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Katseye is taking off like a rocket ship that’s losing bits of mass as it gains altitude. Their new EP, Wild, is reportedly about to debut at No. 1 as the biggest release from a girl group in the streaming era. But it has been an intermittently baffling, sometimes worrying year for the international sextet, who formed in 2023 on the competitive reality series The Debut: Dream Academy. In February, the group’s label, K-pop machine Hybe, announced fan favorite Manon Bannerman’s indefinite hiatus citing health reasons — which she seemed to challenge by attending Coachella two months later even as the rest of the group performed there without her. Her departure and a lack of clarity from management fed speculation in the press and in their fandom full of children and teens that there’s potentially a deeper problem and she may never return. (Manon is not featured on Wild but shows up in archival footage in the new Katseye: Wild Hearts documentary, so no new tea is spilled there.) Then this month, another member, Sophia Laforteza, announced her temporary health hiatus. Down a third of its crew (and periodically appearing as a trio), the quartet-for-now seeks modern girl-group chart history while nagged by uncertainty and controversy that extends to their music.
Wild finds a group of mostly early 20-somethings toasting to causing trouble and giving in to their desires as the youngest member, Yoonchae Jeung, turns 18. Katseye’s image teeters on infantilizing — bright and jittery music videos are sometimes littered with toys, charms, and/or stuffed animals — as the music speaks to freedom and responsibilities that come with getting a little older. It feels like they don’t want to lose the lucrative attention of American middle-schoolers, and the whole endeavor is a Hybe experiment in what does and doesn’t fly internationally. Katseye doesn’t seem to get in as much trouble as K-pop idols have in the past for swearing; a patina of unruliness has endeared the group to its followers. (In Dream Academy, mounting accusations of laziness against Bannerman could not diminish her popularity; instead it touched a nerve with other Black women around the world navigating workplace and societal scrutiny.)
Wild is a war between bittersweet pop, like the sterling Charli XCX co-write “Bel Air” or the darkly triumphant but annoyingly Target-exclusive “Unloveu,” and deliberately juvenile singles with jarringly sensual visuals. The “Pinky Up” music video kicks off in a playground and ends up “shaking ass in a parking lot.” In the video for “Hootie Frutti,” which features a stream of nonsensical verses that don’t lead anywhere except for a grating chorus, member Megan Skiendiel plays suggestively with pink taffy during her part. Both of these songs and videos have drawn divided responses from the press as well as fans. People are either roasting or reveling in the group’s dedicated silliness, sometimes cloyingly direct advertising, and ramped-up carnality. Katseye is communicating that no one should continue to look for the innocence and empowerment of 2024’s SIS (Soft Is Strong), their first EP. But Wild struggles to make sure that its recklessness is attached to art that is consistently accomplished. Chart hit “Animal,” a gift of pop-radio catnip written by Ed Sheeran, pawns off the same simile-drenched horniness as his “Shape of You.” With access to Charli and Sheeran and heavy-hitting writers like Justin Tranter (Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber) and Amy Allen (Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo), Katseye could’ve arrived at a more cohesive and unique balance of brattiness and emotional weight.
But the mountain of co-writers is itself an issue. “Unloveu,” the lone track crediting a member of the group as one of its authors, showcases the pen and candy-coated tone of Lara Raj. It proves there are songwriting chops being nudged out of frame in lieu of fun but often one-size-fits-all girl-group fodder from pop experts. What other music is Raj sitting on? What might her bandmate Daniela Avanzini have to say in a song about their past year of adulation and never-ending scrutiny? For all the ways the group brooks the often squeaky clean and heteronormative K-pop idol tradition they’ve been patterned after, as queer themes and sex-positivity trickle into their interviews and lyrics, the project still feels beholden to a marketing arm chiefly out to maximize reach. Wild surveys established sounds — Timbaland-esque closer “That Way” could slide right into the credit sequence of an aughts MTV dating show — but doesn’t have fun with the artists’ purview or hint at the struggles we can see the group going through. Manufactured pop can do this. The title track of ’N Sync’s Celebrity shows how fame barges into a star’s love life; Britney’s “Piece of Me” taunts listeners for obsessing over her. Saja Boys from Kpop Demon Hunters got to it: The self-aware “Your Idol” spoke to the power of singing so well that strangers fall for you. Wild gives us “Hootie frutti all night long” and “If it’s hard to keep it up, baby, the door is that way.” It insists upon a more risqué outlook while cautiously sticking to safe sonic territory, so any salaciousness feels calculated.
Katseye’s chaotic catalogue and dwindling active roster are not an obstacle to an audience right now. But as long as there are enough admirers to give this group a better first week than forebears like Blackpink and Twice, Katseye and their following deserve for this experience to be about great and coherent art, not awkward videos in the comment section and wondering who’ll still be in the group by the end of the promotional run. There’s untapped potential on the table, and Katseye is in orbit but not guaranteed to stay there.
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