The War (stylized in all caps) is the fourth studio album by South Korean boy band Exo.

The War received the highest number of pre-orders at the time for a K-pop album, with more than 800,000 physical copies.

[5][6] On June 23, SM Entertainment announced that member Lay would be unable to participate in the production and promotion of the album.

[7][8] On July 8, Exo's official Twitter account was made public, through which SM Entertainment revealed the first teaser video for the album.

[9] From July 9 to 16, the album's track list was revealed one by one through a series of teaser videos each featuring one member.

SM started releasing teasers of the repackaged edition of the album with the message "The Power of Music".

[3] On July 18, Exo held a press conference in the morning where they expressed their gratefulness for achieving more than 800,000 pre-orders.

[26] It was reported that multiple servers crashed, due to the number of fans streaming at the same time.

[37][38] The War: The Power of Music topped the South Korean Gaon Album Chart for two consecutive weeks.

[41][42] The album reached number one on iTunes in 41 countries in total, including in Spain, Japan, Indonesia, Russia, Hong Kong, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Mexico, and Malaysia.

The album also made it to the Top 10 on the iTunes charts in 67 countries, including in the US, Canada, Australia, Britain, France, and Germany.