The Blackpink member’s latest single will be popular, but won’t move the needle for K-Pop. For most of her fans, looking at her is adequate, listening to her is probably a secondary activity

Just slightly a week after Lalisa Manoban released her third single of the year, Moonlit Floor, her group mate Jennie Kim followed with her first this morning—the dance-y, ditty-like Mantra, accompanied by a music video shared on YouTube. Her latest track is also her third, but since 2018, which by the frenetic pace in which K-pop singers forward their careers, seems a long time ago. A rather lean offering for someone who wants to really pursue a solo career. We do not recall now how successful 2018’s Solo and then last year’s You&Me had been (they probably were). We do not even remember what the songs sounded like now. Can it then be understood that by next week, our ability to recall the hooks of Mantra would be seriously challenged too?

Blackpink has always been dependent on the collective voices of the girls to move their music, not their individual strengths. Vocal coaches have described their voices as “decent”, and that is enough for so many who worship the quartet. But when they do not lean on each other vocally, decent can easily give way to delicate, which might be a better way to say force-less. Mantra—surprisingly short at a mere 2.16-minutes long—has a summer (even if late) vibe about it, and sounds like so much of what K-pop still is today. The chorus, based on more that one voice and a whoop of female rapture, probably makes most listeners want to move their hips. Ms Kim sing-raps her way to the end of the song, but as you watch her prance, you can’t help wondering if she means what she sings—“This that pretty girl mantra… pretty girls don’t do drama ’less we wanna”—even if is pretty inane.

If her music is formulaic, her fashion is, similarly, predictable. It truly is amazing that, since their debut in 2016, Blackpink has picked from an unchanged wardrobe. Sure, they were more schoolgirlish back then, but the cropped tops, the short skirts, the shorter shorts, and the posterior-baring are still present in their costume repertoire today. Jennie, too, has not advance her sartorial choices. If Mantra sounds familiar, then the costumes appear well-acquainted. She sticks to short everything, living up to the Fast & Furious-style casting, as the dancers—all female— gambol through the sets, which includes some fancy wheels. Ms Kim goes through her moves and at least seven costume changes in front of the flashy vehicles as if cavorting with cars is the newest thing in the world of pop MVs.

As a group, dressing alike and equally sexy could be deliberate so that members are able to create a sense of unity—if not vocally, at least visually. But Jennie Kim is a solo act in her latest song. She can unyoke herself from the past to unveil a better self, but she does not. We don’t expect Ms Kim’s video to bear the fashion cred of, say, Miley Cyrus, post-Hannah Montana, but we do expect that a Chanel ambassador could try harder, at least a little, even if in Chanel she barely asserts a personality that can be considered strong or a style that comes across as different, or not tethered to the halcyon days of being a member of the world’s biggest girl group. Jennie Kim is pretty. She does not need to remind us that she is. Least of all in song.

Screen shots: jennie/YouTube