Is there anyone in the K-Pop eco-system has perfected the art of reinvention quite like Chung Ha?
The 29-year-old solo artist is nothing short of a show stopper, a fact that became instantly clear just over nine years ago when Chung Ha, then a contestant on Korea’s wildly popular Produce 101 music competition series, had judges and fellow contestants in shock when she danced during her audition. She would then go on to debut in the show’s temporary group, I.O.I.
In the years since, Chung Ha — who was born in Seoul and raised in Texas before heading back to Korea to pursue music — has made a name for herself as a dynamic solo artist, finding domestic success through singles like “Rollercoaster,” “Snapping” and “Gotta Go.”
The “Sparkling” singer, in an unsurprising move, parted ways with her former management in 2023 before signing with Jay Park’s More Vision later that year. She came back with her first single since joining the agency — “Eenie Meenie,” featuring Hongjoong of ATEEZ — last year.
Chung Ha’s latest EP, Alivio, her first in nearly three years, is all about letting go of the past and moving forward. It’s a sentiment captured in the album’s lead single, “Stress,” which encourages listeners to love themselves and take it easy. The singer spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about putting out new music, the decision to release an EP instead of a full-length album and working with her good friend and fellow K-Pop legend Sunmi.
This is your first EP in almost three years. You’ve had a lot of changes in that time. How are you feeling about the new album? Are you excited? Are you nervous?
Two and a half years. Man. Time flies. A little bit of everything you just mentioned. I am nervous. I’m excited. I feel a little pressured, of course, a little stressed out, but at the same time I’m ready to let things go. Let this go. Finally, after, I don’t know, two, three years. I didn’t even know that it was that long. My fans were like, “So this should be a full-length album.” I’m like, “Why? I just had so many albums out.” I’m like, no, I’m not ready for a full-length album. Of course, I do love doing full-length albums, but I don’t know if I would have the time. I was hosting a daily radio show last year, so I didn’t really get my own musical creative time. I was like, I don’t know if that could be possible, but I’ll try. We here in Korea, call it a mini album. I’m really happy to release a full mini album. It’s been like five to six years since my fourth mini album came out. Flourishing, the title track was “Snapping.” That’s been a while.
It sounds like you’ve been sitting with this project for a while. Have there been any moments that stood out as your favorite during the recording process?
I didn’t hold this album for that long, I can say, because we started strategizing the album after “Eenie Meenie” came along — so around summer. Then we were busy doing [Aug 2024 single] “Algorithm,” and then again, we were busy doing collaborations. I was doing events, I was doing a radio show. We were kind of slow with the album because I didn’t want to rush it out. I told my team that I wanted to be more adventurous, and I wanted to try out new things after “Eenie Meenie.” [That song] was quite new for me, but I had so much fun with it. I was like, “OK, I should be more adventurous. What do I want to do?” Then my A&R gave me piles of songs to discover. I didn’t know what I wanted to sketch, so it was just a plain, blank paper for me to have no creative boundaries on the table. I was just recording song by song. At the end of the 10th song that I’ve recorded, we were like, “What do we want to say here? What should we eliminate? What should we include on the album? What do you want to say?” And I was like, I think this is a fluctuation of my feelings for the past four or five years, and I think I really want to let these feelings go. So I think my album’s name is going to be Alivio [Spanish for “relief”] because I want to feel relieved. That’s when it naturally just came about.
What are the parallels between the this album of letting go and your life at the moment? Why did you feel that this was the time for an album that is saying that? Why right now?
I wanted to give good closure to the past four or five years since I’ve been struggling [and] facing new challenges. I couldn’t ignore that part of me. I told myself, “You’ve never been this vulnerable, Chung Ha. You’ve always been sparkling. You’ve always been so glittery. You’ve always been so powerful.” “I’m Ready” [2024 b-side]. The concept is just like I’m ready to kill everyone on stage, but actually on the inside of me, I’m very fragile and everyone is of course, at some point — everyone goes through life.
We all cry sometimes. We all break down sometimes. I just wanted to share that part of me, my current situation.
Chung Ha New Album
Courtesy of MORE VISION
You wrote on four songs for the album. You have contributed in the past, but this does seem to be the most you’ve ever creatively contributed in one project. Are you feeling more confident at this stage in your career or is it just how it worked out?
