SEVENTEEN member VERNON tries cope up with chaotic times in pop punk ‘Black Eye’, watch video

The song tells the story of an adolescent trying to cope with the constantly changing world around VERNON.

By Monica Yadav -

December 23, 2022 - 3:46 PM IST

VERNON, a member of the K-pop powerhouse act SEVENTEEN, released his first solo mixtape 'Black Eye' today. A pop punk song delivered in a tone of raw openness to the backdrop of a rhythmic and airy instrumental, “Black Eye” tells the story of an adolescent trying to cope with the constantly changing world around him.

SEVENTEEN member VERNON tries cope up with chaotic times in pop punk ‘Black Eye’, watch video

The accompanying music video visually amplifies the sense of loneliness, rebelliousness and self-doubt one experiences in the course of growth, reminiscent of footage captured with a hand-held camcorder. He croons, "I'm on my worst behavior / Don't stop me now
I f**k*ng hate this world / So show me a way out / Wake me up from this nightmare, please / I can't stand this reality / I'm on my worst behavior / How you like me now? / Put a muzzle on me / I'll spit in your mouth / Wake me up from this nightmarе, please / I'm scarred and bruisеd with a black eyed face."

While being a member of SEVENTEEN’s Hip-hop unit, VERNON also continues to venture outside of the group, shedding light to his flair as a solo artist. He collaborated with Charli XCX for a remix of “Beg For You” earlier this year in February, and was featured in Omega Sapien's “Wrecker” in June.

VERNON is the third member of the 13-piece act to release a mixtape as a part of their ‘The Thirteen Tapes’ series, following HOSHI’s “Spider” in April 2021 and WOOZI’s “Ruby” in January 2022.

Racking up 2 billion streams and selling 10 million albums, SEVENTEEN—comprised of S.COUPS, JEONGHAN, JOSHUA, JUN, HOSHI, WONWOO, WOOZI, THE 8, MINGYU, DK, SEUNGKWAN, VERNON and DINO—have rocketed to the forefront of the music scene fueled by a fiercely independent spirit and a nonpareil in-house creative ecosystem. The 13-piece act’s innovative structure hinges on the interplay of three units: hip-hop, vocal, and performance. SEVENTEEN’s 4th studio album Face the Sun marked a new milestone in K-pop, rendering SEVENTEEN one of the only two artists in K-pop history alongside BTS to surpass the 2 million mark for first-week album sales. The album was also the act’s first top-10 charting album on the Billboard 200, which was soon followed by their latest release SECTOR 17 which debuted at No.4 on the chart.