It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
A song that potentially would work well as a “metal version” but has almost no life in it at all thanks to the bland choice of instrumental. The riffs are solid but some thicker instrumental layers to drown out Lisa’s yapping about her car collection is what this song needed.
Jisoo’s song isn’t as aggressively awful as Lisa’s, but it’s also not as interesting to write about thanks to being basically not notable in any way. The ugly AI slop teddy bear is the only thing about this even worth mentioning (and is sadly only one of many godawful AI disasters in this week’s videos, which I’ll whine about even more below). I guess the “click” they’re referring to in the title is the one from your mouse after you scroll over to something else.
K-pop fans always bitch and moan when I talk about the “shitty Latin sound” like it’s some form of racism instead of me calling this shitty watered-down version of Latin music the shit it is, but the real racists are the people who associate a fine country like Mexico with music this crap.
Kind of second-gen sound but it just doesn’t really have enough of a hook for me to care.
Das ist ein sehr gutes Lied von Liz, und ist sie nicht eine attraktive Person? Ja, das ist sie. Das erinnert mich daran, dass die Kpopalypse Objektivierungs-Umfrage in ihrer letzten Woche ist, also könnt ihr Heulsbabys bald eine Party schmeißen. Ich bin mir nicht mal sicher, ob ich es nächstes Jahr mache, da die Wahlbeteiligung diesmal so erbärmlich war, aber keine Sorge, ich werde auf jeden Fall einen anderen Weg finden, euch Wichser zu nerven, darauf könnt ihr wetten.
Okay okay, I’ll cover Hearts2Hearts and their shitty “tennis” song if I have to, I was holding back on this last week because I thought we might get a proper video but I guess not. So… do I even need to say anything? Removing all the narrative noise from the equation, this song is just bad. It’s annoyingly brassy and yelpy in that way that was kind of big in k-pop around ten years ago, which is probably better than some of the more recent trends but it’s still not great, or good, or even listenable.
Not bad at all, even if Soyeon’s voice kind of grates a bit. Given that a narrator is separately credited I was expecting some horrid cheesy wank like that thing Jennie did a while back but fortunately the yap is only about two seconds long, I guess I can deal with that.
Monsta X have an interesting sounding backing track here but manage to perform a magic trick of their own by making any interesting melody and harmony disappear without a trace. Where did it go, no-one knows!
Not much of a song but if you like Wonho and you like men in suits this is your PSA.
Wonho’s other song is decent, even if he’s weirdly afraid of the water. Oh you tease, Wonho! No wonder votes in the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey are down this year. It’s the last week to get your votes in, next week I’ll probably start running the regular six-monthly Kpopalypse survey of caonima action instead so look forward to that.
Taemin skipping around the AI-sloppy fields of plaster-flowers is pretty boring.
I guess if I were going to be a backing dancer in this video for this song, I wouldn’t want anyone knowing my identity either. For all you know I’m one of these people.
This was a last-minute addition to roundup this week and I really wish I didn’t bother.
Minho at least gets the visuals right, he’s been doing well in the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey these past few years despite being a veteran. In fact it’s probably because he’s a veteran, older performers get a lot of love from Kpopalypse readership. He makes me want to do more cardio.
I guess ChRocktikal had to do a “happy song” so they don’t scare away the TV shows who are still paranoid that every single rock band ever is going to whip out their junk like Rux and wave it around. I love it how even in a song with this mood Siyeon is so committed to the “rock” thing that she’s pretty much in funeral attire here, that deserves points.
Accurate song title of the week.
Just too cruisy and nice for its own good. Not dumb, not hot, not much of anything at all, really.
Illit have been doing really well in my eyes to break out of the “we have NewJeans at home” shackles that have followed them ever since debut, trying a broad variety of pop styles and being on average generally pretty good quality across most of it. So it’s a shame that they kind of ruined everything here.
A modelling shoot disguised as a music video isn’t the right choice for a song this hectic. Beat going at a million miles and the girls just sitting there holding their own flashlights because Jaden was too stingy to pay for an extra floodlamp. A shame as the song’s at least passable and deserved some actual effort.
This video should please that one reader of mine who constantly thirsts over Ten, hey I notice that in one scene he seems to have a rash on his back. Perhaps you could help him with that, run some cream into him maybe.
What’s flamingosis, some kind of STD? After listening to and watching this, you can’t convince me otherwise.
I know what you all want to ask me, so I’ll answer it: that microphone is so Bedazzled that it’s honestly hard to tell which way it should be pointing, He seems to point it every which way over the course of this video but I doubt any sound is getting past all those rhinestones regardless.
No thanks, this is fucking slow enough already.
It’s depressing that a video like this ten years ago would have looked cool but these days it just looks horrid. Anyway it’s a pity they didn’t back that truck up a little more or we could have been spared what is probably 82Major’s worst song to date, unless there’s some other even more shit one that I’m forgetting.
