Song Review:: Rosé (BLACKPINK): rosie- toxic till the end

• Release date: 2024 December 06

• Album tracklist: number one girl, 3am, two years, toxic till the end, drinks or coffee,  APT., gameboy, stay a little loner, not the same, call it the end, too bad for us, dance all night

• Album runtime: 36 minutes

Well, it's finally released. After her stellar run with APT. (which needed very little promotion to explode so thoroughly two of the eleven-year-olds I coach sometimes were singing it the other day, and the one was doing the hand motions to boot. It was a surprise that shook me for a good couple of hours.), I know anticipation and expectations must be very high for the album among fans and casual listeners alike. 

I'm a big fan of how the song starts with science fiction warbling. I'm generally a fan of that being featured anyway, but starting it off this way gives the entire song an interesting vibe, as well as when the science fiction warbling comes back into play later. There are strong synthy bursts of guitar, but for the most part, they don't stick around. There's a disconnect I found interesting regarding them between the those bursts and the vocals. The song tries to fake you out into thinking that it's mellow the entire time, and it's not.

But the problem is that the vocals never really change their dynamic level. As far as they're concerned, those synthy bursts of energy don't actually exist. There are some changes there, mostly in the softening direction, which makes the following return to the normal seem louder, and that's one of my favorite tricks, but she doesn't really let loose with her voice and when it's a song about the rage over a wasted, awful, abusive relationship, I expect a bit more rage there. I'm curious about the reasoning behind that decision. If the album wasn't finalized until after APT came out, then the impossible task is to do more than that one did, which also maintains a pretty steady energy and dynamic level. Something really big would have done that. Alternatively, if it had already been finalized, from what I understand this album was much anticipated anyway. Why not take the opportunity to get as punchy as the guitar is and give the title track something stronger and different from the other two single coming from the album? Her voice is absolutely lovely, and I'd love to see her with some other punchy K-Pop vocalists, but I don't think this is the best showcase of that voice for a title track like this one. Still a great song though, and I appreciate how much her voice sounds like Avril Lavigne, which is a high compliment from me because even when I was only listening to specific genres, I never turned down listening to her songs.

There are a lot of really good parts to the music video, but the best part is the filter applied to mute all the colors as it's likely symbolic of the way the relationship sucked the joy out of her life. Even when it's happy, there's this cloud hanging over everything., and I really appreciate that. I also just love the music video and will be sending it to my cousin who only listens to sad songs normally and is going through a break-up right now.