It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Some ethereal guitar chords drive the best BTS feature track this decade as a full group… but that’s not saying much at all given the competition. They had an opportunity here to dump the Autotune warble and lean into the spacey feel of this track even more and do something that really lives up to their hype and PAVE THE WAY but sadly they instead chose the safe option. Who would’ve thought?
Speaking of playing it safe, Sunmi is the latest victim of NewJeansification, peddling a song which has none of the usual songwriting character that people have come to associate with her.
This sounds like a classic SM boy group track at half speed, which is pretty ironic given the prominent speedy AIslopcycles in the video.
A pretty nothingy release which is clearly timed for Waterbomb appeal and has no real currency outside of this. The flesh on display isn’t nothingy though, look at some of the dudes in this video goddamn. Unfortunately you can’t vote for the male extras in the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey which will be coming straight after Waterbomb hits Korea, but you can vote for whatever other men and/or women in the k-pops, so now’s the time to start thinking about how to best optimise your vote when the time comes!
Pretty bland music overall but I do really like that weird thudding bass synth noise that sounds like someone pitch-altered the sound of the shit R&B music police kicking in their front door for playing this track too loud.
Yoyomi goes all in for the Waterbomb audience and I can’t even remember what this sounds like. Who is even listening? [Insert my usual observation that independent Korean female artists with total creative freedom are actually much more likely to sexualise themselves than artists on big idol labels, it’s almost like sex and adult sexuality are good things that independent women sometimes enjoy and that they should be supported, and that sexual conservatism is actually oppression of women with a fake moralistic veneer, imagine that]
A good chorus saves this song, UNIS are getting close to saddling up the horses here.
Finally a not-awful comeback from Girlset, cue something-something-nachos comments I guess but people who write ‘nachos’ comments about music have the same brainrot energy as people who rush to type ‘[lane] diff’ at the end of MOBA games. If there wasn’t a ‘difference’ what would even be the point of playing at all, pointing it out just marks you out as someone who doesn’t understand how to live life.
HYBE’s men-with-broad-shoulders concept group is still a thing that exists, but those shoulders aren’t carrying anything musical worth a damn. They’re ‘latin’ in all the wrong ways, maybe if they actually leant heavily into some of the more extreme music styles of their countries they wouldn’t suck so bad.
This made-for-some-TV-thing concept group full of idols and TV stars sounds fucking fantastic… that is, until at 0:50 when what you thought was the song turns out to be just the song intro, which stops and then the actual proper song starts and it’s something completely different and nowhere near as good. It’s only July but I’m already calling this as the missed opportunity of the year.
JYP debuts a new Chinese group and I’m not sure that I give a fuck. Let’s pretend this group doesn’t exist from now on thank you.
Oh come on, what is this nonsense. Actually that chorus synth riff is pretty cool and would have probably worked well if not for the laughable “yankee squat” vocals.
You know how the boy groups actually were pretty good last week? Well we don’t have a repeat of that this time. I guess the daily direction today is “down the s-bend”.
I’ll pick “die”, thanks.
Like Aseul, but if it was shit.
Speaking of which where’s the Squid Game doll to shoot all these boy group members when you really need her.
Huta is here to steal your Kpopalypse Objectification Survey votes. Feel free to vote when the survey comes out soon and let him know how well he did.
These boys go all-in on EDM in the way that your k-pop faves should be going all-in on whatever the hell they’re doing when they consistently choose to play all their options safe and boring instead. The 8 paved the way.
And again with the Seventeen subunits having the right idea. Yes, this is total shit for assholes, but it’s all-in on the total shit for assholes. If you’re going to do it, at least go all the way and give people a reason to care.
Fuck being “cute”, I’ll settle for a better song from someone uglier.
Some lame thing from a couple Young Posse members. What happened to their debut concept? They were just about starting to finally get it right and then they veered into trendy slop for no reason. Chuck D didn’t die for this.
These other two Young Posee girls have a song which is even worse. This type of supposed “hip-hop” is truly the lamest of the lame, and we were all happy to leave it behind forever as soon as it stopped being trendy. Oh and I know Chuck D isn’t dead but that’s exactly my point.
Lunedi was from Weeekly and her solo song is nothing all that amazing but still actually genuinely better than most of what her old group has done.
