“this Is The Answer To K-pop’s Girl Group Identity Crisis” Why A New York Times Critic Says A2o Lite’s ‘neon’ Is The Cure

NewJeans broke the mold. Then it broke apart. Now, according to one of music journalism’s most influential voices, a nine-member rookie act built by K-pop’s original architect might be the group picking up the pieces not by reinventing the genre, but by remembering what made it great in the first place.

A Critic Diagnoses the Problem

On November 4, Jon Caramanica The New York Times’ pop music critic and co-host of the paper’s influential Popcast used his recurring “Song of the Week” segment to name a problem that’s been quietly shadowing K-pop’s girl group scene for years. “There’s been something of an identity crisis for K-pop girl groups in recent years,” he said, pinpointing the cause with surgical precision: “It’s largely a consequence of NewJeans, and both what they did and ultimately didn’t do.”

That’s not a casual jab. Caramanica has tracked this story closely in his December 2024 year-end K-pop roundup for the Times, he called NewJeans “the most innovative group of the past several years,” while also dissecting the group’s protracted legal battle with their label, ADOR, as emblematic of a deeper tension in the industry: the friction between K-pop’s industrial scale and genuine musical innovation. His line then still echoes now that producing that kind of originality “at scale is almost impossible.” NewJeans redefined what a girl group could sound and look like in the 2020s, stripping away maximalist K-pop signifiers for something looser and more Y2K-cool. But the group’s dispute with ADOR, which spilled into courtrooms and public statements throughout 2024 and 2025, left a vacuum proof of concept without a clear successor.

A2O LITE members standing on stage / News 1

Enter ‘NEON’ and an Unlikely Architect

Caramanica’s answer to that vacuum is “NEON,” the debut single from A2O LITE, a nine-member multinational girl group produced by Lee Soo-man the so-called godfather of K-pop, who founded SM Entertainment in 1995 and built the idol-training system that gave the world BoA, TVXQ, Girls’ Generation, SHINee, EXO, Red Velvet, and aespa. Lee sold his stake in SM to Hybe in 2023 and, after a non-compete period that kept him out of the domestic industry until this year, launched his new venture, A2O Entertainment, in 2024. “NEON” marks his first real return to the K-pop stage he helped invent.

The critic’s framing is pointed: rather than chasing the genre-blurring, minimalist aesthetic that’s dominated K-pop over the past five to ten years the NewJeans playbook, essentially “NEON” looks backward for its inspiration, drawing from 2000s pop. “From a K-pop perspective, it recalls Girls’ Generation’s old music and style; from the perspective of the global pop market, it brings to mind Fergie,” Caramanica said. It’s a sharp comparison: both references point to maximalist, hook-driven, dance-floor-ready pop the opposite of lo-fi minimalism. Musically, he describes “NEON” as electronic-based pop built on tight composition and meticulous choreography, while noting it doesn’t break much new ground. His verdict lands as backhanded affection: “It’s a bit stubborn as a song… but I like it anyway.”

The Receipts Back Him Up

Whatever the critique about originality, the commercial response has been hard to argue with. “NEON” dropped on October 13 at 6 p.m. KST and hit No. 1 on Melon’s Top 100 Korea’s most closely watched real-time chart just 29 hours later, reportedly the fastest climb to the top by a rookie act since the chart’s 2021 revamp. It went on to top the Circle Digital Chart, crack the top 10 on the Billboard Global 200, and reach No. 1 in Hong Kong and Taiwan, with placements in Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and New Zealand. By early November, the group had racked up nine music show wins for the single.

The production lineage explains a lot of what Caramanica is hearing. “NEON” was written and produced by Yoo Young-jin Lee’s longtime collaborator responsible for some of SM’s most definitive records, including TVXQ’s “Mirotic,” Girls’ Generation’s “Genie,” SHINee’s “Ring Ding Dong,” and aespa’s “Black Mamba” alongside American producer Dem Jointz. The label brands the sound “zalpha pop,” a portmanteau aimed squarely at Gen Z and Gen Alpha listeners, but the song’s structure (a bridge, a cappella harmonies, a dance break, a runtime past three minutes) is a direct callback to the 2000s-2010s SM formula that built the label’s legacy in the first place.

A2O LITE members dancing in white / News 1

A Universe Built From Scratch

A2O LITE’s rollout is unusually elaborate even by K-pop standards. The nine members Young, Vora, and Ayune from Korea; Xili, Merci, and Aijing from China; Himeki from Japan; Rada from Thailand; and Oa, who holds dual U.S. and Japanese citizenship debuted on October 13 alongside a 15-member labelmate boy group, A2O SOUL, in a joint showcase built around a shared fictional universe called ACE (“A2O Cosmic Epic”). The concept, per the label, follows a planet called Soulite where residents have everything except genuine feeling with A2O LITE’s members each embodying colors shaped by memory and emotion that combine into something new. It’s classic Lee Soo-man world-building, the same instinct that gave SM’s groups elaborate “SM Culture Universe” lore for over a decade.

The debut wasn’t without complication: since all nine members were minors at launch, with the youngest reportedly 13, the rollout also reignited debate in Korea over protections for child performers in the idol system a long-running conversation that predates this group but one A2O LITE’s launch has visibly reopened.

Why This Matters Beyond One Chart Run

What makes Caramanica’s take notable isn’t just that a major American critic is paying attention to a K-pop rookie act it’s the framing. He’s not arguing “NEON” is the genre’s future. He’s arguing it’s a deliberate retreat to a formula that worked, built by the person who invented that formula, at a moment when the genre’s most forward-looking girl group imploded before it could define what comes next. Whether that reads as comfort food or creative stagnation may depend on the listener, but Caramanica’s own ambivalence admiring the record while flagging its lack of originality captures the tension K-pop girl groups are currently navigating: innovate and risk instability, or lean into nostalgia and risk irrelevance.

For now, the charts suggest audiences are choosing nostalgia, and choosing it enthusiastically. Whether “NEON” ages into more than a palate cleanser, or whether A2O LITE becomes K-pop’s next long-term girl group story, will depend on what the group does with its second single the part NewJeans, famously, never got the chance to finish.