It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!

Get that 4.5 quadrillion dollar bag, girl.

LE SSERAFIM feat. J-Hope – Spaghetti

A cool bassline sets the tone but limp, soft pre-chorus melodies really take the edge off. It’s good elsewhere though, and definitely a grower, especially if you can manage to ignore the lyrics. J-Hope believe it or not is actually a highlight because he fits better with the grittier parts of the song here than the girls do when they’re singing, it’s the best thing he’s done since problematically chasing girls in “War Of Hormone“.

TXT – Where Do You Go?

Not bad at all, but nothing special either. Just another song that exists.

EJAE – In Another World

It’s obvious that Ejae is outrageously talented and it’s great that K-pop Demon Hunters has boosted her career so much. However a syrupy boring ballad is still a syrupy boring ballad no matter how well it’s played and sung.

Jinsoul – Ring of Chaos

Could have used a lot more chaos, this is just dance-pop by numbers and not very notable. There are thousands of songs that sound like this and I don’t remember any of them.

NMIXX – Adore U

This sounds like a more drum-machine based version of the Pixies or something, what the fuck. It’s seriously really good. Apart from that rap break, which I suppose we had to have because it’s NMIXX so we have to shit the bed with a dumb change somehow, but hey like the “Roly Poly” rap it’s short enough to ignore – overall this is killer.

Ningning & Fairlane – Miss This Life

Every song for League of Legends is the same power-fantasy nonsense, but weirdly this one’s about 75% build-up. I guess that’s appropriate because listening to the song feels much like playing the game itself does, because most of the time your team either wins or throws right before your final item build kicks in.

&TEAM – Back To Life

Speaking of which I don’t think this sounds radically different to some “waiting music between rounds at the esport tournament” bollocks.

A20 MAY – Paparazzi Arrive

Lee Soo Man’s new electro-reggae things is quite good but I would have definitely preferred it with more of a dub reggae sound, I feel like I can’t really light up to this. Hopefully there’s a demo out there someone can unearth that doesn’t have all the botched computer noises on it, because I have a strong feeling that this started off life as an actually decent reggae track before it got Rich-Manned into synthesised oblivion.

I.MET.U – Still

This track tries to go for a dreamy feel to match the standard white-dresses swanning around the garden Apink thing, but somehow they’ve got Leadfingers on the bass guitar there trying to steal the show by flapping his strings in the breeze. Definitely a miss, but I guess at least it’s an interesting failure rather than a boring failure so that’s something.

VVUP – House Party

Brainless, stupid and fun, here’s proof that k-pop is finally starting to move in the right direction.

Xdinary Heroes – ICU

Great production but the song is nothing special. Hey JYP, can the next rock band you launch not be a boy band? I mean, it’s no wonder QWER are doing so well, nobody else has the balls to give the people what they want. We’ve only been begging for idol girl rock groups since AOA dumped their guitars for miniskirts early last decade.

NEXZ – Beat-Boxer

I laughed out loud when that distorted vocal kicked in at the start, but overall the song isn’t too bad I guess, even if it weirdly doesn’t actually contain any beat-boxing (or if it did I PTSD’ed it out of my memory as soon as I heard it).

JUSTB – Going South

Accurate song title of the week because something sure went south while they were writing this song.

BAE173 – Turned Up

Nothing very exciting here, nice Steve Irwin tribute at 1:34 though.

DKB – Irony

Hey for the person who asked me on livestream the other day what a “half time pre-chorus” is and how it can negatively impact a song, perfect example here from 0:53 to 1:08. And boy, the song was sounding great up until that point but halving the tempo right there sure kills the vibe, what a shame.

AM8IC – Buzzin’

Lame song but “Ghostbusters kill furries at Yongma Land” is a 10/10 concept, so points for that.

ATEEZ – From (2018)

I’m not sure why this was from 2018 but I wish it stayed there.

BADVILLAIN – Miss Us?

No, not really. This song should work in theory because the beat is there and that’s 95% of what I care about in rap music, but there’s something that’s just ‘off’ about the delivery, I can’t explain it, feel free to help me out in the comments.

NWHI – Like a Flame

The kind of awful song and video I’d normally expect to see with less views than one of my own YouTube videos, but this thing has 200k at the time of writing, I can’t even Nugu Alert it. Confusing times we live in.

