KATSEYE gave their EYEKONS fan group plenty to look forward to on Thursday (April) when the HYBE K-pop girl group dropped their beat crazy new single, “Pink Up.” In addition to being a fresh track for the now five-piece crew to perform at their upcoming Coachella Festival debut this weekend, the song is the first one without OG member Manon Bannerman, who recently went on temporary hiatus to “focus on her health and well-being.”
“One day, soon, the world’s gonna end/ I’m gonna make out with my new bestest friends/ I wanna live large, right before it all burns down/ Up, up, pinky up/ Go hard like we’re robbin’ the Louvre/ We Mona Lisa with a cute attitude/ I wanna get high right before we’re in the ground,” members Daniela Avanzini and Megan Skiendiel sing on the hyper pop song’s first chorus in the video in which the group show off their fierce nail art while, naturally, putting those pinkies up to take a sip of tea.
“Ooh, we’re screaming from cloud nine/ No one can touch us if they tried/ Ooh, but it’s a state of mind/ I-I-I-I bet it goes like this/ It’s a state of mind/ We’re screaming from cloud nine,” they all sing defiantly before dipping into the “Pin-pinky up” chorus on the tune that at points sounds like a video game soundtrack cranked up to double speed.
“Pinky Up” was written by Justin Tranter (Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande) and the group began teasing it on March 30 via a cryptic video in which the Mona Lisa brings a steaming cup of tea up to her mouth, with her little finger extended just so. The followed it up the next day with another head-scratcher with no taste of the music in which a KATSEYE-themed claw machine pulls a sword out of a pile of jewelry-wearing stuffed animals, revealing the release date for the single.
All those images show up in the video, with the visual keeping that vibe going, as the women are surrounded by a forest of plushies and lounge around in their usual colorful, outré outfits, which include glittery knee-high boots for a minibike burn-out in an office and patterned mini skirts for a sweaty dance party. Near the end, they slip into matching shaggy blonde wigs and sip some more in a bland hotel ballroom while wearing clear white smocks with furry accents over glittery blue bodysuits.
“Pinky Up” dropped on the eve of KATSEYE’s Coachella debut on Friday (April 10), which will be their latest show without Bannerman, following gigs at Lollapalooza Argentina and Lollapalooza Chile last month.
The group, kind of, discussed their interpersonal dynamics in a new NYLON cover story that took place before Manon announced her leave-taking. “Being in a group, it’s just about good communication and setting good boundaries and building a friendship, but also work relationship, and always remembering that it’s a shared goal that we have,” Manon told the magazine, which noted that current members Yoonchae Jeung, Sophia Laforteza, Daniela Avanzini, Lara Raj and Megan Skiendiel declined to answer additional questions about Manon’s hiatus when the news broke of after the initial interview was completed.
Watch the “Pinky Up” video below.
