First Impressions: 'rosie' by Rosé
‘rosie’ is the debut studio album by New Zealand and South Korean singer Rosé. It was released on 6 December 2024, through The Black Label and Atlantic Records. The album was conceived as a 12-track pop collection, blending various musical elements such as 90s-inspired R&B, shimmering synthpop, and raw ballads, with lyrics exploring Rosé’s excitement and heartbreak in her early twenties. Rosé served as a songwriter and producer, co-producing with various collaborators including Bruno Mars, Carter Lang, and Omer Fedi. —Wikipedia
She first announced the release date through one of her Instagram post on October 1, 2024, making her the first one out of the four Blackpink members who is releasing a full-length solo album (the other three members’ full albums are coming out soon too in a couple of months).
(Text version is underneath each image)
“my first studio album “rosie” OUT DEC 6th
where to begin.
I cannot believe I am finally announcing my first album release to you all. I remember last year as our year long tour ended, I found myself in a session out here in los angeles. That led on to a year of walking in and out of the studio, writing songs with songwriters and producers I’d met for the first time, trying to figure out the next chapter in my career. I fell asleep many nights feeling confused and lost. But with the support of my dear friends and family, my team, and of course my number ones, I am sat here today excited to announce the date of my album release. I have poured my blood and tears into this album. I cannot wait for you to listen to this little journal of mine. Rosie - is the name I allow my friends and family to call me. With this album, I hope you all feel that much closer to me. And yes, it’s a full length album. DEC 6th. #rosie” —Rosé
My Take: ‘rosie’
So last night, after listening to all 12 tracks or Rosé’s new album ‘rosie’ while reading every single lyrics of every song, my verdict is that the album is REALLY GOOD.
Granted I would probably will listen to this album over and over again and my thoughts and opinions might change later on, but for now, here are some of my first impressions:
First of all, we all know that Rosé can sing and how great her voice is. But in this album, with the various songs and music arrangements that she has chosen, her voice really stood out on all the tracks. They also showcase how versatile she is a singer as well as a songwriter.
And apart from ‘APT’, the rest of the album really doesn’t feel like a K-pop album (if you know what I mean). This album debut could very well be the mark where Rosé crosses over to the mainstream Pop category, which I think is very well-deserved since she really has the skill and talent to do both K-pop and Pop at the same time.
Second of all, after listening to snippets of interviews Rosé did for her promo, we all know that this album is basically her talking about her experiences with her toxic ex. And knowing that context, the feelings I had while listening to this album were angsty and heartbreaking. Even if you don’t have a toxic ex, I feel like everybody can relate to the lines from her songs if you’ve been in any kind of relationship.
And like, honestly, good for you Rosé for getting out of the toxic relationship because if you went through all the things that you sing about, it doesn’t sound like a very pleasant experience. 😭
Lastly, I do appreciate the full-circleness of the story she’s trying to tell with her songs. The album really share the journey of her relationship from the initial infatuation stage, the toxic stage, the break up stage and finally the moving on stage. ‘rosie’ does feel like a complete journey.
Rosé really started off the first solo full album release strong and I really can’t wait to hear the rest of Blackpink members’ upcoming solo albums.
Favorite Tracks
There’s no skip in this album, really, but here are some of my favorite tracks (for now) after my first listen:
Track 1 — number one girl
Track 4 — toxic till the end
Track 3 — two years
I gotta say, ‘two years’ melody kept popping up on my mind randomly during the next couple of hours after I listened to it. I guess that’s the one that stuck in my mind the most.
Also, if you haven’t heard any of Rosé’s solo songs before but you’re a fan of Taylor Swift, Niki or Adele’s works, you might want to give this album a listen since according to my cousins who are fans of these three singers, Rosé belongs to the same category.
Her previous solo tracks—which are all in full English—include ‘On The Ground’ and ‘Gone’ on her mini album ‘R’ and ‘Hard To Love’ (which is under Blackpink’s Born Pink album). Those three are my favorites too.
After I’m done listening to the album, I went to X to see how other fans are reacting to the album.
Since I’m still in California, the rest of the world (at least people in Asia) had a 14-hour head start listening to this album and it definitely gave them plenty of time to post their reactions to X. I was actually refraining myself from browsing X too to avoid all the spoilers people posted.