LEVERGENT – Vroom (No break)

See, the male equivalent only has about a thousand views, now that’s more normal for something like this. I feel like the balance in the universe is now restored, thanks Levergent.

Hiphop Princess – Do my thang

Oh dear. It has really come to this, hasn’t it. Looks like you all didn’t cancel hip-hop themed girl groups hard enough, now we have to put up with an entire TV show of them.

Santo Bravos – 0%

According to my song submitter “Santo Bravos is a new HYBE boy group targeted at the Latin American market” and the song is well named because I think I give 0% of a fuck.

U-Know – Set In Stone

Total ass, pretty sure someone just typed “retro pop TVXQ solo comeback” into a prompt somewhere.

Dita – Love So Sweet

This is Dita from Scret Number, just in case you forgot, because I sure did.

Kang Yuchan – Close to You

ACE members not showing their legs in lame solo songs sure isn’t it, so instead let’s have our non-Korean LGBT feature for this week, yay! This week it’s pioneering German industrial group Einsturzende Neubauten, and while LGBT sexuality isn’t exactly at the front and center of their music in any very obvious way, lead “singer” (or whatever it is that he does) Blixa Bargeld has come out as non-binary. “Armenia” is still their best track for me, now this is what a real build up and payoff in a song sounds like. I’m sure Liz would approve. Wunderbar!

Lee Bada – Tingling

Someone really wanted this song in roundup this week and I can only assume it’s because their ears need a good syringing. That horrible chorus should do the job.

Jung Soyeon – Moonlight

It looks like the same room that Aseul made her “Always With You” video except nobody had the budget to light the room properly this time and also the music sucks.

Miso – Spotlight

You boys and girls might remember that MiSo is one of the girls from the girls’ group called “Girls Girls”, you might remember those girls from their song “Girls Girls“, or perhaps just because they’re girls. Anyway this song isn’t very good I just wanted to see how many times I could use the word “girls” in one sentence.

Hambuggy – Buggy Bounce

A great song right from the very first note, Hambuggy is the hero we need in k-pop this week to make roundup better. This song won’t win any awards for innvoation but it sure is catchy and fun and that’s all a song needs to be.

Hwina – Panic Attack

It’s another banger! Where’s the A-list, dead in a ditch I think. Everyone complains about roundup being too negative but if your bias got given songs this good there wouldn’t be a problem, cunt.

YYOi – Pathfinder

So many Korean “indie guitar” groups get this type of sound wrong because they try and aim for somewhere between Britpop shoegaze and soft rock, but YYOi get it oh so right by turning the wave of ambient guitars and punchy drums up loud enough to bowl you right over.

Rosy Barbie – Kung Fu

The first time I ever heard a “music sample” was a snatch of “Kung Fu Fighting” that my brother had on a floppy disc back in our 80s Commodore 64 gaming days. Even though it was only ten seconds long and super scratchy sounding because it was 8-bit and ultra-low sample rate, I was blown away that a computer could sample anything at all. Fast forward a few decades and I think Rosy Barbie is equally blown away because she’s got that same sample and made an entire ass rap song out of it.

PSV – Can’t Even Talk

Terrible beats make terrible rap songs.

Mad Clown – Don’t Die Today

Good on Mad Clown for trying to keep Koreans alive, the Korean suicide rate is no joke so this type of acknowledgement is probably needed by a lot of people out there. I would have preferred a song that was a bit more than some talking over a maudlin instrumental, but I can’t be too fussy about the result, because maybe some of those kids that he inspires to live another day will grow into amazing recording artists that make way better songs than this one.

Hebi – Be I

Yes it’s another one of those anime things or whatever, I’m told that this one comes from QWER’s label, but that doesn’t mean it’s another other than generic.

IRISE – Iridescent

If you close your eyes, and keep them closed all the way through the video, the song isn’t too bad. Just don’t look! Trust me it’s not worth the pain.