The AI slop is even more of a shame when the song it’s paired with is actually one of the best boy group songs I’ve heard in recent memory. We hope Korean labels wake up to themselves one day concerning the bullshit AI visuals but they probably won’t because there’s more money in cutting corners this way so I guess we might as well get used to loving the plagiarising planet-death machine.
We weren’t waving our arms around because we were panicking, we were just trying to get you to turn the music off, sorry for the confusion.
More like ‘poo mode’, amirite
Sorry couldn’t resist that one. Hey if you want proper k-pop reviews, there are other sites that do that, you know.
Oh fuck this is great, it’s similar to the FTIsland song from the other week but this is arguably even better because 1. it’s not FTIsland 2. It’s ripping off “Canon Rock” slightly less and 3. it’s not FTIsland. They even have air guitar worked into the dance routine, which isn’t quite the same as playing as real one but I’ll take it.
I don’t hate this cheesy nonsense. By the way this was the group where multiple members were sexually assaulted by their own management, which sucks. Wait, did I say “the” group? Sorry, my bad.
Holy AI slop the videos are bad this week. Anyway, something I learned when recovering from throat surgery is that apparently one of the unhealthiest things you can do with your voice is whisper. So these guys are on their way to a whole lot of vocal damage, just saying.
A boring-ass song that’s probably going to do quite well in Korea because they love this kind of dull shit over there. Also where is the drummer, I guess drums were considered too hardcore for soft-as-shite Korean music taste. This song is going to make bank over there.
Yoojung from Brave Girls, although there’s nothing brave about this dull blues-based song. I was so bored I started scrolling through Lissa’s TikTok and forgot it was even on.
I’m told that Kevin Moon is the member from The Boyz who actually cares a bit about what cultural appropriation is, or something. Just thought I’d point that out because I can’t think of anything else all that interesting to point out here. Anyway I hope he starts dating one of the Kiss Of Life girls just for the fun that would cause on social media.
The boring side of VVS is this R&B poop.
Apparently a Chinese entertainment industry nepo baby, Nina’s song actually isn’t that bad, even if Orange Caramel could have done it better. [insert whining about ugly AI slop videos for the 35th time this week here]
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST LULI LEE WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS LOOKS LIKE PISS also how is the train supposed to get through at 0:54 without trashing the entire building just saying. Fuck me, all you had to do for the video was hold a bass guitar and rock out a bit and I know you’ve done that 57 times before but nobody would have minded, instead we get one of the worst AI vids I’ve ever seen holy fuck
A decent enough song with some good riffs but there’s no escaping the fact that the song sounds best in the parts where nobody’s singing.
This is about as soft as Shin Euijin has ever gotten and yeah the song’s not that great but I’m inclined to be forgiving, this girl’s paid her dues to Kpopalypse music quality standards over the years I’ll cut her some slack this time for this mid-ass song.
The budget KiiiKiii isn’t that much worse than the real deal.
The shortlist for the worst list is looking a bit slim so here’s some Keith Ape to help pad it out when I have to write that fucker up in a few months.
I’m not sure what’s going on here but if you’re one of those people who keeps asking about experimental music or whatever and is my fave experimental and so on, perhaps check this out.
If you’re wondering what HYOI sounds like when she’s not on a Luci Gang track, the answer is “like the same Autotuned poop all the other rappers do”.
This week’s random non-Korean song is Japanese prog/shred metallers Koiai doing “Golden” from the Kpop Demon Hunters soundtrack. Is it really impossible for a human to sing? No, you just need one hell of a vocal range that few people have. In this case Koiai’s new singer Mirei can hit the high notes quite well, but struggles to get all the way down to the lowest ones. Isn’t it interesting how there’s no discussion of “low notes” in k-pop discourse?
Rockit Girl are here to save roundup, and okay this song isn’t their best but hey it’s Rockit Girl so that’s good and also there’s no AI slop in the video this time thank fuck for that.
The girls helpfully explain that the reason why people were bothered by their latest comeback is that k-pop fans don’t understand Brazilian culture. I can’t wait for the next Katseye comeback because it’s going to sound like Sepultura probably.
Just a video about k-pop comeback queens discussing other comeback queens, enjoy and thanks to the person who sent this in.
Did you know that in 2014 martial arts movie star Jackie Chan debuted a k-pop group, and he named the group after himself? No it’s not “Jackie Jackie Chan Chan” (although it should have been) but “Jackie Chan Joins Cultures” or some crap, which makes no sense because then it should be spelled JCJC. Anyway, this song basically sucks and is about 90% lame boy-yelling over one repeated sub-bass note, so not very exciting, although they do try to spice things up with a few dumb cars and some limp choreography. The saddest thing about this group wasn’t the shit music, but that they didn’t even have cool martial arts moves in their routines like you may have expected, we had to wait for K-Tigers to debut a couple years later to get that.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week! In the meantime this is the last week in which you can do the latest Kpopalypse Objectification survey, so vote – or don’t! Stay safe, caonimas!
