The 2020s File Feature
How You Like That
How You Like That — BLACKPINK's Record-Breaking Global Statement BLACKPINK released "How You Like That" on June 26, 2020, through YG Entertainment and Inters…
01 The Story
How You Like That — BLACKPINK's Record-Breaking Global Statement
BLACKPINK released "How You Like That" on June 26, 2020, through YG Entertainment and Interscope Records, and the track immediately shattered records across every major digital platform. The song served as a pre-release single ahead of the group's debut full-length studio album, The Album, released in October 2020. From the moment it dropped, it became one of the most significant K-pop releases in music history, demonstrating the group's unparalleled global reach.
The music video for "How You Like That" set a then-record on YouTube by accumulating 86.3 million views within its first 24 hours, breaking the platform's record for the most-viewed video in a single day at the time of release. That number climbed rapidly over the following days and weeks, cementing BLACKPINK's dominance on the platform. The video itself is a visual spectacle, featuring each member, Jisoo, Jennie, Rose, and Lisa, in elaborate set pieces that blend high fashion with mythological imagery, including phoenixes rising from ashes as a central metaphor.
The song was written by Teddy Park, Danny Chung, and R.Tee, with production handled by Teddy Park and 24, two of YG Entertainment's most celebrated production figures. Teddy Park has long been the principal creative force behind BLACKPINK's signature sound, a propulsive fusion of trap-influenced production, EDM drops, and hip-hop swagger layered beneath polished K-pop architecture. "How You Like That" distills that formula to its most potent form, opening with a dramatic string arrangement that escalates into one of the year's most kinetic drops.
On the Billboard Hot 100, "How You Like That" debuted and peaked at number 33, making it the group's highest-charting entry on that chart at the time of release. It also reached number one on Billboard's Hot Trending Songs chart, which at the time was powered by Twitter data and reflected real-time fan conversation. The track charted in more than 25 countries simultaneously, reaching the top five in South Korea, the United Kingdom, Australia, and across Southeast Asia.
The release marked a significant moment in the broader globalization of K-pop. BLACKPINK was already well-established as one of the world's most-followed musical acts on social media, and "How You Like That" arrived during a period of intense global attention to Korean cultural exports. The song came roughly two years after their EP Square Up had introduced the group to mainstream Western audiences, and it built on the momentum of collaborations with Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga that had crossed them into pop radio territory internationally.
Critically, the song was praised for the assertiveness of its attitude and the sharpness of its production. Music journalists noted that the members' divided vocal and rap sections were among the most cohesive the group had delivered, with Lisa's rap verse in particular generating enormous independent viral attention across TikTok and Twitter. The choreography, created by BLACKPINK's long-standing team, became one of the most replicated dances of 2020, spawning millions of cover videos from fans worldwide, a phenomenon the group's fandom, the BLINK community, helped amplify exponentially.
The track earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 63rd Grammy Awards, making BLACKPINK the first Korean girl group to receive a Grammy nomination in that category. This recognition signaled a turning point in how Western awards institutions were beginning to acknowledge the legitimacy and reach of K-pop as a global commercial and artistic force.
In terms of streaming performance, "How You Like That" crossed 700 million Spotify streams within its first year of release. On YouTube, the music video crossed one billion views, a milestone BLACKPINK has achieved multiple times across their catalog. The song became one of the defining pop cultural moments of the summer of 2020, a period when the COVID-19 pandemic had shuttered live music worldwide and the digital release of a major single carried an outsized cultural weight.
The song's longevity on charts across Asia was remarkable. In South Korea, it maintained a long run on the Gaon Digital Chart and helped further solidify BLACKPINK's commercial supremacy in their home market. Internationally, it appeared in licensing deals, brand partnerships, and media synchronization agreements, reaching audiences who had never previously encountered the group.
YG Entertainment used the release to demonstrate what a structured global rollout for a K-pop act could look like at the highest level, coordinating promotional appearances across American, European, and Asian media simultaneously. The members appeared on major talk shows and streaming performances, introducing the group to new demographics while satisfying an already enormous existing fanbase.
"How You Like That" stands as one of the defining pop releases of 2020, not only for its commercial scale but for what it represented culturally. It arrived at a moment when popular music was rapidly reorganizing around streaming metrics and social media velocity, and BLACKPINK demonstrated a mastery of both that few Western acts could match. The song's message, one of resilience and defiance, resonated powerfully with audiences navigating an extraordinarily difficult global moment, and its hook embedded itself in the popular consciousness with a force that few singles manage.
02 Song Meaning
What "How You Like That" Means: Defiance, Resilience, and the Phoenix Metaphor
"How You Like That" is built around a single, powerful emotional axis: the experience of being knocked down completely and choosing to rise anyway. The song's central challenge, delivered directly to an unspecified adversary who expected defeat, frames every lyrical moment within a confrontation narrative that is equal parts vulnerable and triumphant. The verses acknowledge genuine low points, referencing darkness and despair with candor, before the pre-chorus shifts energy upward and the chorus detonates into pure defiance.
The repeated titular phrase functions as a taunt aimed at whoever or whatever tried to destroy the speaker. After enduring the worst, the protagonist has not only survived but emerged stronger and more formidable. The phoenix imagery woven throughout the music video reinforces this lyrical arc directly, presenting the members surrounded by flames that do not consume but instead transform. This is not passive survival; it is aggressive resurrection.
The song's creative team, led by writer and producer Teddy Park, has discussed the intention to write something that channeled the experience of being at rock bottom and finding the will to respond rather than retreat. In this reading, the adversary in the song is not necessarily a romantic partner or a rival, but any force, internal or external, that attempted to diminish the speaker's sense of worth or possibility. This broader framing allows listeners to map their own experiences of failure, rejection, or loss onto the song's emotional terrain.
Critically, "How You Like That" does not present recovery as painless or inevitable. The pre-chorus sections in particular contain imagery of real struggle, of crawling through darkness, that earns the triumphant declaration of the chorus rather than simply announcing it. This structural honesty about the difficulty of rising is part of what made the song resonate so broadly in 2020, a year defined globally by collective hardship and uncertainty. Audiences experiencing pandemic-induced isolation, loss, and disruption found in the song a language for their own experiences of endurance.
The language of the track alternates between Korean and English in ways that reinforce meaning rather than simply serving bilingual accessibility. The Korean passages tend to carry the more emotionally complex and introspective content, while the English phrases, particularly in the hook, deliver the most declarative and confrontational statements. This layering reflects BLACKPINK's identity as a group that operates simultaneously across multiple cultural contexts, speaking to global audiences without erasing their Korean artistic roots.
Lisa's rap verse, which became one of the most discussed individual moments in the song, brings a particular energy of competitive confidence that shifts the song's register from emotional to assertive. Her delivery transforms the abstract idea of resilience into something almost athletic, a performance of dominance that audience members found enormously empowering. The verse's viral spread across social media platforms in 2020 suggested that listeners were using it specifically as a vehicle for expressing their own feelings of hard-won strength.
On a broader cultural level, "How You Like That" carries meaning beyond its individual lyrical content. As a release by one of the world's most-watched K-pop groups during a moment of intense global interest in Korean culture, the song carries the weight of representation and visibility. For many fans, particularly in communities that rarely see themselves reflected in mainstream global pop, BLACKPINK's assertiveness and refusal to be diminished carries meaning that extends well beyond any specific personal narrative in the lyrics.
The song ultimately positions defiance as its own form of artistry, one that requires both vulnerability enough to acknowledge the fall and strength enough to answer it publicly. That combination is what gives "How You Like That" its lasting emotional power.
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