Love Shot (Exo song)

"Love Shot" is a song by South Korean–Chinese boy band Exo, released on December 13, 2018, for the repackaged edition of the group's fifth studio album Love Shot (2018). The music video was released on the same date.

Background and composition
Produced by Rice N' Peas, "Love Shot" is described as a pop dance track that features a memorably addictive chorus and heavy 808 bass. Members Chen and Chanyeol participated in writing the lyrics that talk about hoping to be together and rediscover the meaning of true love, which seems to be disappearing more and more from a dreary world.

Talking to Billboard about co-composing the song, Mike Woods stated that the song was created in January 2017, and stated that he and the other composers MZMC, Bazzi, Kevin White and Anthony Russo, "wanted something that was very, very performance-driven, very dance-driven — something that would sound good loud and in an arena. We like the fact that it's kind of in a different time signature — it's in 6/8, so that's not like a generic pop song.", Woods also stated that the original title of the song is "Love Shop". Despite comments by Woods that the song is in 6/8 time signature, this track makes use of 4/4 timing at the tempo of 72 BPM, and is in the key of C minor. Both the instrumental and vocal melodies feature the use of sixteenth note triplet rhythms.

Music video
On December 6, the first teaser of "Love Shot" music video was released. On December 11, the second teaser of "Love Shot" music video was released. The official Korean music video of "Love Shot" was released on December 13. The Chinese version of the music video was released on December 14.

The music video shows the members switching places between the gritty locale of a gas station and luxurious trappings, before participating in a shoot-out with unexpected enemies. The video also shows the group's sensual choreography. On March 4, 2019, the Korean music video surpassed 100 million views on YouTube. It surpassed 200 and 300 million views on October 15, 2019, and August 18, 2020, respectively, becoming their fastest music video to reach all three milestones.

Promotion
Exo began promoting "Love Shot" without member Lay on South Korean music shows starting from December 14.

Reception
"Love Shot" topped Billboard's World Digital Songs for three consecutive weeks, making Exo the second K-pop act to do so. British fashion magazine i-D ranked the song number seven in their list of K-pop highlights of the year while SBS PopAsia ranked it the 18th best K-pop dance of 2018.

Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.

Studio

 * doobdoob Studio – recording, digital editing
 * SM Big Shot Studio – engineered for mix
 * SM LVYIN Studio – engineered for mix
 * SM Blue Ocean Studio – mixing
 * Sterling Sound – mastering

Personnel

 * SM Entertainment – executive producer
 * Lee Soo-man – producer
 * Kim Young-min – executive supervisor
 * Yoo Young-jin – music and sound supervisor
 * Exo – vocals
 * Chen – Korean lyrics
 * Chanyeol – Korean lyrics
 * Jo Yoon-kyung – Korean lyrics
 * Lu Yiqiu – Chinese lyrics
 * Mike Woods (Rice N' Peas) – producer, composition, arrangement
 * Kevin White (Rice N' Peas) – producer, composition, arrangement
 * Andrew Bazzi – composition, background vocals
 * MZMC – composition
 * Anthony Russo – composition
 * Onestar – vocal directing, background vocals
 * Eugene Kwon – recording
 * Min Sung-soo – recording
 * Jang Woo-young – digital editing
 * Lee Min-gyu – engineered for mix
 * Lee Ji-hong – engineered for mix
 * Kim Cheol-sun – mixing
 * Chris Gehringer – mastering