K-pop group KATSEYE dropped their new single “Gnarly” at the end of April, ushering in an edgy new era for the group. I think the song is a full on bop—but k-pop fans hate it.
KATSEYE is called a “global” k-pop group, based in Los Angeles and managed through a partnership with Korean label HYBE and the American Geffen Records. This allows for some welcome differences from how Korean groups are managed, in that the group’s members have a smidge more freedom in their personal lives. Recently, Lara Raj, one of the group’s members, came out as queer, saying that she knew she was “half a fruitcake” since she was a kid. Musically, there isn’t much difference between this “global” group and other groups fully based in Korea. The group’s 2024 second single, “Touch” sounds to me exactly like a light, airy, Korean pop song, just with English lyrics.
“Gnarly” is a little different. It’s not unusual for k-pop groups to change aesthetics with new releases—in fact, audacious changes for each “era” is part of the charm of following a pop group like this. “Gnarly” is much louder and more aggressive than “Touch,” with fuzzed out vocals and a loud, farty synthesizer running through the track. The girls even say “fuck!” Personally, I love the song. It’s a catchy little ditty about how a slang term can encompass many meanings, describing things that are both cool and uncool as “gnarly.” It’s perfect for screaming along to during a long night out.
Apparently, I am alone in this opinion. For the past week, as I perused my little k-pop subreddits while rotting on the couch, every time I saw “Gnarly” mentioned, it was fans lamenting how much they hate the song, expressing disappointment with the group’s comeback. Teen Vogue has called it “polarizing.” When I looked at the lyrics on Genius, the top comment reads “first and last listen I fear.” Some people wondered if it was a prank, satire, or terrible on purpose.
One of the major complaints seems to be the lyrics of the song, which are pretty silly, but that’s never been a dealbreaker for a pop song from any country. Grammy Award-winning artist and should-have-been-Coachella-headliner Charli XCX has a genuinely touching song on her breakthrough pop album Brat with the lyric “why I wanna buy a gun/why I wanna to shoot myself.” The lyrics “hottie hottie, like a bag of Takis,” to me, is no less silly than that. “Gnarly” is also a much more infectious ear worm than many other English language k-pop songs, lest we forget when Blackpink hit ‘em with that “ddu-du ddu-du du.”
The negative fan reaction got so intense that Manon, one of the members of KATSEYE, said on Instagram Live,, “If you get it, you get it, and if you don’t get it, kindly, get the fuck away from us.”
The group later shared a TikTok video where they quoted a Nicki Minaj meme, telling fans that they’ll like “Gnarly” better after a few more listens.
I think I understand the reason for k-pop fans' frustration, especially these fans, who are obsessed enough with these groups to talk about them on the internet all day. While k-pop can encompass a ton of different sounds and styles, the genre’s production style smooths out all the edges. K-pop functions a little bit like Fortnite, in that it is kind of a black hole that absorbs culture and remakes it in its own image. You liked that song “Water” by Tyla? Okay, well, here’s a k-pop version of an afrobeats song. You like PinkPantheress? New Jeans released an entire EP that sounds a lot like her whole deal. At a very basic level, all of k-pop is a refraction of American hip hop and R&B, to the point that a lot of groups have been criticized for appropriating black culture. Some fans find that appropriation—which often comes with a serving of anti-black racism—is so extreme that they have sworn off the genre entirely.
I feel like I know what’s going on with “Gnarly.” This song is at least partially based on a demo by Alice Longyu Gao, a songwriter who’s been associated with the hyperpop genre, which also encompasses artists like the aforementioned Charli XCX, producer AG Cook and gen-z maniacs 100 Gecs. The songs produced by these artists are all extremely aggressive and bold—and also have been extremely popular over the past year. Charli XCX’s Brat was such a hit that “brat summer” lasted an entire year. Instead of being a k-pop version of a hyperpop song, “Gnarly” kind of just is a hyperpop song, with all the sharp edges that come with that.
I asked Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, co-founder of Hearing Things, why she thought k-pop fans disliked the song. While she thinks maybe the Tesla namedrop in its lyrics has something to do with it, she thinks it’s mostly about how the song differs from other k-pop tracks, especially other tracks from the label HYBE.
“There’s definitely a HYBE sound,” she said. “It’s New Jeans: it’s very vibey, very demure.”
There is nothing demure about “Gnarly,” however.
“I think that ‘Gnarly’ probably grates because it is so aggressive sounding,” Shepherd continued. “It reminds me of some old Big Bang songs in the sort of dubstep gesturing. So I can see why some current k-pop fans are not feeling it. There’s also no singing, which is probably unpleasant to some people.”
All of these qualities are the ones that make me enjoy the song a lot. In fact, I think the song is a showcase for one of the most important qualities of a pop group in any genre: charisma. When KATSEYE perform this song, they perform the fuck out of it, down to their facial expressions. When they say they’re the shit, I believe them. How gnarly.
