SEVENTEEN’s Vernon Rages With Chaos & Loneliness In His Solo Mixtape ‘Black Eye’
We all know what a true cathartic scream feels like—well, Vernon in the “Black Eye” Music video surely knows. Screaming can trigger a wide range of emotions: sadness, anger, heartbreak, frustration, and many other emotions. He lets out his fury in just a few seconds of the music video for his solo mixtape. The white noise seamlessly transitions into the steady beat, showing his true emotions.
“Black Eye” is the third out of The Thirteen Tapes Mixtapes that highlight each of these topics. SEVENTEEN member’s individual talent, and came out after the release of HOSHI’s “Spider” in April 2021 and WOOZI’s “Ruby” in January 2022. SEVENTEEN has so much to offer this year, including their fourth album. Face the Sun They are hot world tour, Vernon was still able to collaborate well. He dabbled in his home base of Korean Hip Hop music, telling people to call him “K-Pop Papi” in Omega Sapien’s “Wrecker,” while also channeling over the internet to collab with one of his favorite artists Charli XCX in the glitchy remix of “Beg For You” with PC Music powerhouse A.G. Cook.
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His new solo song also joins his flourishing solo repertoire of the reflective trap-beat-filled “Bands Boy,” and his early solo song “Lizzie Velasquez.” He expanded on his artistic process when he told Teen Vogue earlier this year by likening it to his favorite film, “Every time you search about The MatrixEvery day you learn something. There are so many hidden messages. These hidden messages might be what people are talking about online [aren’t] It’s really all about you [the filmmakers] However, it is intended. [there’s] all this talk coming from one movie.” He continued, “That’s the kind of music I want to make, just having people talk about it even when it’s not really something I intended,” he adds. “It’s like an abstract art piece, you know what I mean?”
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The unbroken jump between genres can be highlighted by his love of Bladee, The KidLAROI, and Avril Levigne. “Black Eye” serves as a definite homage to everything Vernon loves as an artist and it shows beyond doubt that he can really rock out.
It’s not the first time that Vernon pursued a pop-punk sound in his work. His duet with JOSHUA in their English song “2 MINUS 1,” a bonus track from SEVENTEEN’s album Attaca, It evoked the same feelings of being angsty, let down by a terrible loss. But somehow, Vernon’s solo song delves even further deeper into that concept with an effortless rampage. It’s reminiscent of a mid 2000s pop-punk song structure. The first verse builds up into an emotional backdrop filled with self-pity. The first lines are about wallowing around as a pop-punk character does, “Running ’round the whole city for someone / To look me in my eyes and tell me pretty lies” A gradual increase of catchy and upfront “ohs” turns into an angry call out to the void: “Is there anyone out there?”
Here’s where the rebellion comes in. Vernon nails the delivery with the grit of the chorus, “I’m on my worst behavior / Don’t stop me now / I f**king hate this world / So show me a way out” The bleeped-out part uses the same tone as featured in Seventeen’s leader unit song “Cheers,” which makes sense since both songs were co-written with Ohway! In this case, the censor adds more riotous and raw intensity, and with more repetition and build, it leads to a defiant declaration that he can’t be contained: “Put a muzzle on me / I’ll spit in your mouth.”
The second verse’s gentle mellowness and swirling guitars bring you back to contemplation of a saving grace. “So why you keep coming to me? / With your innocent eyes, you smile so bright,” Vernon asks. It comes to an ultimate deflection, as he knows what he wants with a thrashing attitude and doesn’t want help for his self-destruction. “I’ll just let it burn everything around me / ‘Cause you can’t save me from my sadness / No, don’t save me.”
With a background chorale of “ohs” shouting in the outro, he tells us to have fun but keep a little distance. “Let’s dance all night long / But if you come too close / I might just burn you whole,” he says before repeating the ultimate question from the chorus. There’s always a balance between yearning, seeking comfort and knowing what kind of harmful damage a personality could do in the genre of pop-punk, and Vernon surely punched it in with the perfect formula.
‘Face the Sun’ by Seventeen $22
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