After 10 years in f(x), K-pop star Amber Liu talks about her solo career, her EP and why it’s called X
- LA native Amber Liu moved to South Korea at 17 to join K-pop group f(x). She left 10 years later and has marked the occasion with a new EP X.
- She talks about the meaning of the title of the EP and how tough the K-pop life can be
At age 17, Amber Liu left her native Los Angeles and headed to South Korea to join the K-pop group f (x). Ten years later, she left the group to strike out on her own.
Liu marked the occasion with a six-song EP titled X. “I chose ‘X’ as my album title because it commemorates the 10th anniversary of my career,” she said. “I wanted to pay tribute to all the fans who have known me since day one or who have just got to know me.”
But the title has more than one meaning. “It also represents the fact that I’m crossing out a lot of the bad stuff in my life. Some of the songs are older – like Ready for the Ride, which I wrote in 2015 although we revamped and re-recorded them,” she said. “But they all represent milestones in my life when I learned a lesson or grew as a human being. So [I’m] crossing out all the bad habits, and then, quote unquote, ‘crossing into’ another chapter of my life.
“And it’s also like X marks the spot on the target. This is where I want to be – a lot of changes and a lot of craziness.”
During the past six months, Liu has been slowly releasing the songs on X and the accompanying videos.
“I just wanted to visually represent every single song,” she said. “Every video had its own particular challenges. It was so nerve-racking, and I was really tired the whole time.”