On December 13, 2018, EXO released LOVE SHOT, the repackage of their fifth album DON’T MESS UP MY TEMPO, along with a music video for the title track, “Love Shot.” The repackaged album includes four new tracks along with the original 11: the Korean and Chinese versions of “Love Shot,” “Trauma,” and “Wait.” Members Chen and Chanyeol have writing credits for “Love Shot,” helping to give the song its haunting yet sensual vibe. While LAY was featured in the Chinese version of “Tempo,” he does not feature in the Chinese version of “Love Shot.” This was also the last comeback to feature members D.O and Xiumin before they enlisted.

The Music Videos

Even though the lyrics for “Love Shot” are about a relationship that’s gone sour and wanting to rekindle it and find the love that’s gone missing, the music video doesn’t seem to really portray that plot. Rather, the choreography-heavy video shows the members confronting masked men as the major plot point. While the masked men are holding realistic looking guns, EXO are seen holding clear guns filled with various liquors—like they can only face these problems with a little bit of liquid courage. It could be argued that the men are meant to represent all of the things that could go wrong in a relationship, all of the different arguments and disagreements a couple could face, but for the most part the “Love Shot” music video is EXO showing off their incredible dancing abilities and we’re not complaining.

The Chinese version of the “Love Shot” music video was released on the same day, with the only key difference between the two being the language they’re sung in.

The Comeback Performance

EXO had their comeback for “Love Shot” on the December 14, 2018 episode of Music Bank. They only promoted “Love Shot” here, though in later appearances they would also go on to perform “Tempo.” The group wore their different colored suits seen in the music video, with the stage set to resemble the theater from the video.

The Legacy

“Love Shot” peaked in the top ten of multiple charts, including peaking at No. 9 on the Gaon Weekly Digital Songs Chart, No. 1 on the Billboard Korea K-pop Hot 100 Chart, and No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. World Digital Songs Chart. LOVE SHOT peaked at No. 1 on the Gaon Weekly Albums Chart and No. 8 on the Billboard U.S. World Albums Chart.

During promotions, “Love Shot” took home three music show wins: one on Show! Music Core on December 22 and two on Music Bank on December 21 and December 28. This is the same amount of wins that previous title track “Tempo” took home as well, though one of the wins for “Tempo” took place at the beginning of 2019 on Music Bank where it beat, get this, “Love Shot.”

The music video for “Love Shot” is their most popular to date, sitting with just over 381 million views on YouTube, and was EXO’s fastest music video to reach 350 million. Their next most popular music videos are “Monster” with 369 million views and “Ko Ko Bop” at 300 million. “CALL ME BABY,” their track with the most music show wins to date, has almost 100 million less views than “Love Shot.”

While nothing can truly compare to the power of EXO performing “Love Shot,” the track is one of their most covered by other idol groups, including EVERGLOW, Dreamcatcher, IZ*ONE, and Hwanwoong from ONEUS. Members of The Boyz, ASTRO, CIX, and SF9 came together for an idol dance cover challenge for SBS and SF9 also performed a cover of “Love Shot” at KCON 2019 NY, where EXO-L Yoo Taeyang got to shine dressed like his favorite member, Kai. San from ATEEZ is also known to be a massive EXO-L and Kai fan, and will frequently dance to “Love Shot” during VLIVE appearances and on variety shows, though other ATEEZ members have also danced to the track.

But with all of that taken into consideration, it’s surprising that “Love Shot” and the repackaged album didn’t receive any awards during the year-end awards season. The track was nominated for “Best Song” and “Best Male Dance Track” at the 2019 Melon Music Awards, “Digital Bonsang” at the 2020 Golden Disc Awards, and “Song of the Year - December” at the 2020 Gaon Chart Music Awards while LOVE SHOT was nominated for “Album of the Year - 4th Quarter” at the 2020 Gaon Chart Music Awards and “Best Album” at Melon Music Awards. In a fun twist of fate, however, the album that took home “Album of the Year - 4th Quarter” was DON’T MESS UP MY TEMPO.