But anyways, as always, it’s pretty interesting to see how fellow fans—in this case fellow ‘Number Ones’ as Rosie officially calls her fandom if you haven’t already know—reacted to the album as well as the ‘Toxic Till The End’ music video.
And the scrolling actually resulted in me staying up until 5 am because Number Ones’ mad observation skills and theories were pretty entertaining. 😆
So here are some of the good ones that I found last night:
Album Reactions
“rosé opened the album with number one girl, closing it with dance all night, which was one of the best decisions she ever made. also, the arrangement of the tracks was so perfect, the transition from drinks or coffees to apt. was smooth af.. aoty indeed!!” —@rubyjaneroses
“When you’re being emotional with all the other songs and APT plays on shuffle 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 —@lalalooch
‘Toxic Till The End’ MV Reactions
“rosé, didn’t your parents teach you not to pick up strangers from the road? 😭😭😭” —@blonkse
“the best thing about this music video is how she didn’t portray herself as a victim but instead showed how they were both toxic to each other” —@pinksviral
“this whole mv is just her bullying him i can’t stop laughing she really was the red flag” —@dreamyrse
The Kiss Scene Reactions
“the first k-pop idol to do a kissing scene? this is history 😂” —@_istantalented
“a kpop artist kissing in her own music video? while half the industry apologizes for falling in love??? she is brave and fearless” —@mrswianna
“Rosé kissing in a mv scene
Blinks:
Throwing tantrum ❌
Send truck ❌
Boycott ❌Discussing theories and guessing who’s the mf ✅
YEAH WE'RE STILL SANE 🔥”
—@itsmooniiieee“rosé has just changed the kpop industry forever, from talking so openly about her ex and dating, to kissing in music videos.. after this so many idols are going to feel so comfortable sharing their relationships 😭” —@pinksviral
Honestly, this was the last thing I was expecting. Had to do a double take to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. 😂
Also, I saw some discourse online about the statement “first K-pop idol who’s doing a kissing scene”, I’m very well aware that she’s probably not the first one and as the others have pointed out, the previous generations of K-pop idols have done this in the past (Big Bang is one of the most frequently mentioned). But if you look at the current K-pop climate, having an idol whose public image has always been carefully crafted and tops that with the kind of global fame that Blackpink is currently having, doing a kissing scene is pretty much challenging the status quo. Not to mention that she’s a WOMAN and we all know the double standard the world has in general for woman, especially in the entertainment industry.
So yes, she might not be the first one who have done it, but I think she’s the first one that this current generation (the generation who has gotten to know K-pop after it blew up worldwide) has seen. And she did it in a very non-sexual and PG-13 kind of way which I really appreciate. A very tasteful (and beautifully lit and shot) scene I might add. And if this could encourage other K-pop artists to be more open and vulnerable about their feelings regarding relationships, I’m all for it. After all, they all have to draw inspirations from somewhere right? If not their real life, where else? So let’s just enjoy this small little win shall we?
Bruno’s Reaction
And then there’s bruno with his comment. 😂 And Rosie actually replied with a “😏” smirk emoji.
Who’s The Ex?
Next up is the million dollar question that I’m sure every single one of Number Ones have in mind (but clearly not everybody is voicing):
Who the heck is the actual ex?
But before I move on to this subject, I want to share something that Rosé said during one of her interviews regarding the inspiration of her album:
“I do want to make sure that that’s very well addressed: The fact that it’s not about the story who Rosie has been with or whatever. It’s really more about the art.” —Rosé via New York Times
I get it, really. Rosé doesn’t want the topic of her ex to overshadow all the work that she has put in for this album.
And I agree.
It should be more about the art.
About the music.
But then, you can’t really expect us (at least me) to not get curious on who The Ex is after you mentioning them in every other interviews, right?
So with that said, I’m sharing the next couple of posts just for fun and NOT TO encourage people to hunt down Rosé’s ex and harass them (it already happened to one guy who’s falsely accused so let’s keep it civil online guys). Out of all the theories that are floating out there, there are two names that I personally think are possible candidates. And just to be clear, when I said possible, I mean like it could be true (like even 0.0001% is a possibility so just take all this with a ton of salt if you will) but I have ZERO knowledge of Rosie’s personal life so I know nothing.
And Rosie, if you’re reading this, I promise this is just a little intermezzo in the middle of listening to ‘rosie’. 😆 I’ll go back to streaming ‘rosie’ right after this.
