paid downloads and 2,997,000 streams. The following week, the song reached its peak at number three, with 157,000 paid downloads and 6,632,000 streams. The song reached number 12 on the monthly chart for June 2017, selling 323,000 copies in eight days. The following month it peaked at number five, selling around 300,000 copies. "As If It's Your Last" ranked at number 18 on the 2017 Gaon Digital Year-end chart. As of September 2018, it has sold more than 2,500,000 digital downloads in South Korea and has charted on the Gaon Digital Chart for 67 weeks.
In Canada, the song debuted at number 45 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 on the week ending June 29, 2017, their highest peak in the country surpassing "Playing with Fire" which debuted at number 92 in 2016. In Japan, the song debuted at number 19 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, becoming Blackpink's highest-charting effort in the country. The song remained at the same position for another week. "As If It's Your Last" debuted at number one on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart after selling 4,000 copies with only one day of trackin. The following week, the song sold more than 5,000 downloads to debut at number 13 on Billboards Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart which, at the time, gave them the highest-charting Korean song by a group in America and made Blackpink the highest-charting Korean group since Wonder Girls in 2009. As of April 2019, the track had reached 11.7 million streams in the UK.
Music video and promotion
On June 20, a teaser of the music video was released on both Blackpink's official YouTube channel and the group's official V Live channel. The following day, a behind-the-scenes video was released, and YG Entertainment announced that the group would hold a comeback special live on Naver's V App at 8 pm KST on June 22.
On June 22 at 6 pm KST, "As If It's Your Last" was released on major music portals in South Korea, and its music video was released on Blackpink's YouTube and V Live channels. Within 17 hours after release, the music video for "As If It's Your Last" gained more than 11 million views on YouTube, becoming the fastest music video to exceed 10 million views by a K-pop group at that time and breaking the record previously held by "Not Today" by BTS, which gained 10 million views within 21 hours. Furthermore, the music video became the second most viewed online video in the first 24 hours by a Korean act, with more than 13.3 million views within 24 hours after release, second only to Psy's "Gentleman". On June 24, the dance practice video for "As If It's Your Last" was released on Blackpink's V Live channel and as of March 18, 2021, it has more than 210 million views. The music video hit one billion views on April 27, 2021, making Blackpink the only K-pop artist with four music videos to break the one billion mark.
Blackpink promoted "As If It's Your Last" on various music shows in South Korea in the month leading up to their Japanese debut in July. Specifically, the group held their comeback stage on MBC's Show! Music Core on June 24, which was the first time that they ever appeared on the show.
Usage in media
The song and its music video were featured in the DCEU film Justice League, where Barry Allen plays it in his apartment in Central City. The song was also featured as the opening theme for the South Korean TV show 'Blackpink House'.
The song was also featured in the Disney Channel animated series Amphibia, in the penultimate episode titled "All In". The episode aired on May 7, 2022.
Accolades
Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from Melon.
Blackpink primary vocals
Teddy composer, lyricist, arranger
Future Bounce composer, arranger
Choice37 lyricist
Brother Su lyricist
Lydia Paek composer
Chart performance
Weekly charts
Monthly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
See also
List of Inkigayo Chart winners (2017)
List of K-pop songs on the Billboard charts
References
Blackpink songs
2017 singles
YG Entertainment singles
Songs written by Teddy Park
2017 songs
Moombahton songs
Reggae songs
Dance music songs
House music songs
South Korean synth-pop songs
Songs containing the I–V-vi-IV progression
Korean-language songs