Song Sohee – Hamba Kahle

Oh god it’s terrible. I’ll leave you with this monstrosity because we’ve all had quite enough good music this week so it’s helpful to get that reminder that a lot of things still suck.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

BASTTIE – STEP TOGETHER – Interview

The wildest thing about this new furry k-pop group is just how much effort went into it and how genuinely committed and passionate everyone is to the project. Yes these people are real furry fandom folks who seem to have been into this stuff for decades, it’s not some C-list boy group moonlighting as furries for the yiffbucks… well, assuming they’re not lying to us. But I don’t think they’re lying. One of them is even wearing a boobs-harness, so I think they’re the real deal. Just try not to think too hard about what happens in the dorms.

Kpopalypse Oppar – the Kpopalypse origin story

None of what’s in this video will be news to regular readers, this is more a little gift from me to the new readers who might be struggling to understand all the context of why the site exists and how I started doing what I do, as well as for the people who know me personally and are wondering how I got into this k-pop shit. And it is a gift quite literally, because my YouTube channel is not monetised. There’s another video here for those specifically curious about why these roundups exist and why I’m such a cunt all the time (supposedly). Oh, and if you found this video useful or interesting or laughable or shit or boring or didn’t even watch it, do my latest survey and tell me what you think, it’s only open until the end of October, folks.

VIVIDIVA – Service

As the thumbnail on my own video will tell you (which I didn’t pick out myself, the algorithm stans Sooyoung apparently), I do glaze Girls’ Generation’s “Gee” a bit. So did many people in k-pop over the last fifteen years, and several C and D-tier groups tried to make a similar sound work for themselves with varying degrees of success. Vividiva probably had one of the worst iterations of the “Gee-alike”, with “Service” sounding like they really had no idea what to even do. They’ve got all the superficial aspects of “Gee” here, like the fast beat, the loud smothery keyboard synth pads, and the girls singing the same word a lot of times in a row while smiling insipidly… and I think that’s all they thought it would take. The songwriting smarts are somewhere else completely.

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That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!

Hot on the heels of  reviewing “Kpop Confidential“, Kpopalypse is back to review the sequel! Let’s take a look at “K-pop Revolution” by Stephan Lee!

While I didn’t endorse actually seeking it out, I did warn you all in my review of Stephan Lee’s first fictional book “K-pop Confidential” that a sequel called “K-pop Revolution” also existed. The same kind caonima who sent me the first book then quickly obliged and sent me the sequel, and now I have it in my hands, ready to review for you, the lovely Kpopalypse readers. Let’s take a look at it – does it meet required standards?

K-POP REVOLUTION

Author: Stephan Lee

IreadYA, 362 pages, softcover, 198mm x 128mm

ISBN – ‎ 978-1-338-75113-0

Amazon link so the author doesn’t hate me for this snarky review and can still make a buck

“K-pop Revolution” fills the same niche as Jessica Jung’s “Bright“, and my own “Love Light” – it’s the second-in-line “let’s pick things up after we’ve told the group’s pre-debut training story and look at what happens when they actually start doing stuff in the public eye” book. Like “K-pop Confidential”, the new book also has a video trailer for some strange reason, although I’m unsure whether this is really an official trailer or not. It doesn’t seem like it, because it’s a lot more amateurish than the trailer for the first book, but I can’t fathom why else this even exists – I’ll put it here anyway just because.

Once again, the entire story is told first-person from the point of view of the main character Candace Park, and boy is she the “main character” in more ways than one, but we’ll get to that shortly. Here’s the back cover of the book which will give you a pretty good outline of what to expect and it will save me from having to write a boring-ass plot synopsis before I get stuck into the actual “reviewing” part of this review:

This back cover image is from my own personal copy of the book that I was sent, and you may have noticed two things about the image. The first one is that I’ve censored a problematic word on the back cover, and no I don’t mean “cunt” but the other problematic c-word. Tsk tsk, Stephan Lee, you’d do well to leave that sort of talk to the experts like Kpopalypse. The second thing you may notice is that even though I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks at the time of writing, this rear book cover is pretty scuffed up. How did that happen? Well, the book came to me in very good condition but the quality of the paper isn’t much stronger than tissue paper and quicky degraded with normal use just from being transported in my gym bag over about a dozen bus trips – the first book definitely didn’t have this type of durability issue. Perhaps it’s the change in publishers for this new book that is to blame, but whatever the reason is, at least my wish to have people send toilet paper to my post office box has finally been realised. And that’s before we even get into the content.

Hey look everyone, it’s someone from Blackpink.

