The global pop girl group Katseye, created by HYBE x Geffen, released its single “Animal” on July 24. It is the second single following “Pinky Up” from the group’s upcoming EP “WILD,” which releases Aug. 14.
This song was created in collaboration with English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, who became a fan of Katseye’s music after hearing their song “Gnarly.” This new song is described as being about the contrast between public and private personas, with the animal side coming out in private.
It allows the girls to showcase their vocals and highlights the group’s top vocalists Lara Raj and Sophia Laforteza. The lyrics of the song are also much more cohesive than prior songs. Sheeran’s writing style shines through with the lyrics and new sound. Clips of him creating and singing the song show how he played a major role in its creation. But, considering the sound seems better suited to Sheeran’s style than it does Katseye, this might be a drawback. However, Katseye is still a relatively new group that has been exploring their sound through different concepts and music. This song was likely seen as an opportunity to explore a more basic pop sound to see if it resonated with the group and their fans.
Katseye also brings in an exciting element to all of their songs that many fans love, which is their dancing. Many of their dances, including their dances for “Gnarly” and “Gabriela,” have gone viral on social media and have helped boost the popularity of the songs. Many fans have recreated the dances and posted them on social media. Katseye has also posted dance videos that have performed exceedingly well with the “Gabriela” Performance Video reaching 330 million views and the “Gnarly” Music Video Choreography Version reaching 192 million views as of Aug. 6.
For this song, Katseye shows off a new dance which features alternating their hands in claw-like motions. The dance may not be as entertaining or engrossing as their other dances, but it still helps elevate the performance of the song.
Both music videos for Katseye’s ”Pinky Up” and their new single “Animal” feature a moment in the song with an icon. In “Animal,” actress Demi Moore appears in a special cameo. Along with this cameo, the music video is also littered with rather odd advertisement placements. These placements include food from Jollibee and headphones from Bose.
While advertisements are a common way for entertainment companies to bring in revenue, the way that these collaborations were incorporated into the video strangely takes the viewer out of the magic of the music video. The video includes very obvious and lingering shots when more subtle filming techniques could be used and just as effectively. It seems that Katseye has no desire for subtlety with their advertisements, and are instead quite fine with blatantly inserting advertisements in viewers’ faces.
The fun collaboration with Moore is also rather oddly placed. Similarly to how the music video abruptly stops in “Pinky Up” to allow cameos from trans artists such as Vivian Wilson, “Animal” stops to introduce Moore, who proceeds to either approve or disapprove of the outfits they try on. This, just as much as the previous cameos, seems extremely awkward within the video.
The long and abrupt cameo with Moore includes having the girls frantically strip on and off their clothes looking for an outfit to wear. This weird break can confuse and disorient viewers by abruptly taking them away from the dancing and singing. The undressing may discomfort viewers as well because the group is quite young. Their youngest member is 18.
The flashy advertisements and abrupt cameos do little to keep the song from feeling like a bit of a mess. While the song is not bad and the music video visuals, aside from the ads, are also good, the energy that is brought to the song seems a bit lifeless. It seems like a good generic song that was almost engineered to be played on the radio. It’s a good song, but not necessarily an interesting one.
On August 14th, fans will be able to listen to the full “WILD” EP. The tracklist reveals the name for all three new songs: “Hootie Frutti,” “Bel Air,” and “That Way.” With an EP that already is set to have two drastically different songs and sounds, it raises the question of what energy these new songs will bring. Truthfully, naming the EP “WILD” may be a cop-out for mixing together a mess of different songs, which is a similar tactic the group used for their prior EP “Beautiful Chaos.”
When bringing together a girl group that can bring so much culture, energy and talent, fans can only hope that the girls will truly be allowed to shine through more challenging and engaging songs in the future. For now, this group seems stuck as a constant vehicle for advertisements, which really dims the authenticity of the group as a whole.
Kelly Saenz is an Arts & Entertainment Intern for the summer 2026 quarter. She can be reached at saenzkm@uci.edu.
Edited by Avani Kumar and Tracy Sandoval.
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