True Taste Korea

Korean Music

  • Rosé’s ‘new trick’ Is More Than Another Hit — Is She Finally Finding Her Own Genre?

    When Rosé released “new trick,” the first reaction from many listeners was surprisingly simple:

    “This sounds exactly like Rosé.”

    But after listening more carefully, there is something more interesting happening here.

    “new trick” is bright, energetic, guitar-driven, and immediately catchy. At first, it may feel like another fun pop song following the massive success of “APT.” But underneath that familiar energy, Rosé seems to be moving toward something much more specific.

    She may be getting closer to a sound that feels genuinely her own.

    From “APT.” to “new trick”

    “APT.” was built around explosive energy and an almost impossible-to-ignore hook. Its appeal was immediate. You could hear the chorus once and remember it.

    “new trick” takes a different route.

    It is still catchy, but the song feels less dependent on one gigantic hook. Instead, it creates its identity through guitars, rhythm, youthful energy, and Rosé’s distinctive vocal tone.

    That difference matters.

    Rather than simply trying to repeat the formula that worked before, Rosé appears to be exploring another side of her musical personality.

    And that may be the most interesting thing about the song.

    Why does “new trick” feel so nostalgic?

    One of the strongest reactions surrounding the song has been its connection to the pop-rock sound of the late 1990s and 2000s.

    Listeners have mentioned names such as Avril Lavigne and Olivia Rodrigo, while others have described the song as having a high-teen movie atmosphere.

    That comparison makes sense.

    There is something familiar about the combination of electric guitars, youthful melodies, uncomplicated lyrics, and an energetic female vocal.

    It recalls the era when pop-rock songs could sound rebellious and commercial at the same time.

    But “new trick” doesn’t simply recreate that period.

    It filters that sound through Rosé.

    That distinction is important.

    A genre does not belong to one particular artist. Pop-rock has existed for decades, and many artists have used similar musical ingredients.

    What makes Rosé interesting here is how naturally her voice fits inside that framework.

    Rosé’s voice may be the real key

    The biggest change isn’t necessarily the guitar.

    It is Rosé herself.

    Her voice has always had a recognizable quality. Even when she sings softly, there is a slightly fragile and emotional texture that makes her easy to identify.

    In “new trick,” however, that familiar tone is surrounded by more energetic instrumentation.

    The result is different from the emotional ballad side of Rosé.

    Instead of making the vocal sound delicate, the production allows her to sound brighter, freer, and more playful.

    That combination works surprisingly well.

    Some listeners have described her current vocal style as more powerful while still retaining characteristics of the voice fans knew from her earlier career.

    That may be why the song doesn’t feel like Rosé simply trying on somebody else’s genre.

    It feels more like Rosé taking a familiar genre and adjusting it to fit herself.

    The “high-teen” feeling is doing more work than you might think

    The music video also plays a major role in this.

    “new trick” doesn’t try to create an overly complicated visual universe.

    Instead, it embraces a youthful, almost cinematic atmosphere.

    The result is reminiscent of the high-teen movies and pop culture that influenced an entire generation.

    Think bright colors, youthful confidence, guitars, friendship, romance, and a little bit of rebelliousness.

    That visual language matches the music.

    And that is probably why the song feels familiar even when you are hearing it for the first time.

    It isn’t necessarily nostalgia for one particular song.

    It is nostalgia for an entire period of pop culture.

    Why international listeners are connecting with it

    There is another interesting point here.

    Rosé spent part of her childhood in Australia before becoming a global K-pop star. That background gives her an unusual relationship with English-language pop music.

    She isn’t simply performing an American pop-rock sound as an outsider.

    English-language music has been part of her musical environment for a long time.

    That may help explain why the style feels relatively natural when she performs it.

    And this is where “new trick” becomes more interesting than a simple genre experiment.

    Rosé has a large international audience.

    Instead of forcing that audience to adapt to a completely unfamiliar sound, she is using a musical language that many listeners already understand while adding her own vocal identity.

    It is familiar enough to be accessible, but distinctive enough to feel like a new chapter.

    Is “new trick” actually Rosé’s genre?

    This may be the biggest question.

    Calling one song an artist’s “genre” is obviously premature.

    But there are signs worth paying attention to.

