A Popular 4th Gen Song Was Almost Part Of Red Velvet Seulgi's Solo

LYRE Music has been entertaining fans with some insight into what happens behind the scenes of K-Pop companies choosing songs for their artists for a while now. The producing group, run by Alina Smith, has written and produced records for numerous big K-Pop acts — including Red Velvet, ITZY, and Kep1er. Aside from their amazing work at producing K-Pop hits, LYRE often makes the rounds on social media when they reveal songs they wrote for specific groups that were rejected by the company — something which K-Pop fans seem to love.

@lyremusicgroup

It was a long and tough process but totally worth it, seeing how good the girls sound on the song! To hear the behind the songwriting process behind “Sweet Juice” by Purple Kiss, check here: @lyremusicgroup #kpop #kpoptok #kep1er #kep1ergiddy #kpopsongwriter

♬ Giddy – Kep1er

Most recently, Alina Smith shared how a now popular single released by a fourth-generation girl group was almost included in Red Velvet Seulgi‘s solo mini album!

Seulgi, Red Velvet’s main dancer, had her official solo debut back in October of last year with her mini album 28 Reasons and the title track of the same name. In doing so, Seulgi followed her Red Velvet bandmates Wendy and Joy, who already had their solo debuts in 2021 before the group’s release of Queendom. The album had five b-sides, all of which showed a new side of Seulgi we had never heard before. Songs like “Anywhere But Home,” “Los Angeles,” and “Dead Man Runnin'” quickly became fan favorites.

28 Reasons was, in general, a commercial success for the newly debuted soloist. The album reached #8 on October’s Circle Chart ranking and sold over 200,000 copies. The song itself also did well on Spotify by receiving more than 3,760,000 streams during its first week of release.

Only a few days ago, LYRE revealed that Purple Kiss‘s popular song “Sweet Juice” was supposed to be part of Seulgi’s album!

Other K-Pop artists that could have recorded ‘Sweet Juice’ by Purple Kiss. It was pitched to Hwasa, and also Seulgi. It was actually on hold to be on her [Seulgi’s] solo record, but let go of.

— Alina Smith

“Sweet Juice” followed Purple Kiss’s release of their July 2022 single “Nerdy” and fourth mini album Geekyland, as well as the unfortunate departure of Jieun from the group. The single was released on February 15 of this year and has quickly become popular among international K-Pop fans, who made sure to share the love they have for the track all over social media.

As the producer of the track, Alina revealed that before it ended up in Purple Kiss’s hands, “Sweet Juice” was actually pitched to several soloists and even another K-Pop group before. The LYRE producer mentioned that aside from Seulgi, who the song was actually put on hold for, they also pitched the track to MAMAMOO‘s Hwasa and bandmate Wheein. A new girl group who’s been met with unexpected success lately, H1-Key, was also another contender.

Despite not being the first choice, Smith shared she’s delighted the song was released by Purple Kiss in the end.

I’m super glad ‘Sweet Juice’ ended up with Purple Kiss — it was a perfect match — but I hope I also get to work with all of these talented artists in the future.

— Alina Smith of LYRE