Hands Up is the second studio album by South Korean boy band, 2PM. The album was released in digital format on June 20, 2011 and in physical format on June 21, 2011. A special limited edition was released on June 23, 2011. Hands Up was 2PM's first album to include tracks written and composed by the group's members.
Contents
Background
A teaser for the music video of "Hands Up", the lead single of their album, was released on June 15, 2011 on 2PM's official YouTube account. The full music video was released on June 20, 2011 along with the album Hands Up. The physical version of the album was released the next day.
The album contains thirteen tracks, including their 2010 single "Thank You" and songs from their previous single album Don't Stop Can't Stop and previous EP Still 02:00PM. Hands Up was 2PM's first album to include songs written and composed by the members, with "Give It to Me" and "Hot" being written and composed by Junho and Jun. K respectively. These two songs were pre-released as ringtones and ringback tones on July 16, 2011; "Hot" was originally written and performed at a fan-meeting in 2009 with a different arrangement and lyrics.
On July 15, 2011, 2PM released a music video for the remix version of "Hands Up" by South Korean DJ East4A. Two music videos for "Give It to Me" and "Hot" were later released on July 19 and July 25 respectively to promote the movie Blind.
2PM promoted the album with performances of "Hands Up" and the B-side track "Like a Movie" on Korean television music programs starting on June 24, 2011. After one month, they ended promotions for Hands Up in late July to focus on advertising promotions in Thailand, the release of their first Japanese studio album titled Republic of 2PM, and their Hands Up Asia Tour starting in September, the group's first concert tour spanning multiple countries.
The Japanese edition of the album include a 24-page photo book.