    Rosé has already demonstrated that she can work in different musical environments. Her solo music has explored vulnerability, acoustic textures, pop melodies, and more emotionally driven performances.

    “new trick” reveals another possibility.

    Maybe Rosé doesn’t need to choose between being a K-pop star and a Western pop artist.

    Maybe she can simply become Rosé — an artist whose music moves between those worlds naturally.

    That is a much more interesting direction.

    The songwriting matters too

    Another reason the song deserves attention is Rosé’s involvement in the creative process.

    For an artist at her level, having a recognizable voice is only part of building a long-term musical identity.

    Songwriting and artistic participation can help create a stronger connection between the performer and the music.

    With “new trick,” the sound, image, and vocal personality feel unusually aligned.

    The song sounds youthful.

    The video looks youthful.

    Her voice sounds comfortable.

    And the entire package feels consistent.

    That consistency may ultimately matter more than whether the song becomes another huge viral moment.

    “new trick” doesn’t need to be another “APT.”

    This is perhaps the most important point.

    After “APT.” became such a massive cultural moment, it would have been easy to expect Rosé to release another song built around the same kind of instant impact.

    But “new trick” doesn’t feel like an attempt to recreate “APT.”

    It feels like a continuation of Rosé’s exploration.

    “APT.” showed how powerful Rosé could be when paired with an incredibly infectious pop concept.

    “new trick” shows what happens when she leans into guitars, nostalgia, youthful energy, and her own vocal color.

    They are different songs.

    And that difference could be exactly what makes “new trick” interesting.

    The real story behind “new trick”

    Maybe the biggest question isn’t:

    “Is new trick better than APT.?”

    That’s not particularly useful.

    The more interesting question is:

    “What kind of artist is Rosé becoming?”

    “new trick” suggests an artist who is becoming increasingly comfortable with her own identity.

    She doesn’t need to completely abandon K-pop.

    She doesn’t need to imitate Western pop.

    She doesn’t need to recreate the past.

    Instead, she can take elements from the music she grew up hearing, combine them with the voice audiences already recognize, and create something that sits somewhere between familiar and new.

    That is why “new trick” feels bigger than just another comeback song.

    It may be another small step toward defining what Rosé sounds like when nobody else is defining it for her.

    And if this direction continues into her next project, it will be worth watching closely.

    Because perhaps the real “new trick” isn’t the song itself.

    It’s Rosé discovering how much of her own musical identity was already there.

  • I Never Thought BTS Would Become This Big — Then They Broke the Language Barrier

    By the time I became interested in BTS, I already knew they were special.

    I had seen the performances.

    I had discovered how hard they practiced.

    I had listened more carefully to their lyrics and the messages behind them.

    But there was still one thing I never expected.

    I never imagined BTS would become this big around the world.

    Not because I doubted their talent.

    Because, at the time, global pop music still felt like a world with a very high wall around it.

    And at the center of that world was the English language.

    The Global Pop World Didn’t Feel Open to Everyone

    For decades, the biggest international pop stars overwhelmingly came from English-speaking markets.

    There had been exceptions, of course.

    And Korea already had artists who had reached international audiences. PSY’s “Gangnam Style,” for example, became a worldwide phenomenon in 2012.

    But what BTS was attempting felt different.

    They weren’t arriving with one viral song.

    They were a seven-member Korean group trying to build a lasting global career while continuing to release music largely in Korean.

    As a Korean watching this happen, I didn’t assume the rest of the world would simply accept them.

    Asian artists could face stereotypes. Korean lyrics could be treated as a barrier.

    How far could seven Korean men really go in the center of the Western pop industry?

    I didn’t know.

    Then the wall started cracking.

    America Heard BTS Before BTS Changed Their Language

    One of the first moments that made the change impossible to ignore came in 2017.

    BTS performed “DNA” at the American Music Awards, their first U.S. television performance. ABC described it beforehand as their U.S. TV debut; the audience that night included fans singing along to a Korean-language song.

    Think about what was happening.

    A Korean group was standing on a major American awards-show stage.

    They were singing in Korean.

    And people in the audience knew the words.

    For me, that was significant.

    For years, international success often seemed to require artists from smaller music markets to move toward English.

    But BTS was showing another possibility.

    Maybe the audience could move toward the artist instead.

