It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Girls’ Generation’s new subunit stamp out their turf as followers of trends rather than leaders of trends, with the needless change-up in this song quickly wrecking any momentum at the half-way mark. A shame because Hyoyeon has been the queen of fast dance bangers for many years before it became recently trendy (and has climbed into Kpopalypse favourites lists as a result of her commitment to fast tempo precisely when nobody else could be bothered), so now’s the time she should be PAVING THE WAY, not following the path.
A potentially great song that falls a little flat only because of the wrong musical treatments. The production is actually excellent with some genuinely unique sounds but it just doesn’t suit the material and it’s a rare case in k-pop where a faster tempo actually is the wrong choice. Only the children’s choir at the end gets it right, hinting at the X Japan-tier power ballad that this could’ve been. It still has a solid chorus and is more decently catchy than most of anything else this week which means it’s a significant step up from everything else Jennie has done solo to date, but we’ll have to wait for someone’s else’s cover version to really bring out this song’s potential.
Winter looks about as convincing fronting a rock band here as I would being an Ashley & Martin consultant, swanning around awkwardly like she doesn’t know what to do with herself without her choreographer. The song’s not bad though, even if it lacks a little something to push it over the edge. They should’ve turned it up to eleven.
Basically a song by The Deep if it was boring and not cool like The Deep usually is. Have to respect Elly being in the game since the late 2000s though, but at the end of the day that just means she knows how to make better music than this.
Drab chorus melodies and no real payoff let down a track that’s otherwise pretty crazy in a good way like a better NCT 127 song.
They’re certainly taking more risks than NCT 127 themselves lately, who did this thing two weeks ago and I missed it because it was labelled as a “track video” which usually means “some lazy ass bullshit”. It’s not bad actually but this is the kind of song that only really works live.
Not much of a song but you get to see RIIZE boys in various states of undress which should please a certain (quite large) demographic of my readers. It’s a good reminder that the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey is still open at the time of writing, so CLICK HERE and fill it out if you haven’t yet. Make sure you make your vote count, you wouldn’t want to deny the RIIZE boys the payoff from all that hard work they do on their bodies, do you?
Maybe the wings are there but the songs aren’t. SF9 are one of those groups that have always been okay-ish, sometimes slightly better than okay-ish, very rarely crap but they’ve never had the amazing banger that they should have had either. Hopefully their time doesn’t run out before they finally get one.
Nugu Alert stars Diva-X have come a long way, this song has 5000 views in one day, that’s pretty good going. It’s not bad at all, nothing great but still probably their best song yet. Maybe if you voted for Diva-X in the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey, that might help them out with the fame a bit? It’s still open at the time of writing, so CLICK HERE and fill it out if you haven’t yet. Or don’t, but don’t blame me when your bias doesn’t get recognised in the poll that TC Candler wishes he had the balls to do!
The only danger here is of the construction crew not getting their work done by the deadline because they have to stop work for some stupid boy group to do a lame dance.
A song so shitty that Cortis themselves refused to do a video for it so their company had to compile some cheap shit out of Google street view. Good on the boys for sticking up for quality music by refusing to perform this trash for the cameras, we love our Cortis boys.
I don’t think it could be that hard for the cop at 0:19 to restrain some boy group guy, he’s spending a little bit too much time back there I think. Or maybe not enough time. And that’s the most interesting thing I can find to say about this one.
I’m really not a fan of the balls-tightening vocal, but the riffs are actually pretty nice and this is about as close as I’ve seen a k-pop group come to the peak Michael Jackson era instead of the “Dangerous” era that they always try to copy.
It’s weird how in Korea they actually think Soulja Boy is good. Mind you I’ve heard worse versions of this kind of crap… this week.
We miss our Christian horse boys, but I guess The Wind weren’t making any bank following a trend that seems to be dead in the water in 2026 so they had to change it up. Also there’s an age beyond where Korea’s ageist society won’t accept people doing that shit and will shame them out of existence, sad times.
Boy group does interesting thing, stop the presses! Hey this is really very decent, definitely more of an eight than a one.
HITGS aiming for Gfriend territory? Could it be true? We definitely want more of this and less of the other bullshit girl groups are doing at the moment.
You won’t believe this, but this is actually by far the best use of AI slop I’ve ever seen in a k-pop music video. Apart from the very weightless-looking kicks most of what’s here is pretty seamless, like it’s been through extensive human touch-up after the AI did its thing. The badass-girlgroup-by-numbers music is nothing special but it’s also a step up from the usual garbage this group puts out. If aespa did this people would go bananas, but nobody cares about music like this without actual human idols attached. Sniper Danielle means nothing if she’s not actually shooting any k-pop executives.