Very, very cool synth work here completely wrecked beyond repair by shitty hard Autotune warbling aimless putrid nonsense vocal. Imagine what an actual good rapper could have done over this track. BeWhy, Gwangil Jo, Lee Youngji, Black Nut, Ash-B, VVS, any of them would have knocked this out of the park, hell, even RM or Jay Park or Dynamic Duo on an off-day could have probably done something better than this. Shameful.
Accurate song title of the week, this is definitely a bunch of ddook ddak.
I quite like the mood here. I’m less keen on the part where the guitar solo appears and they make sure to carefully only show angles that makes it look like he can play guitar but without revealing that he actually has no fucking idea.
Apparently this girl is from Ferry Blue, who I suppose were such a bomb that the members are already now into the “singing while sitting on chairs in front of windows with greenery outside” phase of their career.
Just one of those songs where Balming Tiger hit drums and yell a lot. Nothing to see here.
This type of utter bullshit music that sounds like the lowest most dreary point of a 1950s musical film, is actually the stuff that Sohyang does best. It must really be a curse to be so talented at making such horrible music. She must feel like I do when I realise I’m actually really good at blues guitar. We should start a band with each other and play one song and then jump off a bridge together in despair. Two lives will be lost but music as a whole will be saved.
Not a bad song, but the video is the star of the show here. Gosh I wonder what it could be about. No idea.
There’s a pretty cool song here despite the sometimes-insipid lyrics. Video is okay too, it reminds me of “Run Lola Run” except at least in that film you knew where the girl was running so you actually gave a fuck. Who knows what Vrown’s destination is, gosh I hope at least wherever it is somebody paved the way.
This cheesy bullshit isn’t bad at all, like a more interesting version of AKMU’s acoustic-strumming “touching grass” songs. Just a pity about the AI slop effects but then it’s Korea where they weirdly think this shit looks good for some reason.
Some sort of weird shoegaze-metal, and that’s a combination that really shouldn’t work at all but it actually does here.
The solution to Korean ballads being boring is, turn up the guitars as loud as possible. Sometimes it works.
Completely boring as shit rock-with-funk-influences that sounds like every other band from my hometown about 30 years ago before they all started trying to be “post-grunge” or whatever. Yuck.
Well, this fucking absolute crap sure wasn’t worth the effort of writing that stupid heading.
And neither was this. I hope the people who really wanted to see these songs here are happy now. Remember folks: sometimes I ignore certain songs for a reason. If I ever don’t cover your fave, sometimes it pays to just be quietly grateful.
An hour of VVS talking about stuff and things. Very entertaining and cuts through a lot of dumb fan assumptions and other lame bullshit. Timestamps and commentary provided by the person who submitted this:
3:19 CEO/producer talks about how he’s “retired from kpop”.
6:11 They decided that there was too many roadblocks within the Kpop system, producer decided it’d there’d be more options to run like an they do in American system. They are now an “indie group”. To do this they had to dissolve the korean contracts, their korean agency is now folded, includes dorms and offices. Former CEO forgave all debts.
34:42 talk about their experiences on k music shows
45:42 Q&A for “haters”. addressing outrageous claims from i-netizen prudes mainly, RE: their bikini outfits, lyrics of Bottle$ song, etc. you get to hear a lot of aus girl Lena here.
58:00 stuff inc addressing a viral tiktok that made kpop fan prudes big mad.
1:05:51 bit on aus slang
I told you all “Bottles” was great and these girls had the right attitude.
Okay this type of R&B drivel is not in Jeewon’s wheelhouse at all, she can barely keep up with her own backing track vocally, but damn she looks great and knows how to work a crowd. I mean Army audiences are probably grateful for anything but she still has more stage presence than your bias. Also just a reminder that the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey is coming soon and you should get ready to vote. Jeewon commands you.
A catchy track that didn’t impact me much at the time but has aged well, featuring a ton of Sweetune’s production quirks from back in the day and that are these days sorely missed in k-pop as a whole. The heavy metal influence of Sweetune is probably more obvious here than in most of their songs, featuring chunky guitar and occasional harmonic squeals that it would only occur to a true metalhead to include. Not sure what’s up with those Space Invaders pew pew noises but you can’t win ’em all.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