    Then Came the Billboard No. 1

    In 2018, something happened that would once have seemed almost impossible.

    BTS’s LOVE YOURSELF 轉 ‘Tear’ reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making BTS the first K-pop act to top the main U.S. album chart.

    And this wasn’t an English-language album designed to disguise where they came from.

    GRAMMY.com noted that it became the first predominantly foreign-language album in more than 12 years to top the chart.

    That mattered to me.

    Because BTS wasn’t succeeding after becoming less Korean.

    They were succeeding while remaining recognizably Korean.

    Their names were Korean.

    Much of their music was Korean.

    Their story began in Korea.

    And millions of listeners decided that none of those things prevented them from connecting with the music.

    Music Had Arrived Before Language Did

    This was where their international success reminded me of my own first experience with “MIC Drop.”

    I’m Korean, and even I wasn’t sitting there analyzing every word the first time I heard it.

    The rhythm reached me first.

    The performance reached me first.

    My shoulders were already moving.

    Only later did I look deeper.

    Perhaps millions of international listeners experienced something similar.

    They might not have understood every Korean word.

    But they understood energy.

    They understood emotion.

    They understood confidence, sadness, loneliness and joy.

    And if they wanted to understand more, they could search for translations and explanations afterward.

    That made me realize something very simple:

    Music had arrived before language did.

    Then Seven Korean Men Walked Onto Wembley

    If the Billboard chart proved BTS could compete in the world’s largest music market, another moment showed the physical scale of what had happened.

    In June 2019, BTS headlined Wembley Stadium in London.

    Not a small K-pop event.

    Not a niche Asian music festival.

    Wembley.

    The same stadium associated with some of the biggest names and moments in global popular music.

    BTS became the first South Korean group to headline the stadium, and both shows sold out. Wembley reported that tickets for the two dates sold out within 90 minutes; Korea.net reported a combined audience of about 120,000 across the two performances.

    For someone who remembered wondering how far a Korean idol group could possibly go, seeing that was extraordinary.

    The question was no longer:

    “Can K-pop really become global?”

    The evidence was standing inside a packed stadium.

    Then the World Stopped

    And then came 2020.

    COVID-19 changed almost everything.

    People stayed home.

    Schools closed.

    Travel stopped.

    Concerts disappeared.

    BTS lost their planned world tour too. In a 2020 message at the United Nations, RM spoke about how their plans had disappeared and how isolation had affected them.

    This period has always felt important to me when thinking about BTS.

    I don’t believe COVID created BTS’s global success.

    By then, they had already topped the Billboard 200 and sold out Wembley Stadium.

    BTS was already global before the pandemic.

    But I do think the pandemic created a strange new moment between BTS and the world.

    Millions of people were spending more time at home.

    They were online.

    They were anxious.

    They were lonely.

    They needed somewhere to escape for a few minutes.

    And music was still able to travel when people couldn’t.

    “Dynamite” Arrived at Exactly That Moment

    In August 2020, BTS released “Dynamite.”

    It was their first song released completely in English.

    Big Hit described it as a song of joy and confidence created amid the discouragement of the global situation—a way of bringing energy through music and performance.

    And then it exploded.

    “Dynamite” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making BTS the first South Korean artist to top America’s main singles chart.

    This was another wall.

    And BTS had gone through it.

    But I think focusing only on the record misses part of what made the song special.

    The world was going through one of its darkest periods in decades.

    And here were seven people dancing in bright clothes, singing something light, energetic and deliberately joyful.

    For a few minutes, people could move.

    Smile.

    Dance in their rooms.

    Forget what was happening outside.

    That’s why, looking back, I sometimes think BTS’s music functioned as a kind of escape route during the pandemic.

    Not because music could solve COVID.

    Of course it couldn’t.

    But music could make a difficult day feel slightly less difficult.

    And Then They Sang “Life Goes On”

    What BTS did next may have been even more meaningful.

    Instead of pretending everything was fine, they released BE.

    Big Hit described the album as reflecting the fear, anxiety and helplessness created by COVID-19 while still expressing the determination to move forward. Its lead single carried an extremely simple message:

    “Life Goes On.”

    The song subsequently became the first non-English-language song to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

    To me, there is something almost poetic about that.

    For years, people wondered whether Korean-language music could truly sit at the center of American pop culture.

