REVIEW: ROSÉ - ROSIE

4/5

Rosés Are Red

Game start! The Rosé that grew from BLACKPINK is here in your area. Two years after the release of her single album 'R' (featuring the standout cuts 'On The Ground' and 'Run'), the New Zealand and South Korean singer/songwriter is back with her first, full-length studio album, 'Rosie', that will have you in the lament of your love's memories. Before she goes back to black, the born pink, K-Pop superstar is forging her own career, like those boys from BTS, in the same week that Jung Kook's 'I Am Still' docuseries hits Disney + streams like 'Are You Sure' with Jimin and an occasional V (who also gives us his second Christmas single this New Music Friday, 'White Christmas', with who else, but the late, great Bing Crosby?). Headlining one of the most hyped (and best) albums of 2024 with two of the year's biggest (and greatest) chart-topping singles. The 'Apt.' anthem with collaborator of the calendar Bruno Mars (see; Lady Gaga and Japan's Don Quijote everything store) and the beautiful ballad and love song of the Korean ages 'Number One Girl'. Now, if that wasn't enough, 'Rosie's' release coincides with the new single, 'Toxic Till The End', that's Taylor Swift sound is mansion matched with a 'Blank Space' like video as Rosé writes her name next to the biggest stars in all of pop music. The girl with the guitar is a rock star now!

Number one, indeed, like her t-shirt that's bound to sell out in stores. "Tell me that I'm special, tell me I look pretty/Tell me I'm a little angel, sweetheart of your city/Say what I'm dying to hear/'Cause I'm dying to hear you." We don't need to say it (but we will). It isn't lonely at the top any more. Especially when you hear the lovely live version on Korean TV. Not to mention the classic camcorder music video. This Black Label and Atlantic album from the artist's individual emancipated from YG Entertainment and Interscope Records, and it's big-three singles, is putting the new Hollywood of South Korea back on the cultural entertainment map, like the second season of Netflix's most successful 'Squid Game' set to stream this Boxing Day. Christmas is coming early and late, as blonde on blonde, Rosé releases a debut full of amazing album tracks that could all serve as singles as she looks at us through those blonde curls lying down on the album artwork like a star is born. 'Rosie' red from 'Two Years' to '3AM' gives us every ounce of her love and hurt in this release of heartbreak and healing for your milk and honey. Or 'Drinks Or Coffee', as she sings, "Is it just me starting to see/You in a different light?/I know we can't say what we mean/But I'm happy that you're here tonight."

90s R&B, synthpop and the raw nature of relationship's break-up ballads inspire this dozen track affair looking at the love and loss of Rosé's twenties. Something we all share as she head to her thirties with a life like few others. Maybe, Jisoo, Jennie and Lisa making Billboard magazine history across the world's news-stands can relate. They'll be back soon, but before then let Rosé greet you with tracks like the loving yearn of 'Stay A Little Longer', or the 'Gameboy' that takes all those Charli XCX 'Boys' who just wanna have fun and nothing serious to task. Rosé talks about her terrible twenties as a time when she has "wasted (her) prettiest years" ('Toxic Till The End'). Hey, we've all been there sadly ("ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Ex"). But, not like us, a week after Kendrick, Rosé is 'Not The Same'. Looking for love, or at least light, as to close, she steps through all the pain to 'Dance All Night'. "Got out of my bed today/The sunlight was hitting my face/And two little birds came and sat on the edge/And they ask if I'm doing okay."

Anyone singing about little birds like Marley is going to be just fine, and from a bonus Halloween like cut, 'Vampirehollie', to the Xmas cult following down the chimney that her cover of WHAM!'s 'Last Christmas' (from the BBC Radio One legendary Live Lounge) will receive, no coal, this is Rosé's time this year. 'Too Bad For Us' that this "little journal" will hit us where it hurts, but don't 'Call It The End'. With lines like "Do I call you my ex/Or do I call you my boyfriend/Call you a lover, do I call you a friend/Call you the one or the one that got away/Someone I’ll just have to forget/Do I call you every night you’re gone/Or never call you again/Do we have a future/Or should I call it the end" (on some Usher 'Separated' ish), Rosé and 'Rosie' (like two YouTubers) understand love and (that's) life like few others. With her first and the most personal album of the BLACKPINK crew, Roseanne lets us get a little closer to the real her, like family and friends. Hey, on the so fine 'Mickey' hook of the head-nodding single with Bruno Mars that attacks your speakers, back and forth, Rosé sings, "Don't you want me like I want you, baby?/Don't you need me like I need you now?" Of course, we do. And now, she's coming to meet us all. How apt. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Apt. (With Bruno Mars)', 'Number One Girl', 'Call It The End'.

Spin This: Rosé - 'R'