The Ex theory No. 1
“after carefully dissecting all her lyrics, interviews and timelines....i've concluded that her ex might be loren” —@ROSEANNEOUT
They were close at some point I think (at least there were a couple of appearances of Rosie and Loren together online or in each others’ socials here and there). They did a cover together for Rosie’s channel. But it could be just for work.
The Ex theory No. 2
“HE UNFOLLOWED HER, DELETED ALL HIS POSTS WITH BLACKPINK 😭 ROSE AND JADEN SMITH WERE DEFINITELY DATING” —@haobingaysex
“If he was The ex her close family wont follow him on IG . Stop this drama” —@vanessaxxvo
“Instagram unfollows are the new breakup press releases, I guess 😭” —@HoneyGoldxx
“twitter detectives never seem to amaze me, like how do y'all find things like this out 😭” —@Musclemidgett
“Out of all the options she found Jaden??!” —@arvnd_ofl
This one is an interesting theory, but I feel like the first reply kinda debunked it.
“rosé wearing her ex’s hoodie over an outfit similar to coachella 2019….am i onto smth” —@heyheyandre_art
“no because hold on, isn’t this the same hoodie and black outfit combo?” —@cuntressjnk
I gotta say, her outfit in the picture on the left kinda looks similar to the one she wears in the MV though. And Jaden has been known to be a K-pop fan for so long and it is a bit weird he unfollowed all of the Blackpink members. But it could also be for different reasons as well. Honestly, can’t really picture Jaden being the actual ex.
The Ex Theory No. 3
I was about to conclude this series when suddenly my sister texted me literally minutes ago with new tea that she found from the X-sphere.
There’s a new candidate who’s joining the line-up for the possible ex.
And this one seemed to be the most plausible one compared to the previous two.
“some tea for ya 🍵: this is a thread on mikah, rosé, and “toxic till the end”, the connections. —@mikafiles
Okay, I think this one has more probability than the other two.
“AND HE LOVES SKATEBOARD 🛹🛹🛹” —@mikafiles
“and he injured himself playing skateboard!!!! A little bit coincidence as Rose’s new MV” —@onex3000
I don’t know this guy so I’m not sure if this isan actual X-ray scan or just a prop for an MV.
But to people who can read X-ray scans, is there any broken bone in this scan?
Source: @imyoursbini_
“the rosé lore is so interesting i couldn’t stop reading these theories about the ex and the outfits and the references.. oh roséverse is big shut up my novel started” —@dieforyous
“This might be a hot take, but I feel like Rosé is talking about 2 or more exes in the album. I can’t help but notice there are 2 different vibes from all the songs. 1 hinted a lot of angst & pettiness, while the other is more regretful and yearning. Or I’m just delusional lol 🤣” —@agr1298
This whole ex saga literally what kept me up ‘til 5 am last night. 😆 And then one of the replies under this post made me stop scrolling and think. And the realization hit me. It’s actually very, very possible that Rosie has more than one ex. 🤯 I’m sure she has lots suitors out there and it was bold of me to think that Rosie only has one ex. There could well be more than one ex out there.
(Also, as I’m writing this post, apparently there are more theories floating out there that I saw. A couple of new names were thrown into the mix but I didn’t really look into them.)
Anyways, we’ll see if the story goes anywhere. Sometimes fans are pretty good online detectives, but other times we can be a little bit (or a lot) delulu too. So don’t take anything too seriously. At least not until there’s confirmation from parties involved.
For now, I guess this is a good engagement to keep the buzz of the album release going. And again, please don’t dive into this topic too seriously and consume what your see online mindfully. And please don’t go around confronting strangers of about things that are unrelated to you. My suggestion is just to take this as another fun lighthearted topic related to the album. You know, like when you’re talking to your friends about your ex. You guys talk (or maybe rant) about it, get angry together, empathize with what your friend went through, give words of encouragements, take the whole thing as a life lesson and move on with life.
And that’s all I have today. I still have so much to say about the album, but I feel like I need to listen to ‘rosie’ a couple of more (hundred) times and process everything before I can even put my thoughts into coherent words. So I may (or may not) do another review of the album in the future. We’ll see.
If you make it ‘til here, thanks for reading. And if you’ve already listened to ‘rosie’ let me know in the comment what you think of the album and share your favorite tracks! 😊
