K-pop boy band CLOSE YOUR EYES / Courtesy of UNCORE
About a year into its career and currently mid-tour, seven-piece K-pop boy band CLOSE YOUR EYES (CYE) is already releasing music that has something to say.
The group, formed in 2025 through JTBC's survival program "PROJECT 7," dropped its first digital single, "OVEREXPOSED," Tuesday. It's a two-track release built around the concept of overexposure in photography — the point at which too much light wipes an image out entirely.
The idea, as the group describes it, is about still wanting to leave a record of yourself when everything feels uncertain.
"It's an appetizer," said Jeon Min-wook, the group's eldest, during an interview at The Korea Times headquarters in Seoul, Tuesday. "Before a new side of us is revealed in the upcoming album, 'OVEREXPOSED' is a preview of what's coming."
K-pop boy band CLOSE YOUR EYES / Courtesy of UNCORE
The single follows the group's third mini-album "blackout," and Jeon is clear that the narrative is intentional and ongoing.
"We put a lot of meaning into 'Eternity,' our debut project. Then we woke up from 'blackout,' and we've spent a year," he said. "This single is an extension of that. It's a statement of ambition."
The title track "POSE" takes that theme somewhere unexpected, genre-wise. It combines Brazilian Baile Funk with early 2000s hip-hop, which was new territory for most of the members.
"It was a sound I hadn't really been exposed to," said Song Seung-ho. "We thought a lot about how to do it justice."
Source: Korea Times News
