Katseye, HYBE’s bold, innovative international girl group, which also brought together influential groups such as BTS, NewJeans, Le Sserafim, and many more, released another song after their last release, ‘Touch’, coming out on July 26, 2024. Their new release, titled ‘Gnarly’, which serves as the lead single for their upcoming release Beautiful Chaos, explores a more artistic and experimental sound compared to their earlier songs.

The girl group first began as an idol competition TV show on Netflix called Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE. The show consisted of 20 young women contestants from all around the world. After several rounds and challenges in the end, only 6 girls were able to be debuted into the final lineup: Mannon Bannerman, Lara Raj, Daniela Avanzini, Sophia Laforteza, Megan Skiendiel, and Jeung Yoon-chae.

What makes Katseye so different from other groups is that each member comes from a different background, Lara being of indian descent, Sophia coming from the Philippines, Megan being half Chinese and Singaporean, Yoon-chae who is from Korea, Manon who lived in Switzerland, and her father being Ghanaian, and Daniela, who is Cuban-Venezuelan. This serves as a great way to connect to fans from all over the world, with each member being fluent in many different languages, fans are easier to make aiding in the group’s mass popularity.

The song was written and produced by Alice Longyu Gao, Tim Randolph, Kyle Buckely, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, and Madison Love. Alice Longyu Gao, who is a prominent figure in the hyperpop space, first released a demo of the song on TikTok in 2023, later giving the rights to the song to be used by the girl group.

Released on April 30, 2025, fans at first were shocked when they first listened to the song, having such a stark contrast to their other releases, which had a more calm and prominent pop sound like other songs. ‘Gnarly’ brought a more chaotic and loud sound.

It was a very bold move on Katseye’s part. Some argue the lyrics were cringey and didn’t make any sense, with mindless cussing and random slang words thrown around. Even I didn’t quite like the song at first, it just seemed so random and out of character for the group. Many fans were disappointed with the song initially.

Surprisingly, though, after only a couple of days after the song’s release, fans started changing their minds on it. Most likely due to the song trending and being played over and over again, it started to become quite catchy, and fans started to enjoy it.

What Katseye did was very smart, but also very dangerous. They could’ve lost many fans, which they probably did when releasing this new track, but it shows how different they are from other groups that are popular right now, which is what makes them so lovable and enjoyable.