APT.

The song

‘APT.’ is a single Rosé released with the American singer Bruno Mars on 18 October 2024. THEBLACKLABEL announced the release on its official social media, and the album introduction states that the song was the first shared from her first full-length album, rosie.

The chorus takes its chant straight from a Korean drinking game called 아파트, apateu, the Korean word for an apartment block. IZM’s So Seung-geun wrote that the song is built on Toni Basil’s ‘Mickey’, itself a remake of ‘Kitty’ by the British band Racey, and NME reported that the collaboration began when Rosé taught Mars the game.

Reviews

IZM’s Lim Dong-yeop reviewed the song ten days after release. He opened by writing that the surprise attack had succeeded, and that as with Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ about a decade earlier, the comic element is what takes hold of the music first — here by borrowing the melody of a drinking game familiar to Koreans. The same review picked out the singing, pitched light as if to match a light song, and a chorus closer to shouting a game call than to singing, and read the result this way: familiar yet new, easy without being silly, fun without being slight.

The same outlet chose the song for its 2024 singles of the year. So Seung-geun, who wrote that entry, called it as simple, brief, cheerful and enjoyable as the story of how it came about, and wrote that in the two minutes and fifty seconds it runs, ‘APT.’ — a song that has the listener nodding along without noticing — goes straight to the heart of what popular music is. On the arrangement he wrote that Rosé built an attractive new apartment block on the foundation of Toni Basil’s ‘Mickey’, laying a fluent Bruno Mars-style melodic line and the energy of punk rock on top of it.

NME’s Rhian Daly reviewed the song on the day of release. “This track is a luminous banger that fizzes with playful energy, from its stomping pop-rock beat to its addictive chanted chorus, lifted straight from ‘Apartment’, the drinking game she taught Mars,” she wrote, adding that “the vintage pop-rock riffs and attitude – which echo with elements of Toni Basil, Blondie and Joan Jett – feel sublimely suited to her as an artist”. Her review closes: “Addictive, flirty and a whole lot of fun, ‘APT.’ is the perfect introduction to Rosé’s new chapter.”

Clash’s Robin Murray singled the song out two months later in his review of rosie. “‘APT.’ combines ROSÉ with Bruno Mars, and it’s perhaps the best-known moment on here – an unyielding international hit, it illustrates how far the Korean star can take her solo iteration,” he wrote.

Around it

The song was carried as the sixth track of rosie when the album arrived on 6 December 2024. Reviewing that record, IZM’s Han Seong-hyun called ‘APT.’ a song that would have been hard to fail with, and wrote that what made it more interesting than a straightforward hit single was a cultural collision — a Korean chant dropped into the shape of an English-language pop song.