Dino Became 'Picheolin' — 'There Is No Farewell That Doesn't Hurt'

Dino has vanished. Or more precisely, Dino has become 'Picheolin'.

Dino — SEVENTEEN's youngest member and main dancer — dropped a first pre-release single, 'There Is No Farewell That Doesn't Hurt', on July 15 as the alter-ego Picheolin. Just give it a listen — the voice of someone who's stepped out alone from a stage where thirteen once stood together sounds far more grown-up than you'd expect.

Who Picheolin is

Picheolin is a "street producer" character Dino dreamed up. The agency, Pledis, describes the character as "someone who samples people's everyday lives on the street and remixes them into music." The first mini-album, out August 3, is titled 'GILBOARD' — a reworking of 1990s street culture through Picheolin's eyes. If you're from the generation that remembers the "Gilboard chart" — the street vendors who once hawked cassette tapes off the pavement, the pre-streaming era's own hit list — the title alone is enough to make you grin.

Idols building an alter-ego has become something of a trend in K-pop lately. The tastes and colors you can't fully show inside a group, you get to spread out freely behind a different name. Picheolin is a case where even the character's whole world has been woven in, detail by detail.

The Lee Moon-sae card

The most surprising thing about the pre-release track is who handles the narration: Lee Moon-sae. Over a polished piano and a city-pop groove sits a voice that defined an entire era of Korean ballads. In one song, someone who lived through the '90s meets a 2026 idol reinterpreting that same decade — a pairing that would've been hard to arrive at without the alter-ego device.

The song is exactly what its title says: a calm resignation that there's no farewell that doesn't hurt. Instead of inflating the sadness with showy ad-libs, a vocal held low and a piano like a city at night build the polished melancholy so particular to city pop. Dino, who used to lead SEVENTEEN's stages with dance, shows the opposite skill this time — the art of taking away.

Discovery notes

• Genre — City pop. Made for a night drive or a late walk.
• The hook — The Lee Moon-sae narration. It anchors the song's center of gravity.
• Concept — A "street producer" alter-ego. It's rare for an idol going solo to build out a character this far.

What's coming

Date	What
July 15	Pre-release single 'There Is No Farewell That Doesn't Hurt'
July 22	Second pre-release single 'Crazy Crazy'
August 3	First mini-album 'GILBOARD'
August 21–23	Dino X Picheolin fan concert

When an idol builds an alter-ego, it means there's that much more music they want to make.

It feels less like discovering an idol and more like discovering a producer. August's 'GILBOARD' already has me curious. Just give it a listen, trust me.