Fire this one to the moon and let it crash-land on the surface. Aliens can find it in a few million years and wonder what the fuck we were doing with ourselves.
When I did my most recent Wonho computer games post what I noticed is that there were several games with unique looks and hardly anything’s got this generic 3D anime art style anymore. People are just sick of it. It’s a good thing, it’s a sign that society is evolving.
Lim Kim continues her recent pathway of investigating actual music again after a decade of artsy yapping over random noise. This isn’t great, but hey, it’s baby steps, let’s encourage her. The rehab path can be long.
There’s a weird noise that happens in this song that literally sounds like someone’s pet burped in front of the microphone. It’s really taking me out of the moment of appreciating this smooth dance-pop song in all its glory… just kidding, song was boring as fuck anyway, the burp is the only actual interesting thing in it, hence why I’m writing about it.
I have no fear of telling you that this song is mid. I think that’s the reason I still have readers, honestly. So many people are afraid to state their opinions out of fear of being dogpiled by their fandoms, which is a very real fear because those psychos will actually do that and it has real effects. Someone has to set an example that it’s okay to have an opinion, even if it’s a stupid opinion. Every time I see one of you actually speak your mind instead of just follow the k-pop fan party line, I cheer inside. Even if you’re telling me to get fucked in the process (in fact that just makes it even better).
Did you know that Ukraine is the world’s leading producer of sunflower oil? Vast stretches of the country look just like the landscape in this video, something I found out when I started watching Ukraine war footage on YouTube and saw Russian helicopters getting downed and sinking into these huge and very pretty flower fields. Because of that, when I watch this Junhee video I keep expecting a drone to come out of nowhere and explode in his face, but that would be inhumane of course, maybe a drone could fly above his head and drone-drop him some sheet music for a better song and he can sing that instead. Make better music, not war.
Crap song of course but I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of birds on that beach.
These guys did a song a while back and it was that good it got on my favourites list for that year. This song… isn’t as good. But hey just a heads up for those people who are like “wah wah Kpopalypse so negative about everything” you weren’t stanning Lipstickerz like I was, just saying. Get a bit of positivity into you for once, before they go viral in 2035 and you look like a fool.
Silica Gel doing AI slop video segues is very disappointing. Come on guys, you’re better than that! I believe in you!
NewJeansification ahoy. I’m glad that this video came out because when I write my inevitable post talking about what I mean about NewJeansification for the cunts who keep on asking me every five seconds and the other cunts who are in total denial about NewJeans’ impact, it’ll be a really good example to dissect.
Not a bad song at all but it mainly just made me realise how fucking ugly fingers are.
This must be a song about how Loren “survived” the Burning Sun scandal without ever really being asked about it all that much.
This song definitely lacks a little something to really take it over the top, it’s just a tad generic. However that’s really the only thing wrong with it and honestly if you can ignore that it sounds like all the second-rate J-rock bands who aren’t as good as Caramel Candid, then there’s actually a decent song here.
A new version of the iconic “Bottles” with extra lyrics? Don’t mind if I do. Only one of the girls is in this video but that’s okay, too many of these girls in the room at once doing this song might be too much awesomeness for people to handle.
Definitely Zior Park’s best song. The hard Autotune is annoying (as usual) but the songwriting here is good enough to rise above it.
Awesome music but a really bland vocal approach lets it down. This singer should be going the fuck off her nut but the delivery is so polite.
This week’s non-Korean feature is just your friendly reminder that Brojob exists.
If you ever thought that fan calls were a heavily monitored affair that really basically sucks for the idol, then Prince Vanati is here to confirm your suspicions. I like the bit where he says he can’t even hear about 40% of what you’re saying to him anyway, I guess if you do a fancall with someone just repeat every word twice just to be sure.
It was only a matter of time before k-pop fan harassment killed someone high-profile enough to be noticed. Make no mistake, people have suicided over threats from k-pop fans before, including those in their own fandom (as was the case with Mina, here), you usually just don’t hear about it because those people didn’t have large public profiles to begin with so nobody finds out and their deaths don’t get written about. If your fandom is of any reasonable size, it has a body count.
Did you know that when EXID first started they were a six-piece group and they had two BESTie members in them? I knew this but it’s easy to forget when you think about the trajectory of the group and how nobody gave a single crap about them when this came out (except me, I actually bought the physical album this is from). Also, EXID had shitty unnecessary changeups in k-pop songs before most groups, this one’s clunky breakdancing segue even predates misguided fails like Girls’ Generation’s awful gear-shifting in “I Got A Boy“. EXID paved the way!
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week! In the meantime don’t forget that the latest Kpopalypse Objectification survey is now live and accepting votes! Don’t forget to vote – do it for [insert your bias here]! Stay safe, caonimas!