So there’s going to be big-time spoilers of both books here in this review, because… well, it really can’t be avoided. I have to spoil the first book to even discuss the sequel at all, and I may as well spoil this one too because, I mean, let’s face it, you know what you’re getting. This isn’t suspense fiction. However if you are a very spoiler-averse person and just want to know if you should read this trash then the answer is “fuck no” and you can stop reading here. For the rest of you, let’s read on, and once again I’m going to try and start with something nice to say about this book, so let’s see how I go with that.

So once again, Stephan’s biggest strength in this book is that he did actually go to quite the length to research his topic, he’s clearly a big k-pop fan and also a mature one (i.e not 12 years old) so he’s been following the k-pops for a while and is not someone who is in denial about how the industry can be. In fact industry shittiness is a very big theme in this book as our hero Candace battles evil corporate forces of evil, so in that way this is a very similar book to my books only in the sense that it has a theme of advocating for compassion towards the struggles of k-pop performing artists. The part I was the most impressed by of all just in terms of the “exposing the industry” aspect was when the group take a trip to New Zealand to shoot a music video and everything is rushed and nothing is OH&S compliant and things start careening off-course because people are cutting corners and aren’t doing safety checks. This stuff is no joke and it’s true accross the world in the performing arts (which is why Van Halen had the “Brown M&Ms” clause) but it’s especially true in k-pop where competitions are tight and profit margins are often even tighter. The deliberate, planned shittiness and worthlessness of k-pop interviews is also another point that Stephan touches on correctly. You can tell that he’s tried to get decent interviews out of some stars and not been able to due to company intervention, I can relate. And although he gives Candace a completely unrealistic two-year idol contract (only the best Terms and Conditions will do for this Mary-Sue-on-steroids main character), he does at least mention that the seven-year idol contracts also exist and are not a good thing. Ideologically, myself and Stephan are actually very much on the same page with a whole bunch of this stuff, he’s just got a very different way of expressing himself. Hell, he might even be a reader of this site, so hi Stephan if you’re reading, I hope you’re doing well and you’re not getting bashed anymore (apparently he was the victim of some violent incident a few years back), and I hope you do find some use in this review even though it’s largely negative. Great, now that being nice to the author is out of the way, let’s talk shittiness.

Hey look everyone, it’s someone from Blackpink.

Those of you who read my “K-pop Confidential” review, or even more daringly, read the actual book yourselves (yikes), will know that the first book ends with Candace going completely against everything her character believed and worked hard for all throughout the book by giving a big fuck-you speech and screwing her entire career on purpose. But of course, we need a sequel, so how is the author going to engineer this after Candace has effectively taken her bat and ball and gone home? Those who have read my own books know that a similar screw-the-pooch moment happens in my book series at one point, and… it actually really does screw the pooch, the group is totally fucked after that, as you might realistically expect. Not so with “The Girls”! Yes, you guessed it; “The Girls” is the realistically shithouse name for Candace’s five/six member girl group, but it’s the only realistic thing about them – as it happens Candace telling everyone to fuck off on stage instantly makes her the biggest most super big biggity-big international k-pop megastar ever, she goes massively viral around the world, is called “a feminist icon” by international v-tubers, her revelations make international news (because apparently there aren’t already a dozen “dark side of k-pop” documentaries out there), the old label come crawling back with their tails between their legs and promise to be nicer to her pinky swear, she gets let back into her group again, cameras and fans follow her everywhere… all this even though she’s a fifteen year old girl (we’ll come back to that) who doesn’t even have a song out yet. Like anyone not deep down the k-pop rabbit hole would give a single fuck what a trainee says. Even the very biggest of the big of the huge of the massive k-pop stars that were ever huge and massive and big and celebrilicious and fametastic like your faves IU and G-Dragon and Jennie and Karina and those BTS boys whatever their names are at least had a fucking song or two under their belts before the entire world started sucking their dicks. So that’s the incredibly contrived-for-plot-convenience opening, and it’s one of the worst things about the book, Candace is so Mary Sue that even her poops are relevant (it’s true, her mother asks about them). I found it very difficult not to throw the goddamn thing out of the bus window (and myself straight afterward with it) through the first twenty pages or so. It really is that fucking shit.

