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How Rosé became a global phenomenon with the release of her first solo album
Like some of her co-stars in the K-pop group Blackpink, Rosé unveiled her very first solo studio album last Friday. Soberly entitled Rosie, the opus uncovers the Korean-New Zealand singer’s US pop influences, as well as her vulnerability and sensitivity. The setlist offers a duet with Bruno Mars, titled APT, which has taken social media by storm for several weeks now. Numéro takes a look at the career of a pop star who has become a global phenomenon.
The explosion of the K-pop group Blackpink
When the agency YG Entertainment launched the group Blackpink in 2016, South Korean and international K-pop fans were eagerly awaiting the release of a debut single by a powerful girl band that will hopefully be equal to the 2NE1s and follow in the footsteps of successful groups like BTS and Big Bang.
After several years of being trained as budding pop stars, including strict singing and dancing lessons broadcast on a TV show, fans discovered an innovative group that picked up the torch of a girl band, with a ‘girl crush’ aesthetic conveying empowering messages for a target audience that is mainly female, and broke down the trend of cute girl bands like Twice, which were quite popular at the time.
Rosé, Jennie, Jisoo and Lisa started out with the release of two songs, mixing rap with committed lyrics and lyrical sections. That melting-pot ensured the band’s overall success right from the start. In eight years, they only released four records, including one EP, which is a surprising rarity in the South Korean music industry. This can be explained by the singers’ strong presence in many other fields, such as fashion – each one of them is the face of a major fashion house – but also by their respective solo debuts.
Rosé, Blackpink’s most indie pop star
Jennie was the first to launch her solo career, then followed by Lisa. Rosé, 27, was the third one to make her solo debuts with the release of her two-track EP, R-Single, sung entirely in English, in 2021. This was more than enough to please her fans, who got a chance to discover her full potential…
While Lisa stands out for her rapper status and more daring aesthetic, Jisoo cultivates a more traditional South Korean image and Rosé is considered as the most “Americanised” pop star.
“Rosé occupies a rather special place in the group since she is completely bilingual in English. She grew up in New Zealand, and has English-speaking inspirations that are very country and close to Taylor Swift,” Joséphine Lemercier, a journalist specialising in Japanese and Korean pop culture, explains.
From Taylor Swift to Bruno Mars… Rosé, the most ‘American’ K-pop star
Released on Friday 6th of December 2024, the twelve-track album Rosie is sung entirely in English, the signature language of the Blackpink singer. “What differentiates Rosé the most is her indie, American side. She’s been playing guitar since she was 13, posting covers on YouTube and Instagram, she is a huge fan of Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Gracie Abrams… All these influences can be found on her new album,” Théo Saussard, journalist and stylist for Nylon Magazine and K-pop devoted fan, says. “This opus is like being treated to dozens of minutes of bridge by Rosé from Blackpink”.
Cultivating an aesthetic at the crossroads between elegant and casual, the singer’s image is above all influenced by Western culture. “Rosé truly embodies the American aesthetic, while keeping the Korean codes. She successfully manages to blend in and meet the expectations of an international audience. We can see this particularly with her single APT featuring Bruno Mars, which has been a hit all over the world,” Joséphine Lemercier adds, while also underlining her recent appearance on the American TV show Hot Ones as the first K-pop artist to play the game, and the participation of American actor Evan Mock in her latest music video for the track Toxic till the end from her album Rosie.
A more intimate and vulnerable side of the singer unveiled in her debut solo album
With Blackpink, Rosé greatly contributed to most of the bridges and melodious, acoustic sections of the tracks. So it’s only logical that her first solo studio album, Rosie, builds on what has made her successful with the girl band – mixing upbeat pop sounds with songs entirely driven by the sound of a guitar and emotional lyrics about breakups, toxic relationships or personal dilemmas.
Coining her album as a little “time capsule” in an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Rosé describes the tracks as so many pieces of her own story and identity that she has gathered over the last few years as a member of Blackpink, and that she is finally revealing to the audience as a solo artist. It shows a more intimate, even vulnerable side that the star has been working on for several years now, also supported by the success of her two previous singles released in 2021 – On the Ground made her the most listened-to K-pop artist – and by the phenomenal bangers APT and Number one girl (2024).
“Rosé has set an impressive amount of records, from listeners to album sales, even though YG Entertainment was probably betting more on Jennie or Lisa,” Joséphine Lemercier continues. Like the other members of Blackpink, the face of Saint Laurent and Tiffany and Co., has joined forces with the independent label The Black Label, founded by the famous producer Teddy Park, to release her solo project without the limits fixed by her career with the group. Her gamble has paid off since it has allowed her to step out of the shadow of Blackpink and show her true colours with this new album…
Rosie (2024) by Rosé, available now.
Traduction Emma Naroumbo Armaing.
