We all know what a true cathartic scream feels like—well, Vernon in the “Black Eye” music video certainly knows. Screaming releases a multitude of feelings: frustration, sadness, heartbreak, anger, etc. Just in the first couple seconds of the music video of his solo mixtape, he lets out that fury, and the white noise seamlessly transitions to the steady beat showing his true emotions.
“Black Eye” is the third out of The Thirteen Tapes, a mixtape series that highlights each 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. With so much coming out of SEVENTEEN this year like their fourth album Face The Sun and their hot world tour, Vernon still had time to excel with collaborations. 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.
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 Matrix, you learn something new. There are so many hidden messages. Maybe the hidden messages people talk about online [aren’t] really what [the filmmakers] intended, but [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?”
The uninterrupted jump between genres is highlighted by his attachment to his favorite artists like Bladee, The Kid LAROI, and especially Avril Lavigne. “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, sparked the same direction of feeling angsty and let down from a terrible heartbreak. But somehow, Vernon’s solo song delves even further deeper into that concept with an effortless rampage. Reminiscent of the structure of a mid-2000s pop-punk song, the first verse buildup leads into an emotional backdrop of 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.”
Courtesy of: PLEDIS Entertainment
The swirling guitars and slight mellowness of the second verse bring you back to contemplation for 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.
Image: PLEDIS Entertainment.
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