Apt.

APT.

"APT." is a song that turned a Korean drinking game into a global phenomenon. Released on 18 October 2024 as the lead single from Ros?'s debut studio album, Rosie, the track is a collaboration with Bruno Mars, and it became one of the biggest songs of the decade. It is an up-tempo pop, pop rock, pop-punk, and new wave track with indie rock and electropop influences, and its chorus is built around the rhythmic chant of "apateu," the Korean word for apartment.

In a review published by NME, critic Rhian Daly described the song as "an addictively flirty and fun intro to the BLACKPINK star's solo era." Daly wrote that the track is "a luminous banger that fizzes with playful energy, from its stomping pop-rock beat to its addictive chanted chorus." The review also noted that on "APT.," Ros? "takes a gigantic leap forward and makes a bold statement of intent."

The NME review also describes the song's opening lyrics, "Kissy face, kissy face, sent to your phone / But I'm tryna kiss your lips for real," and notes that Ros? "has long proved she knows how to craft a killer song," citing her 2021 solo tracks "On The Ground" and "Gone." The review quotes Ros? telling fans, "I've poured my blood and tears into this album," and writes that "there are no signs of struggle here."

According to Wikipedia, "APT." was the best-selling global single of 2025 according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, marking the first time an artist from outside North America or Europe topped the IFPI Global Single Chart, and the first song with non-English lyrics to do so. It spent 12 weeks atop the Billboard Global 200, topped the charts in over 50 countries, and became the first song by a K-pop female soloist to top Australia's ARIA Singles Chart.

The accompanying music video, directed by Mars and Daniel Ramos, features Ros? and Mars as a garage band in matching black leather jackets on a pink set, and it broke a number of viewership records on YouTube.

As a reviewer, I was skeptical at first ? a song built around a drinking game, with a chant that sounds like a playground rhyme, should not work as well as it does. But "APT." is proof that the best pop songs often come from the simplest ideas. The NME review captures it perfectly: it is "addictively flirty and fun," and the collective reception ? the chart records, the streaming numbers, the global singalongs ? confirms that the world agreed. When I hear it, I hear a song that understands the joy of not taking itself too seriously, and that joy is infectious. It is a song that makes you want to be in on the joke, and millions of people were.