Seventeen's Dino Has an Alter Ego Now. Lee Moon-sae Narrates His First Song.
Dino released "Love Sick," the debut single of his alter ego Picheolin, at 6 p.m. KST Wednesday. The track opens with a spoken narration from Lee Moon-sae, the veteran singer and longtime radio host whose voice Pledis Entertainment built the song's entire mood around - a deliberate choice, given Lee's decades hosting late-night radio in Korea, to frame the song like something overheard between segments of his show.
"Love Sick" leans into a city pop sound: wistful piano, a slow-motion sense of nostalgia, a music video that follows Picheolin dancing alone under a streetlight and running through neon-lit streets. Dino co-wrote and co-composed the track with Bumzu, the producer who has shaped much of Seventeen's catalog since the group's 2015 debut. It's the first of two pre-release singles; "Crazy Crazy" follows July 22, both leading into Picheolin's debut EP, "GILBOARD," out Aug. 3.
Pledis describes "GILBOARD" as a reinterpretation of 1990s Korean street culture filtered through Picheolin's perspective - a concept album blending genres the agency says reflects "heung," a Korean sense of unrestrained joy and rhythm that's carried through Dino's performances since his teens. The character work isn't new territory for him: Dino released his first solo mixtape, "Wait," in 2023, and contributed the solo track "Trigger" to Seventeen's 2025 album "Happy Burstday." Picheolin is a fuller alter-ego project than either of those, complete with its own visual identity and narrative arc across multiple singles before the EP lands.
The rollout continues with the EP's full tracklist reveal July 20, followed by "Crazy Crazy" and additional teasers in the following weeks. Dino will then take Picheolin on the road: a "Dino x Picheolin Fan Concert" is scheduled for Aug. 21-23, positioning the alter ego as more than a one-off single cycle.
The timing lines up with a bigger story for Seventeen as a group - all 13 members re-signed with Pledis for a second time earlier this week, even as several continue military service. Dino's solo run through Picheolin fills exactly the kind of gap that full-group contract renewal is meant to make room for: individual members building out separate creative identities while the group itself stays intact on paper, waiting for enlistments to clear before regrouping as 13.
Lee Moon-sae's involvement carries its own weight beyond a guest credit. He's one of Korea's defining voices from the 1980s and '90s pop and city pop era - the same sonic lineage "Love Sick" is drawing from directly - and his radio background gives the narration a texture no younger guest vocalist could replicate. Pairing a 25-year-old idol's alter-ego debut with a singer from two generations earlier isn't a stretch for nostalgia's sake; it's closer to a credibility check, a way of signaling that the city pop reference isn't costume.
