On her solo debut, the BLACKPINK star aims to draw listeners close. But rather than offer a fresh vision of the singer, the record leans on outdated references and thinly sketched heartache.
Who is Rosé, outside of being the main vocalist of record-smashing K-pop girl group BLACKPINK? When she announced rosie, her solo debut solo with Atlantic, Rosé hinted that listeners would get a new perspective on her—not just a taste of who she is as an artist, but also a peek into her interior life. “Rosie - is the name I allow my friends and family to call me,” she wrote in an October Instagram post introducing the record. “With this album, I hope you all feel that much closer to me.” But rosie lacks the sense of identity required to tell this story, boasting only dated pop references and a generic feeling of lingering heartache.
This question of personal identity is a fraught one in K-pop. So much of the genre is built upon the project of fantasy, where idols are treated like canvases for bigger ideas and themes. The cost of this approach, often, is the idol’s unique self—or, at least, the consumer’s understanding of it. While impressions of the idol’s personality are scattered across behind-the-scenes vlogs, candid livestreams, and maybe a personal Instagram account (if their company allows it), this human touch is rarely expressed in the music itself. Though let’s be clear: In K-pop, this quality is not commonly a point of contention, or even a factor that makes or breaks the entertainment value.
The lack of personal identity doesn’t always serve idols who branch out solo—after all, many are trained to perform as part of a whole. Soridata, a site that aggregates data for Korean music, reports that female soloists have received only 9.3 percent of music-show awards since 2007. (Many wins can be attributed to singer-songwriter IU, who has recorded solo since 2008.) That hasn’t stopped BLACKPINK’s members from trying, however. In late 2023, Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa, and Rosé chose not to renew their individual contracts with YG Entertainment (though they did renew their contract for group activities as BLACKPINK), opting to move away from the agency for their solo ventures. By the time the news reached the public, Jennie had established her label, Oddatelier, followed shortly by Lisa’s company, LLOUD, and the announcement of their respective record deals.
For her part, Rosé broke out with rosie’s lead single “APT.,” an infectious pop-rock collaboration with Bruno Mars. Despite the track’s simple structure and premise, which riffs on a Korean drinking game, Rosé lets loose. Her vocals soar over fuzzy synths and catchy percussion, narrating the highs, lows, and inherent humor of a night spent in a drunken stupor. Crucially, the song showcases her most valuable instrument: her voice, a malleable asset that can chant, shout, harmonize, and sing without losing the timbre that makes it recognizable in any language.
The rest of rosie doesn’t capture the same spark: Its dominant narrative of heartbreak is more preoccupied with trying on different styles for size. Third single “Toxic Till the End” is an almost clinical synth-pop track that kicks off an energetic, genre-confused four-song run that represents the album’s most interesting arc. There’s a booming bass synth reminiscent of Taylor Swift’s 1989, a motif that could have boosted the record’s emotional peaks if it appeared more than once or twice. The lyrics detail a bad relationship in which both parties are complicit, building to a cathartic bridge: “I can forgive you for a lot of things/For not giving me back my Tiffany rings,” Rosé sings. “I’ll never forgive you for one thing, my dear/You wasted my prettiest years.” Her rage is a welcome departure on an album that otherwise mostly expresses longing or regret.
Musically, rosie plants itself in the shadow of pop’s recent past, falling somewhere between Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour and Halsey’s Badlands. There’s “Drinks or Coffee,” an attempt at a sultry, R&B-inflected pop hit torn between naughty and nice; there’s the punny red-flag anthem “Gameboy,” which layers an acoustic guitar loop over a nonspecific jungle track; there’s “Two Years,” another take on 1989-era Swift. The final third of the tracklist meets Rosé’s power-ballad vocals with bland coffeehouse sounds, like the pretty fingerpicked guitar on “Not the Same” or the muffled piano on “Call It the End.”
Even with the support of a major label, a star-studded committee of songwriters and producers, and Rosé’s eight years of experience in BLACKPINK, rosie offers nothing revealing or exciting. Its writing pales in comparison to the canon of great breakup albums, with lines like, “In the desert of us, all our tears turned to dust/Now the roses don’t grow here.” Rosé’s recounting of the undoing of this relationship feels distant: There’s a “we,” an “us,” and an “I” accompanied by a “you,” but no real assertion of her own point of view, whether in the context of her persona Rosé or as 27-year-old Rosie. Compare this to her work with BLACKPINK; on “Lovesick Girls,” she sang, between Korean and English: “Love is slippin’ and fallin’/Love is killin’ your darlin’,” balancing the experience of joy and pain. In trying to live up to the “personal album” trope, rosie opts to explore rather than define, and the emotional grooves are polished smooth. Whether you’re a new fan or a devoted Blink (as BLACKPINK fans are known), you’re likely to feel left cold.
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