    Then, during a global pandemic, a Korean group reached No. 1 with a song whose title needed no translation:

    Life Goes On.

    The Language Barrier Hadn’t Disappeared

    I don’t think BTS magically eliminated every barrier facing Asian artists.

    Prejudice didn’t disappear.

    The Western music industry didn’t suddenly become perfectly open.

    And language still matters in global entertainment.

    But BTS proved something important.

    Those barriers were not absolute.

    A song didn’t necessarily need to begin in English to create emotion in London, Los Angeles, Paris, São Paulo or Seoul.

    An artist didn’t have to erase where they came from before the rest of the world could listen.

    And perhaps that’s what amazed me most.

    When I first saw BTS, I thought:

    They’re a very good Korean idol group.

    Years later, I was watching the world debate where BTS belonged in global pop history.

    I hadn’t expected that.

    I don’t think many of us had.

    They Didn’t Simply Enter Global Pop — They Changed What Seemed Possible

    Records tell part of the story.

    Billboard No. 1s.

    Sold-out stadiums.

    GRAMMY nominations—BTS eventually received five nominations through the 65th GRAMMY Awards.

    But numbers alone aren’t what fascinates me.

    What fascinates me is the change in possibility.

    Before BTS, a Korean-language boy band becoming one of the biggest music acts in the world seemed improbable to many people.

    After BTS, it no longer seems impossible.

    That’s a much bigger achievement than a chart position.

    Because records are eventually broken.

    But once someone proves that a wall can be crossed, the people who come afterward no longer have to wonder whether there is a door.

    They already know there is one.

    And yet, after watching BTS break through those barriers, I began to notice something else.

    Perhaps their most interesting legacy wasn’t happening on Billboard at all.

    It was happening among the millions of people who called themselves ARMY.

    Continued in Part 3: BTS Changed More Than Music — The Message That Built a Global Fandom

  • I Thought BTS Was Just Another Idol Group — Then I Saw What Made Them Different

    I didn’t expect much from BTS at first.

    Maybe that sounds strange now.

    Today, BTS is one of the most recognizable music groups in the world. But when I first encountered them, I saw them through a very different lens.

    I thought they were just another Korean idol group.

    Good-looking young men. Catchy songs. Elaborate choreography. A passionate young fanbase.

    Korea had seen plenty of successful idol groups before.

    I didn’t expect BTS to change the way I thought about idol music.

    Then I watched “MIC Drop.”

    And something happened.

    I Couldn’t Catch Every Word — But My Shoulders Were Already Moving

    I’m Korean.

    But when I first listened to “MIC Drop,” even I couldn’t immediately catch every word flying through the song.

    It didn’t matter.

    My shoulders were already moving.

    I found myself humming along before I had even thought seriously about the lyrics.

    Then there was the performance.

    The explosive choreography. The confidence. The rhythm. The way seven different people could move with such force while still looking like a single unit.

    It was powerful.

    BTS officially debuted in June 2013, and “MIC Drop” later appeared on their 2017 album LOVE YOURSELF 承 ‘Her’.

    But I wasn’t thinking about dates or charts while watching them.

    I was thinking:

    What is this?

    For a while, BTS made me crazy about music again.

    And that surprised me because I wasn’t the kind of listener I imagined idol groups were targeting.

    BTS had crossed a barrier I hadn’t expected them to cross.

    They crossed generations.

    Then I Started Looking Back

    Once I became interested, I started searching for older BTS videos.

    And that changed things again.

    The BTS I had discovered through powerful performances wasn’t the BTS that had always existed.

    Their beginning looked much smaller.

    They debuted in 2013 with 2 COOL 4 SKOOL and “No More Dream.” From the beginning, the members participated in writing and creating their music, with their official debut material emphasizing that they were telling stories based on their own experiences and emotions.

    Watching their earlier years made their later success feel different to me.

    I saw young men who hadn’t started at the top.

    I saw old footage of them practicing, eating, living and spending enormous amounts of time together.

    What affected me wasn’t only the hardship.

    It was the small things.

    They ate together. They lived closely together. They shared what they had.

    Years later, I would see the same seven people standing on some of the biggest stages in the world.

    But those early images stayed with me.

    Before they shared the world’s biggest stages, they had learned how to share the little things.

