It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Jin remains the only BTS member who consistently releases good songs. His new track has some sexy instrumental harmony reminiscent of Julee Cruise, but paired with a beat much punchier than she’d ever investigate, and also sensible vocal phrasing – an extreme rarity in k-pop. Recommended.
I’m not sure what’s more awkward and ill-fitting here, the weird monstrostity Lisa is wearing on her upper half, the product placement, or the song itself. Gloves-girl with her cute branding videos is probably having a brain aneurysm at this point, everyone please keep her in your thoughts during this difficult time.
The best song from Soyeon’s pirated DAW in a while, it could have used a little more rock but I understand that electric guitars are harder to steal than sample packs.
Another decently above-average-but-not-mindblowing song to add to Fifty Fifty’s existing catalogue of decently above-average-but-not-mindblowing songs.
Someone warned me before I heard this song that it “felt like someone barged into my room and dumped a bin full of rotten fish onto my head”. After listening to it, I’d have to say that’s about 85% accurate.
As usual for Bibi, the video looks cool as fuck, Bibi herself is stylish as fuck, and the song is mid as fuck.
Seo Eve continues to be fucking great and it helps that she isn’t leaning on the “Malatanghulu” meme value for this one. If I was in a punk ska band I would immediately force my bandmates to do a cover of this, at which point they’d probably kick me out of the band and then I’d just start my own competing band and do it anyway.
I’m not sure what you call this exact sound but boy it sure sucks dicks.
They might feel good but I think I feel just average about it. The riff is the best thing here, everything else is pretty standard.
Song #562 by HYBE boy group #25 isn’t bad actually. I wish they’d gone for something more hard-hitting than that light fluffy NewJeansified beat but other than that, not much to complain about here.
This for-the-fans nostalgia song goes harder than half their feature tracks and actually isn’t bad at all.
It wasn’t going too badly until that chorus. I’ve been listening to a lot of recent Six Feet Under just for laughs and the chorus here gives me the same uncanny valley feeling as Chris Barnes.
Some very cool synth work makes this almost great, but all the hard work of the backing track is completely undone by the lame vocal choices. It’s not a dead loss though, some industrial group could sample this and actually make a song worth listening to out of it fairly easily as long as they chop most of the vocal out.
If you’re seeking attention, slow “in your area” songs released two years after the fad died out are probably not going to work.
Girls909 will outsell this trash.
Another CGI project for ex-idols subtly pitch-shifting their voices to target the youth anime bracket which surely must be booming… or maybe not. Probably half the members of After School and GWSN are in this.
Shit song but look at those goddamn microphones (not the ones in the thumbnail, but the big serious black ones), they’re enough to get gun nerds excited.
Hey this is cool. It suffers a bit from that trendy beat that’s in everything now (an actual drumkit would have been better) but I like the general mood of it.
Well at least Jay has his soju bottles in the video this time, but I’m still noticing a distinct lack of them arriving in my post office box with a note for my girlfriend. Come on Jay, step it up.
This elevator only stops at the trapanova floor, unfortunately.
These idols are entering their wearing fuzzy jumpers on the couch era. It’s one step away from sitting on chairs singing a ballad.
Brain May style lead guitar is the latest weird trend to hit k-pop that I definitely didn’t predict, pity that whenever it’s used it’s seemingly not front and center but always buried miles back in the mix of some shitty ballad.
This was boring so instead let’s have our weekly non-Korean LGBT feature here instead, yay! I’ve already had Death In June in this feature but it’s also worth mentioning the punk band Crisis that they spawned from. “Alienation” is one of their best songs and unusually for the time they wear their queerness right on their sleeve: “I’ve never made it with a woman, I’ve only made it with men / I’d like to make it with a woman, just to see if I can” has to be some of the gutsiest (and funniest) lyrics of the entire 70s punk movement.
Hey this is really quite good. No idea which Z-list boy group this guy is a refugee from but his song kicks ass even if he’s committing an important music video sin of miming electric guitar on acoustic.
The mumbly-ass chorus seems to be coming back lately.
Not as awful as I was expecting fromt he ex-CLC member, good work not sitting on chairs singing ballads.
Sadly, not a song about what I thought it was going to be about. Speaking of which, where’s Skull these days? He’s been awfully quiet, I guess ever since my cat upstaged him on his own song he’s gone into hiding.
And here’s your regular Rockit Girl track, it’s so good to have them back doing cool shit every week. This song has Roly Poly chords, lots of guitar and as usual we have the snippets of AI bullshit but hey they’re a Z-tier group I can kinda forgive them, because it’s not like any artists lost their jobs, Rockit Girl didn’t have the money to pay them anyway.
Got to hand it to Pastor JYP, no other k-pop CEO is willing to do shit like this. Can you imagine Lee Soo Man dancing to A20’s “Boss“? I bet you’re thinking about it now, aren’t you. You’re welcome.
I couldn’t find a way to shoehorn this video of whatever the fuck Kiss Of Life are doing here into my Kiss Of Life POSITIVE post and that’s a shame so I’ll just put it here and you can do what you want with it. They can appropriate my office-having culture anytime.
Minx/Dreamcatcher’s parent group never really hit it big, despite having a few good songs here and there, but this definitely wasn’t one of them. Kind of loud and a little screechy but mainly just gaudy and boring, Dal Shabet like a lot of mid-tier groups (success wise) of the 2010s (Fiestar, Nine Muses, Stellar, etc) took quite a few attempts to really hit their stride musically and thematically.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
