Ojasvi Peer, Hyderabad, Telangana

Experimentation is the beginning of discovering your talent and creativity. Whenever you experiment with something that you enjoy, your mind opens with the possibility of improving more and you consequently find your strengths and weaknesses.

YG Entertainment’s second girl group BLACKPINK, comprising members Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo, Rosé, the most prevalent Korean girl group, released their first ever full-length album in October 2020, titled “THE ALBUM.” Let’s explore each track and find out what makes them unique and quirky.

For this new album, BLACKPINK collaborated with famous singers like Cardi-B and Selena Gomez for the songs “Bet You Wanna” and “Ice Cream” respectively, both of which are fun and upbeat tracks. Bet You Wanna is about spending a fresh and a promising time with your partner infused with amazing vocals and rap performance; Ice Cream, on the contrary, is fun, bubbly and a colourful track with double entendre lyrics along with a beautiful music video.

The opening track “How You Like That”, is symbolic of how the girls, despite of all the negativity and darkness, rise with their rock-solid belief stored within their hearts. Through the lyrics of this track, they are trying to construct a conviction for everyone that whatever circumstances arise, whatever contradicts your path of hard work and optimism, you shouldn’t let yourself get trapped in those absurd clutches of downfall. Till you have confidence and self-belief, nothing what others say will matter, and that day will definitely come when you’ll look into those loathsome eyes with a smile on your face and bid them goodbye because then it’ll be your time to shine like the star you are, just as their lyrics specify before the beat drops.

The ending lines of the song, “The day I fell without my wings, those dark days where I was trapped, you should’ve ended me when you had the chance, look up in the sky it’s a bird, it’s a plane!” stood out for me the most because the girls aren’t hiding their weak times, but say that there was a time when haters could have ended them out of jealousy but now, they’ve overcome their fears and insecurities and won’t shy away from anything.

Some moments are there when we are genuinely happy, far from the sadness that we hide behind our smiling faces. But if someone tries to ruin it by spluttering out impractical words that don’t hold any relevance in our lives, our confidence droops down and even if we are moving forward, we get stuck at the same place, judging ourselves even though none of the words stand true. Those judgemental people are far off from understanding the human emotions, which is why track “You Never Know,” is really close to my heart and will surely win over your heart if you understand the lyrics. It stands true not only for BLACKPINK as a group but even for the individuals who are diverted from their original goal by the social stigmas. BLACKPINK have rightly addressed what happens with them on a daily basis, how people judge them and comment on their lives even without knowing their hardships, their struggles to survive in the vast music industry. This line in itself explains a story:

“Coz everybody sees what they wanna see, it’s easier to judge me than to believe”

Just because you see what others make you see; you don’t have the right to neglect their success by mocking or judging them and this message right here made me proud that they stand as an amazing group. Even though, the world is full of toxicity and hate, caging all of us in our own unending spiral of agony, there still exists hope, wanting us to look at it and start believing that even a windowless room holds an opportunity to breathe if we stay patient.

“Lovesick Girls”, an electro pop track that showcases the desire to find your true love even after undergoing a toxic relationship, where you felt inferior as superiority disguised as love. This song really amazes me every time I hear it, because it makes me feel that its fine to be alone as long as we don’t find the same amount of love that we deserve.

Another song, “Pretty Savage” has both powerful music and savage lyrics. This song totally shows the fierce and positively dark side of the group. The complete song is basically dedicated to those who spread unnecessary odium against them. The beginning of the song itself is gripping. They also gave a slight reference of their smash hit ‘DDU DU DDU DU’ as a song through which everyone remembers them, which I think is a really bold and smart move. Interestingly, this song is an incredible way to answer all haters along with powerful beats.

The last two songs in the series are “Love To Hate Me” and “Crazy Over You”, both of which are mesmerising in their own exclusive ways. Love to hate me is a song which focuses on saying that the girls will completely shadow those who are invested in disliking them because they’re not worth their time and love. Giving them attention will only waste their precious time that they could utilise with their fans. They will let the haters fade in the background because there is too much love and affection for the hate to step forward.

Whereas Crazy Over You is about cherishing a boy, they admire and what all they can do to keep their relationship strong and going, how they’ll cross lengths or device smooth plans to keep the boy to themselves until the feelings are mutual so that the others will be left wishing well.

Thus, the whole album is a sweet yet salty mixture of both dark and bright sides of love that they tried to show to the world because we always desire the good result without knowing that falling and learning are the part of our lives that we cannot skip, but should face bravely.

Tell us which song from this album is your favourite in the comments!