    Talent Couldn’t Explain Everything

    Of course BTS had talent.

    You don’t perform at that level without it.

    But the more I watched them, the less satisfied I became with the explanation:

    “They’re talented.”

    Talent wasn’t enough to explain what I was seeing.

    Seven people don’t move with that kind of precision simply because they’re gifted.

    A performance that looks effortless to an audience can be the result of endless repetition behind the scenes.

    Practice.

    Correction.

    Again.

    Again.

    And again.

    That made a surprisingly strong impression on me.

    Because dancing isn’t really the point.

    Think about anything in your own life.

    How difficult is it to devote an extraordinary number of hours to one thing?

    How many of us have talent that we never fully develop because we stop before it blooms?

    Watching BTS made me think about that.

    Talent gives you possibility. Practice turns possibility into ability.

    They were gifted.

    But they also appeared willing to do the work required to make those gifts bloom.

    And suddenly their performances looked different to me.

    I wasn’t only seeing seven talented performers anymore.

    I was seeing the hours behind them.

    Then I Started Listening to What They Were Saying

    Eventually, something became even more important to me than the dancing.

    The lyrics.

    This was where BTS began to feel truly different.

    Korean idol music had existed for decades, and of course many earlier artists had sung meaningful songs. I don’t want to erase that history.

    But as a listener, BTS struck me differently.

    From their debut, their music was already asking young people questions about dreams and the pressures surrounding them. Their first album explicitly centered “No More Dream” around the question: What is your dream?

    As their music developed, the subjects became broader.

    Fear.

    Failure.

    Loneliness.

    Pressure.

    Dreams.

    Learning to accept yourself.

    Eventually, the idea of loving yourself became central enough to define an entire era of BTS music. Their LOVE YOURSELF 結 ‘Answer’ album even concludes its first disc with “Answer : Love Myself.”

    That message affected the way I saw them.

    Young people live surrounded by competition and endless stimulation. They’re constantly being told to achieve more, look better, earn more attention and become somebody else.

    BTS seemed to be saying something remarkably simple:

    Look at yourself, too.

    Your struggles matter.

    Your failures don’t make your life worthless.

    You should learn to love yourself.

    That was when BTS stopped being simply an entertaining idol group to me.

    What Surprised Me About the Seven Members

    There was something else I noticed as the years passed.

    The relationship between the members.

    I had watched Korean idol culture for a long time.

    Groups can appear extremely close when they’re struggling together. Then success arrives. Money, fame and individual opportunities grow, and sometimes relationships change.

    So as BTS became bigger, part of me wondered what would happen to the seven members.

    Obviously, I don’t know their private lives.

    No fan really does.

    And being close doesn’t mean seven different people never disagree.

    But from what I could observe over the years, their relationship continued to feel unusually important to them.

    Maybe those early years mattered.

    Maybe sharing cramped spaces, meals, uncertainty, practice and failure created something that success couldn’t easily replace.

    And perhaps the important lesson isn’t that close friends never fight.

    It’s something much more realistic:

    Being close doesn’t mean never fighting. It means finding a way to remain together after the fight.

    As an outsider watching them, that stayed with me.

    I Had Misjudged Them

    I started with a simple assumption.

    They’re an idol group.

    Then “MIC Drop” made my shoulders move.

    Their performances made me pay attention.

    Their practice made me respect them.

    Their early story made me curious.

    And their lyrics made me listen more carefully.

    That progression matters because I didn’t become interested in BTS because somebody told me I should.

    They changed my mind themselves.

    And perhaps that’s why I eventually understood something about their appeal.

    You don’t have to begin as an idol fan.

    You don’t have to be the same age as their core audience.

    You don’t even have to understand every word immediately.

    Sometimes music reaches you first.

    Then curiosity makes you look deeper.

    And when you look deeper, you discover the work, experiences and ideas behind the music.

    That’s what happened to me.

    I originally thought BTS was just another idol group.

    I was wrong.

    But even then, I had no idea what was coming next.

    Because I never imagined that these seven young Korean men would eventually challenge something much bigger than my own assumptions.

    They were about to challenge the boundaries of global pop music itself.

    Continued in Part 2: How Did BTS Break the Language Barrier and Reach the Center of Global Pop?