Jennie's "Less Than a Lover" Arrives Friday. Fans Already Know Every Word.
BLACKPINK's Jennie will release her new single "Less Than a Lover" at 1 p.m. KST on Friday, midnight EDT, after spending the past two months performing it live before it existed on streaming platforms anywhere.
Her label, OA Entertainment, confirmed the release date and time on Tuesday alongside a teaser image showing Jennie and Taiwan-born model Nah Kai framed through the window of a moving pickup truck. Nah previously appeared in the music video for SEVENTEEN's DK and Seungkwan's "Blue." A third teaser posted Wednesday showed the pair running through an open field, continuing the song's road-movie visual language.
Jennie wrote and produced the track herself and directed its accompanying music video, according to OA Entertainment. The song is built around acoustic guitar and vintage electric keyboard, a lo-fi departure from the higher-energy sound of her 2025 solo album "Ruby," which sold more than 660,000 copies in its first week in South Korea and later received triple-platinum certification from the Korea Music Content Association.
Fans have already heard "Less Than a Lover" four times over: at the Governors Ball Music Festival in New York in June, then across Denmark's Roskilde Festival, Poland's Open'er Festival and Spain's Mad Cool Festival in July. Clips from each set circulated widely on TikTok and Instagram, building demand for an official release weeks before OA Entertainment confirmed one existed.
The single marks Jennie's first solo output since "Ruby," whose singles "Mantra," "Like Jennie," "Love Hangover," "ExtraL" and "Handlebars" all charted on the Billboard Hot 100. "Like Jennie" reached No. 5 on the Billboard Global 200.
Following Friday's release, Jennie continues her festival run with a set at Lollapalooza Chicago from July 30 to Aug. 2 and an Aug. 14 appearance at Summer Sonic in Japan - meaning the song fans have been filming on their phones for two months will finally have a studio version to match.
Jennie founded OA Entertainment in 2023 after leaving YG Entertainment, and "Less Than a Lover" continues a pattern of hands-on creative control she's maintained since striking out on her own. She holds sole songwriting and composing credit on the new single, extending the same level of involvement she brought to "Ruby," where she was credited across writing, production and visual direction.
The pre-release strategy - playing a song live for months before naming it or confirming a release date - has become a recognizable move in Jennie's rollout pattern, and it worked again here. By the time OA Entertainment posted Tuesday's teaser, "Less Than a Lover" already had an established melody line and chorus among festival-going fans, most of whom encountered it as an unnamed highlight of her live set rather than a pre-promoted single. That gap between the song's live debut and its digital release is part of what has kept clips circulating on social platforms for two months straight.
The track's road-movie visual treatment, developed across all three teaser images, suggests a music video shot outside a studio setting - a departure from the polished, high-concept visuals that have defined much of Jennie's prior solo output.
