New Jeans, the group that made its mark on the Kpop industry

With a musical style very different from the Kpop style and their clothes taking aesthetics to another level, these girls came sweeping everything in their path and imposed their mark in leaps and bounds.


Who are New Jeans?

It is a South Korean group made up of 5 idols which are:

Their first single was released in 2022, thus managing to capture many listeners, not only for its catchy melody but for the youthful style that they reflected in their music video, where they show themselves as a group that is simply having fun making you smile and feel nostalgic while watching the video. They continue to apply that style in their music videos to this day.

The group was created by ADOR, a subsidiary agency of the music company HYBE. Their musical style adheres to the 90s and 00s style, but improving it with current instruments. Their musical genre sounds pop, r&b and retro style, although it seems difficult to merge those musical styles with a female kpop youth group, the company knew how to handle it by embracing the Y2k style and bringing it to fashion, modifying it to the image they want for the girls in the group, making them a youth group with a very aesthetic style.

The girls not only had an influential aesthetic style, but each one also has a very beautiful and fresh vocal ability, making their voices harmonize with each music they created. After their single "Atention", they released two more singles titled "Hybe boy" and "Cookie", despite the bad reviews that "Cookie" received for being considered a song with risqué lyrics, which seems like an exaggeration that nevertheless had its argument based on the fact that the girls were minors so a song with double meaning could endanger their images.

This had also made fans worried because they wanted to protect the purity of New Jeans and did not want the company to sexualize them at such a young age. This was calmed down with a statement from the company that clarified that the song "Cookie" had nothing to do with any meaning that had to do with morbidity and that it only talked about creating music.

In 2023 the group returned this time with the release of their first album "Omg", the album had two songs "Omg" and "Ditto". Something that characterizes New Jeans apart from all the above is that the group likes to release 2 versions of music videos for their songs, each version different from the other and with a different meaning. An example is the song “Ditto”, version A of the music video covers the friendship of a girl with the girls from the group New Jeans and how much fun she has with them even when she doesn’t participate with them and just records them, while version B covers the reality of the girl understanding that imagining a friendship that isn’t real just to escape her loneliness only did her more harm than good in her youth, then they show you that when she grew up she finds the tape recorder that she used to imagine everything she lived with the New Jeans girls and plays it on TV remembering her youth with nostalgia.

After the success of their first album, New Jeans has only risen even higher, collaborating with the Coca-Cola brand

and making catchy commercial music for them, making the main music for the video game competition LOL (League of legends), also creating beautiful songs for Kdramas (I have a love for the music they created for the TV series called “My demon”). The girls were being acclaimed everywhere, the company did not waste the popularity that the group was having and also released music in Japanese to capture the public of Japan, they also did not waste the international public since their songs despite having parts in their native language Korea, also had many parts in English especially the choruses and the catchy parts so it was impossible to listen to New Jeans' music and not end up singing it.

There is no music that New Jeans has released that was not a success, everything they put out was enjoyable and pleasing to the ears of those who listened to it, their clothes, hairstyle was also an influence, so much so that some groups began to apply the aethetic style in their music videos and photos of their album releases, a group that had retaliation for being categorized as a "copy" of the New Jeans style is the group "Illit". The curious thing about this case is that the group Illit was created by Belift Lab, a subsidiary agency of the same company HYBE where New Jeans is located. This has generated a lot of controversy, causing some fans to get angry saying that there was plagiarism towards New Jeans, even the producer of the group New Jeans Min Hee-jin has come out to confront the company HYBE about this matter.

As a listener of the group New Jeans since their debut, I can conclude that the style of Illit is very different from that of the group. The music of Illit and New Jeans are very different, perhaps the fact that both groups are young and belong to the same company is the reason for so many controversies. Even cases like this often happen between relatives where comparisons are made between siblings, cousins, etc.… if both choose to do the same thing in careers, people tend to compare as long as there is the slightest opportunity to do so.

The only thing I hope is that the disputes and disagreements of the producer towards the company will not affect the group in a negative way because the group promises a lot and I would not like them to dissolve due to poor management of both the company and the subsidiary agency. For now the girls continue giving their best and have released a song called ¨Supernatural¨

that has been the sensation since it came out, everything is on point; the recording of the music video, the song, the choreography, absolutely everything fits. The girls also continue to do concerts and upload covers of other artists on their YouTube channel. I hope to see another catchy musical release soon that highlights the unique vibe of New Jeans.

I wish both groups all the best in the world, as both Illit and New Jeans are groups made up of very talented young people with a promising future. They do not deserve to lose the opportunity to shine just because of other people.