The Four Penguins

The Four Penguins is the debut album by Antarctican country pop group Penguin Band. It is the band's first official piece of music to be released after nearly four years in the public's eye. It was released worldwide on December 20, 2010 on Club Penguin Music Records for digital download and CD. The album contains production from Petey K, as well as Zippy Penguin, Ray Kodo, Yusei, Flipperstomp, DJ Crab, Squaren Daren, Awesomesauce, Rockyard, Randy Rulon, Jeffrey, One Wonder and Skyman. The album's only guest appearance is from Antarctican singer Cadence. The album was recorded over the course of four years and suffered from constant delays for release and starting over multiple times as well. Critics dubbed it as the most highly-anticipated album of the decade.

Eight singles were released from the album out of the fourteen songs - "History" in February 2007, many years before the release of the album, "Dashing and Peppy" and "Amazing" in late 2008, "Say Goodbye" and "Mission Accomplished" in mid-2009 and then "Good Times" featuring Cadence and "Eternity" a few months before the release of the album. The final single, "Squidzoid and Heroes" was released in mid-2011. All singles generated a lot of buzz for the album and was an uncommon strategy used by the record label to promote the album. Upon release, The Four Penguins received positive reviews from critics with a few mixed opinions. The album charted at number 1 across the entire Arctic due to the sheer anticipation for the album that had accumulated for over four years.

The Four Penguins was the most anticipated album of the year, and is the best-selling album in Antarctic history, selling 21 million copies in total since its release five years ago. It also set a record for the highest first-week sales in history as well, selling 2,464,259 copies in its first week in the United States of Antarctica, while also nearing the 2 million first-week mark in UnitedTerra.

Background
In January 2009, Penguin Band were interviewed by Aunt Arctic for the Penguin Times, being questioned about a possible album. G Billy confirmed that they would start working on an album that year. The next month in February they decided that the three singles that they had already released, History, Dashing and Peppy and Amazing would be included in the album, making three songs on the album ready. Petey K started working on instrumentals while the others done some song-writing. In the month the songs "Something Special" and "Forgive Me" had been completed. In March they revealed that they had officially started working on an album. The next month, "Everyday Life" was complete. At the end of the month they decided to do 14 tracks altogether on the album and that they should release it in late 2010. In April 2010 they decided to release two more singles, and completed "Say Goodbye" and "Mission Accomplished" - both which had chart success. "Say Goodbye" released on May 18, 2009 and "Mission Accomplished" released on July 27, 2009. Then they worked on the album again until November, finishing "Running Down Memory Lane", "Indestructible" and "Cleaning the Snow". In December they performed their latest singles during the exclusive Club Penguin Christmas Festival on December 24, 2009.

The next year they took a break from working on the album, and continued from June 2010. During that month, they had met up with Cadence and recorded a song together, titled "Good Times", which later on released as a single in October. They also finalized on an album name, "The Four Penguins". They revealed the name on their website, along with the cover in July 2010. After that, they were interviewed and G Billy explained the name: "It describes us. There's four of us, Four Penguins. We're not just four penguins, we're the four penguins - it's like giving yourself the Sir title or an army title." In August they collaborated with Nyninyne, and Stompin' Bob explained how that came along: "Me and Franky went to The Rap Festival earlier that month and then we saw Nyninyne - he talked to us and said he liked our rapping. So we got into the studio and BAM, we instantly got ourselves a single." The version with Nyninyne wasn't included on the album and was instead released as the single version.

In mid-August 2010 the tracklist of the album was revealed on their website, and the song was revealed to be called "Squidzoid and Heroes". Under the tracklist there was a description for every song on the album. It said "Squidzoid and Heroes" was rap-comedy. At the end of the month, Franky said to Penguin Times: "Yeah, comedy rap - that's what Nyninyne specializes in. And we wanted to give it a try too. It's about Squidzoid, one of the most famous fictional bad-guys, and then 'heroes', representing Shadow Guy and Gamma Gal. We just added comedy to the play that was created on it - how they save the town in a funny way." In October they worked on a sequel to their first single. Petey K explained the song: "It wouldn't of been right to not do a sequel [you know?] The song finishes off in such a way. It sounds unfinished, you wanna know 'What happened next?' - so that's where Eternity came in. It talks about how and if our legacy will live in the future, what happened after the History song and just puts the pieces of the puzzle together." They confirmed in November that "Eternity (The Sequel to History)" and "Squidzoid and Heroes" were to be singles. The album was completed in September 2010.

Artwork
The cover art features the four penguins in faded form of themselves around the cover. The design is mainly a blue tribal pattern designed by Yusei. The band's logo is repeated in a faded form four times before "the four penguins" is added at the bottom in white. Yusei commented on the album design: "The boys wanted something that showed off a pattern, and that showed themselves.