Track Review: JENNIE, ‘You & Me’

From opening synths that recall the 2014-2015 tropical dance-pop wave to an outro that leans into the more industrial outskirts of hyperpop, “You & Me,” Jennie’s second solo single, is one hell of a shapeshifter.

Recorded several years ago, “You & Me” arrives as Jennie’s first piece of new music since her acting debut on HBO’s The Idol alongside The Weeknd and Troye Sivan. With a cadence and tone reminiscent of Dangerous Woman-era Ariana Grande, Jennie sings her heart out about a special undying love. “You're the reason my heart skips, drops / Just a little touch, my world stops / Finally, I know that you're mine,” she exclaims.

Sung entirely in English, “You & Me” — in conjunction with her turn on The Idol — is clearly angling Jennie towards solo global pop stardom, but that’s a little ambitious with a sound that’s pretty incongruent to the landscape of current mainstream pop music. The song has a steady build and cultivates an enjoyable dance-pop groove in its verses and pre-chorus, but when that ugly drop comes in, the song starts to lose a bit of its momentum. Nonetheless, there’s definitely an appeal to those squelching synths, albeit a narrow one.

Jennie concludes the song with a bridge that doubles as a rap verse, which — like so many other K-pop rap verses — is nothing interesting or impressive to listen to. Nonetheless, she does deliver the verse with enough character to make it bearable. At best, the outro adds to the song’s commitment to unpredictability in its structure, which works well since the lyrics steer the song toward universality instead.

A solid single, “You & Me” probably won’t have much of an impact on the charts outside of its first few weeks, but it’s still a perfectly fine pop song.

Score: 68