BLACKPINK Solo Era: Ranking Each Member's Best Solo Track
The BLACKPINK solo era has been one of the more revealing chapters in modern K-pop. For most of the group's career, the members were marketed as a unit — four distinct personalities, but a single coordinated brand. The post-2022 solo wave broke that frame wide open. Each member, now contractually signed to her own management for solo work, has had room to show what kind of artist she actually wants to be when no one is choreographing her around three other people.
The results have been more uneven and more interesting than the universal-hit narrative would suggest. This isn't a "who's the best member" piece — it's a track-by-track honest read of what's worked.
Jennie — Best track: "You & Me"
Jennie is the BLACKPINK member with the most public-facing solo identity going back years — "SOLO" from 2018 was the group's first official solo release. Her newer work, especially through her own label ODD ATELIER, leans into a moodier, R&B-tinged register that fits her better than the bigger pop swings.
"You & Me" is the standout for one reason: it's the only Jennie solo where the production stays out of the way and lets her actually sing through a song. The studio version is good. The live concert performances are what cement it. There's a confidence in her phrasing here that didn't fully show up on "SOLO," which is much more about styling than vocal performance.
Lisa — Best track: "MONEY"
"MONEY" wasn't even released as a single track — it was a B-side on her LALISA EP that exploded anyway. There's a reason. The beat is built for choreography, the hook is short enough to remember after one listen, and Lisa's vocal performance is unusually grounded compared to her higher-energy live performances.
"LALISA" the title track has the bigger budget and the bigger statement, but "MONEY" is the one people actually replay. That tells you something about what Lisa is at her best: not the grand anthem, but the high-replay, dance-friendly groove. Her later solo work after she signed with RCA Records continues this — she's leaning into rap and dance-floor production, and it's the right call.
Rosé — Best track: "On The Ground"
"On The Ground" was Rosé's solo debut and remains her most fully-realized solo recording. The song lives in a singer-songwriter zone that BLACKPINK tracks can't quite occupy — there's space, restraint, a folk-pop vulnerability that makes it work on radio and on acoustic stages alike.
Rosé's later work, including her collaborations with major Western pop names, has explored more of this territory, and it suits her. She's a singer-first artist, not a performer-first one, which is rare in K-pop where stage presence often dominates over vocal nuance. Her solo direction is the most "least like K-pop" of any BLACKPINK member, and that's exactly what makes it valuable.
Jisoo — Best track: "FLOWER"
Jisoo waited longer than any of the others for a proper solo debut, and the wait worked in her favor. "FLOWER" was designed to be everything her group dynamic doesn't quite allow her to be: melodic-lead, soft-feminine, and visually anchored in a specific aesthetic (white-pink florals, full-look fashion-as-narrative).
The track itself isn't the most complex song in the BLACKPINK solo catalog, but it's the most cohesively packaged. The MV, the styling, the song's hook, and the live performances all reinforce a single artistic statement. That kind of conceptual unity is rare in solo debuts and showed Jisoo had a clear vision for her own work.
What the solo era actually tells us about the group
If you listen through all four members' best solo tracks back-to-back, you start to hear what BLACKPINK as a group is doing — and what it's hiding. The group versions of each member are necessarily compressed: Jennie's vocal nuance, Lisa's groove, Rosé's vulnerability, and Jisoo's melodic warmth all get rationed into 30-second segments. The solo work lets each thing breathe.
That's not a critique of the group. K-pop groups have to make choices about how to allocate parts. But the solo era is a reminder that BLACKPINK contains four very different artists, and the version of them that performs on stadium tours is, by necessity, a curated subset of what they each can do.
The most surprising thing about the BLACKPINK solo era isn't who shines brightest. It's how genuinely different each of them sounds when they have the whole song to themselves.
What we're watching for next
With each member now signed to her own solo management while the group continues under YG, the solo discographies are going to keep growing in parallel with group activity. The question is whether the soloists develop strong enough individual brands that they remain commercially viable even when group promotions slow down. The early signs — particularly for Rosé and Lisa — suggest yes. Watch this space.