Rosé is best known as one-fourth of one of the world's biggest girl groups – Blackpink.
She recently stepped out on her own with her first full-length album, rosie, which departs from her group's flamboyant, EDM- and hip-hop-influenced brand of K-pop in favor of a collection of tender, acoustic guitar-backed songs inspired by her own love for and history with the instrument.
In a recent interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Rosé shared how she started learning guitar by watching YouTube videos, stating, “All these YouTubers online, they looked really cool. And so I was like, ‘I want to be like them.’”
Her first guitar quickly followed. “It was blue,” she recalls fondly. “It was $70 and my dad bought it for me. I remember it was a cheap one, so my fingers hurt so much.
“I remember I got together all of my pocket money that I had saved up my whole life – I was probably 14 by then – and I still have it [and it's] still my favorite guitar – a Taylor GS Mini.”
The guitar turned out to be crucial for an audition that would change Rosé's career trajectory – the opportunity to join what was then an unnamed K-pop girl group that would later become the phenomenon that is Blackpink.
“It was around the time Jason Mraz had released a song called I Won't Give Up, and I just learned it,” she recalls.
“I walked in... I thought it was a joke. I was like, ‘This is funny. I'm not gonna get it at all.’ My dad and I had flown all the way from Melbourne to Sydney for the auditions. I was like, ‘Might as well make some good memories.’ And so I kind of went, ‘Hi,’ I did it. And [then] I was like, ‘Bye.’”
Rosé's debut album, rosie, was released on December 6 through The Black Label and Atlantic Records. The first single, Apt., a collaboration with Bruno Mars, topped the Billboard Global 200 – and its music video featured the pair playing Fender Mustangs.
“I only used the back pickup. Ozzy hates the sound of the front pickup. He calls it the ‘cow tone’”: Bursting with ideas but deferential to Ozzy Osbourne, a young Zakk Wylde had interesting guitar instructions upon joining the legendary frontman's band
“It was very simplistic compared to my later compositions”: It may have been inspired by the Kinks, but Al Di Meola's Race with Devil on Spanish Highway is one of the great virtuoso displays in guitar history. Watch the maestro play it with Steve Vai
