Success changed BLACKPINK forever, for better and worse. At the height of their popularity, the Korean girl group shifted their focus towards Western audiences, making diluted songs that felt ready-made for Kidz Bop. It was an honest mistake. For 30 years, K-pop acts rarely contended with the rubric of American pop music, whose stylistic conservatism thwarts K-pop’s compelling genre agnosticism. Authenticity is more heavily scrutinized in A-pop too, and the BLACKPINK members’ solo debuts have looked anemic under this microscope. Rosé’s rosie lacked interiority and LISA’s Alter Ego whiffed its titular premise. Jisoo’s Amortage fared better, but only because it embraced anonymity. JENNIE’s Ruby adopts a similar tack, but the production is more ambitious, the songwriting more accomplished. If JENNIE has the most robust individual musical identity of the quartet, it’s because her songs have a crucial element the others’ lack: They sound good.
It is painfully obvious when hearing “like JENNIE” that the BLACKPINK members all needed a song like this, one that translates their tough-girl sound into a blistering new style. Here, JENNIE sings atop a metallic beat that hybridizes baile funk and phonk, and her snarled delivery is especially convincing when it flits between Korean and English. While she hardly flaunts her bilingual prowess elsewhere, “ZEN” offers art-pop pomp with pounding drums that are as traditional as they are imperial. Reminiscent of Lim Kim’s GENERASIAN, it exudes a bracing confidence that overshadows its flimsy lyrics. This is the secret to Ruby: It’s less “fake it till you make it” than “make it so you can fake it.” She lacks the conviction of Doechii on their collaboration “ExtraL,” but the sleek synths, beat switches, and chanted vocals provide enough window dressing to keep you invested.
JENNIE excels on these tracks because she knows how to play the game. Much like Rihanna, she’s been lambasted for lazy performances and an indifference towards honing her vocals, but she also has enough charisma—a stylish flair—to carry weaker productions. “Mantra” is too minimal for its own good, but JENNIE’s insistent, needling hook forms an earworm by sheer force. “Starlight” is a gaunt, slow-motion PinkPantheress riff, but its introspection is believable because of her impassioned singing. While some tracks are duds—“Twin” is an acoustic ballad with embarrassingly generic details, and “Seoul City” meanders aimlessly—most of Ruby proves she’s a natural. “start a war” is a lighters-up SZA anthem that sidesteps gauche ABG AAVE, her vacillating vocal rhythms mirroring a relationship’s push-pull tensions.
The clearest testament to JENNIE’s versatility is that she’s never out of place among her features. She sounds at home on “Handlebars,” an unassailable collaboration with Dua Lipa. Their last song together was an awkward pop Mad Lib, but the two trade verses here as if close friends, bonding over their tendency to crush hard. “Damn Right,” a Mike WiLL Made-It co-production, serves as Ruby’s most sultry moment. Alongside Kali Uchis and Childish Gambino—the latter of whom dons his best André 3000 impression—the three revel in a night of hushed come-ons. When JENNIE delivers the barebones hook (“Damn right, I did that/Damn right, yeah”) like she’s whispering under her breath, her satisfaction is palpable. It recalls the album’s f(x)-like intro, built on little more than snatches of her voice. These moments embody Ruby’s effortless charm: Sometimes, JENNIE’s presence is enough.
