For English-speaking K-Pop enthusiasts, it's not always easy to connect to the artists we love beyond just the music. The language barrier, of course, proves to be the most immediate challenge, unless there happens to be some kind multilingual soul willing to translate a news story or throw subtitles on an interview. Access is another issue: it's just not very easy for Western journalists to have a casual chat with a Korean pop superstar.

Billboard got the (rare) opportunity to interview Girls' Generation's Tiffany via phone in English about her debut solo LP, I Just Wanna Dance. (Tiffany, in case you didn't already know, was born in San Francisco and grew up in California, so she already speaks fluent English.) Rather than a surface level survey of "Are you excited and do you love your fans?"-esque questions, this interview's actually dense with surprising facts.

Here now are just a few things we learned after reading Billboard's interview with Tiffany.

1.) Girls' Generation, meet Girls Aloud.

The fact that Girls Aloud's Nicola Roberts wrote Tiffany's album track "Talk" is exciting enough of a dream girl group crossover situation as is. But as it turns out, Tiffany was already fully aware of the Dainty Doll's history.

"I’m such a fan," she reveals. "I remember watching all their videos and the British Music Awards and telling my members, 'This is what we should be doing later on.' Things like that. So that was super cool."

Girls' Generation watching Girls Aloud videos...just let that beautiful image sink in.

2.) She has hopes to break into the American market eventually.

CL isn't the only one prepping her (seemingly eternally delayed) American debut. Tiffany says that English comes "much more naturally," which is also why we got an English version of "I Just Wanna Dance" and "What Do I Do?" from her.

She's aiming stateside "hopefully in the near future," but don't expect it too soon.

"My label is very spontaneous and supportive all at the same time. Because it’s the first album, I do want to take my time to decide what my next move is going to be. I still want to kind of live out the summer and then see what I wanna do next. But I’m always working on something. I never can kind of just let go."

3.) Her one-off track, "Heartbreak Hotel" with Simon Dominic, was actually supposed to be the prequel to "I Just Wanna Dance" — and she directed it herself.

Tiffany says the song was supposed to be on her album, but "due to circumstances that I did not know, I had to push the release a little later." (The fact that it was made a SM Entertainment exclusive with their new digital channel Station, perhaps?)

"It kind of sums up why I just wanna dance the night away. But production and things that I didn’t know about came up, so we had to push the release a little back for 'Heartbreak Hotel,'" she reveals.

She also put together the video's concept — and chooses her words wisely about Girls' Generation videos: "I’m glad that I got to take time doing that. It turned out very naturally. It didn’t seem like it was -- well, a lot of the Girls’ Generation videos are a bit more animated, in a sense, and this wasn’t."

4.) The album artwork was, perhaps accidentally, inspired by Britney.

Tiffany cites icons like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears as her biggest influences — and when Girls' Generation saw the photos, they spotted the visual reference.

"My members were like, 'Your album art reminds me of Britney Spears’ '...Baby One More Time,'' and maybe that’s where it all came from," she says.

5.) There will be more solo Tiffany to come — but don't rush her.

"I was writing before the album release, so there are a couple tracks already. But I’m glad that my company is okay with me kind of wanting to wait things out. I always want to put out an album when I know what it’s going to be about. I don’t want to throw in all these random songs and say, 'Okay, that’s an album.' I think I’m just waiting to find the next theme for it."

And there you have it: One of this year's best solo K-pop surprises.

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