2NE1's leader CL recently sat down for an interview with OSEN to discuss the group's various achievements this year. Chosen as one OSEN's 'Hottest People of 2011', CL and her members were praised for their ability to churn out chart-topping hits one after the other. The group has gone through a wide spectrum of genres this year which attributed to their success, but CL humbly chalked it up to "good timing." CL began, "I don't whether we're trusted 100% yet, but our success benefited a lot from our music. Producer Teddy oppa wrote us really great songs and we released them at a great timing. 'Lonely' was released when there weren't many quiet songs on the market, and then we came out with 'I Am the Best' right after." All year long, the girls have been dominating the charts, starting with "Don't Cry", "Lonely", "I Am the Best", "Hate You", and "Ugly". These are achievements any singer would die for, but CL claims it's not enough. "I admit that we're a group with a different color, but I think we're still far from success. I want us to slowly create an image for ourselves that people can conjure up immediately when they hear the name 2NE1." As their current image stands today, the girls are known for their independent, confident style that has won the support of a lot of female fans. "We don't only represent women, but since we're women ourselves, we do not want to provide them with more power. It started with 'I Don't Care', and we just hope that women will live more confidently. Not only through our lyrics, but through our performance and even clothing, we just want to create the image of a confident woman. I personally love that style so people tend to think I'm scary on stage, but I'm really not in real life (laughter)." At the mention of her being shyer than some of the more feminine girl groups, she quickly agreed. "Right? But I guess I have something scary inside of me. My image on stage, however, is just one side of me." When asked to pick the happiest moment of the year, she replied, "I was a bit frustrated in the beginning of the year. Our Japanese promotions were delayed in the spring so we couldn't do anything up till May. I worried about what would be happening to our promotions, and that's when our mini-album was released. I had a lot of fun promoting it, and honestly speaking, I don't remember anything that happened since the filming of our 'Lonely' music video." She continued, "We went on our first concert tour this year. A lot of people came to our Korean and Japanese stops, and you will never know how happy that made me. I also can't forget our performance in New York. We were in a greater mood than expected, and I think it's because we had no idea, really. We've been promoting for two years but have had few opportunities to meet directly with our fans so I was grateful to be able to visit other countries and meet with so many people this year." At the mention of all of the achievements they've made thus far, such as winning the 'Best New Band in the World' on MTV Iggy, ranking in at 6th place on 'SPIN' magazine, and ranking 3 music videos into the 'Top 10' most watched K-Pop music videos of the year, CL stated, "Through music, we're diminishing the border between countries in the world. Instead of setting one country as a target, I'm just looking forward to our music being accepted everywhere. This is only our beginning, and people often ask us about what we've accomplished so far when it's only been two years since our debut. I guess people think we've been around for a while (laughter). We have a long road ahead of us." YG Entertainment has already announced that they'll be releasing a new girl group next year with a 'pretty concept.' CL concluded, "I'm not upset. Positively speaking, we're different from other girl groups (laughter). I think it's right for YG's next group to be different from us. We're going to just make sure we keep our uniqueness going, haha!" Source + Photos: OSEN via Naver