I guess for the songs that I haven’t tapped into, for the lyrics part, it was exactly what I wanted to say. The other tracks, I was like, “I want to twist this up a little [to make it] my story, because I don’t think I feel a hundred percent it’s my message.” I just naturally scribble scrabbled through the process. It naturally came about. I think I just had so many things to say, so many things to let go [of] and that’s why it ended up like this. But the other tracks that I haven’t [written on], they were enough and even more tapped into what I want to say. So I was like, I’m leaving this alone.
You seem to be credited as the main lyricist on “Still A Rose,” which is a really interesting ending track. Hearing you talk about the album, it does feel like you’re closing a chapter on something. It seems like that is exactly what you were going for. Can you talk a little more about that?
Thank you for bringing up “[Still A] Rose.” This is one of my favorite tracks. Actually, “Still A Rose” was the first ever song that I initiated as Alivio. That song actually came along when “Eenie Meenie” came along, and I was really tapped into it at that time too. Since I was starting a new thing with More Vision, I wanted to do more of a new introduction [or] version of myself and telling people that I’m ready for something. “Rose” was more of a closure for me, a song that gives a really beautiful goodbye. I didn’t pick out that song at that time … the writer for the song, he’s really my bestie. I told him, “OK, I’m going to use this song in my album, and this is going to be the first song that I initiate, so please don’t [give it away]. I’m going to do the song.” The song lyrics themselves are very self empowering and [about] loving yourself again. Even though we have thorns and we’re sensitive, and people just cut you out — all we do is just grow out to be a rose again, and we’re still beautiful. We’re still flattering in our own ways.
I thought this song would be a good closure or even a good opening for my next album. I didn’t know if it would be the first track or the last track, but then after I recorded so many songs, I was like, “‘Still A Rose’ is going to be my last track.” I think I have so many feelings to share before letting things go.
It starts out with “Vivaldi: Spring.” It’s a really, really, really common ringtone [in Korea]. At the same time, there’s a mixture of R&B and that drum hits in. That’s also new for me because I’ve never done a little classical mixture with R&B.
One can imagine your track “Salty” — a collaboration [with Sunmi] — is special to you, given that you two are such good friends. What was that experience like?
He wrote so many good songs for me. He gave it to me and he was like, “What do you think about this track?” And I was like, “This is long, to be honest, oppa [Korean word for older brother figure]. I mean, we don’t go this long these days. We do two minute songs. We touch barely three minutes. This is like four, man, this is long.” But then I couldn’t see a cutting point where I could edit it. Another feeling was, this feels like [ K-Pop artist] Sunmi’s track more than mine. It has that retro, nostalgic vibe. When it comes to retro vibe, I think of Sunmi. I’ve always dreamed [of doing] a collaboration with her. We always talked about it whenever we meet up, and we just couldn’t find the right track to collaborate. We were kind of busy doing our own things and stuff like that. We were busy, so we couldn’t find a right time.
Then, as I first heard “Salty” running through my ears, I was like, I hear Sunmi so much. If she’s not going to be on the track, I don’t think I would be able to release this or try this out. Or, I don’t know, maybe I’m going to have some more inner growth to even tap into “Salty,” because [it] is a very vulnerable [song]. It’s really, really vulnerable and really honest. I wanted someone who was very self-assured and very honest about her feelings and not scared to express them through music. And that was Sunmi, from my perspective. I only thought of her, but at the same time, I was very careful.
I always wanted to collaborate. I didn’t want to bug her too much. I knew that she had new albums coming out, of course, this year. I knew that she was so busy. I was really careful with my team. She was automatically, like, “I’m hopping in.” I was screaming my head out. I’m like, “Oh my God, this is going to be so exciting for my fans and for myself.” At the same time, I didn’t really know how we would sound together on the same track, but it’s so surprising. We’re so different, but we sound so well together. I wanted to give her the opening [verse of the] track because it fits her much more. I even recorded myself on the opening part, the first verse, but [when] I heard myself, I didn’t want to release that. Maybe I will release it at my concert if she can be there, but I don’t think I would ever want to share that because it’s more touching with her vocals in it. I think we sound really great together, and I’m hoping to do more more collaborations with her. Again, she’s the number one solo artist in my heart.