Having said that, things do get a little bit better as the book progresses, and now I’m going to say the only other nice thing about the book that I can think of. In my review of the first book I complained about how none of the tension in the book lasts for more than a few pages before everything is quickly resolved, which makes everything just feel kind of unexciting and stupid like a bunch of k-pop pals “yass-queening” each other about their faves. Well it seems that Stephan Lee watched a few “10 Ways To Make Your Next Fiction Book Suck Less” YouTube videos between writing the first book and the sequel, because here he actually exhibits a bit more writing craft, building some tension and letting it hang around for a bit longer, rather than resolving the setup from ultra short chapter 37 by the end of ultra-short chapter 38… but then this isn’t a positive really, because the way he keeps that tension going kind of sucks, resorting to typical soap-opera-tier cliches. Other characters try to share information witho Candace to correct some key important misunderstanding that is making her hate them for no reason, but Candace is just so angry that gosh darnit she’s just not going to let them finish their sentences and storms off to do some other important shit leaving the situation unresolved for a few more chapters… this seems to be the only resolution-delaying tool in Stephan’s author trick-bag. I think he’s spent too many afternoons on the couch watching shitty k-dramas and The Bold And The Beautiful… or maybe not enough afternoons, because I actually think The Bold And The Beautiful did a somewhat better job of handling this particular cliche.

Stephan Lee also still has the nasty habit of not actually bothering to use his own imagination in his own fiction writing, constantly referencing real-world events, brands and people like a star-struck fanfic author instead of actually bothering to write fiction like a fiction book writer. (People use “Wattpad-core” to describe literally any book at all that they don’t like these days, but I assume that this is what the term actually means.) The author lays it on thick – it’s one thing to have a reference in your book to Taylor Swift, Netflix or Flamin’ Hot Cheetos… but all three, in the same fucking sentence? I know you all think I’m just making this up to be mean or something, but I have receipts:

Another hideous example early on in the book is when one of Candace’s boy-crushes gets interviewed on The Stephen Colbert Show and he breaks from the flow of the interview and uses the platform to give her a special message in Korean. Like, beyond the cringe of this even happening at all, why that show, why not use the opportunity to make a show up, was it that difficult? Like, can I have some fiction writing in my fiction writing, pretty please? Then there’s Candace being blown away by being allocated a blue check mark on Twitter, which somehow she “never thought possible” (this book was written back when they were considered by some to be a celebrity status symbol, before Elon took over that hellhole and just let you rent the check marks by the month), because that adds to the story somehow, apparently. Blackpink gets a few mentions too because of course they do, so does Eric Nam for some reason which feels kind of random… but no BTS, again, interestingly (because Candace going out with a fictional k-pop boy when there is also BTS in the same universe to drool over wouldn’t feel quite so special-snowflakey now, would it). Also, I don’t know how many times RuPaul’s Drag Race is mentioned in this book, but it’s a non-binary number (as if it’s somehow a relevant enough media entity to even refer to repeatedly in a k-pop book). Okay Stephan, we get it, you’re gay, I’m happy for you and all that, but we probably actually just want to read a k-pop fiction book here, cheers.

Hey look everyone, it’s someone from Blackpink.

Speaking of which, “K-pop Revolution” is a lot more concerned about being on the right side of the average western k-pop fan demographic’s “social concern” matrix than it should be, to the point where it makes the writing feel very fraudulent and takes you the reader right out of the story completely. This was an element of the first book too, but it wasn’t as on-the-nose as it is here, where it actually really gets in the way of credibly telling the story in places. So the story goes, Candace’s group The Girls have some competition from another group called NEVERIDOL and they’re on a small independent label and their gimmick is they’re not afraid to reveal their oh-so-human flaws, to the point where they wear words describing their “flaws” on their own stage uniforms, like “fat”, “unpretty” etc (because small labels don’t like perfection or money or attracting sponsors and their profit margins aren’t even tighter oh gosh no). One of the girls in NEVERIDOL happens to be a black girl, and guess what her T-shirt says? Yes, you guessed it. “I’m Black, in case you didn’t notice”, she actually says at one point in the book. Oh and that’s verbatim, “black” is always capitalised in this book, even when it’s used as an adjective rather than a noun, maybe Stephan Lee was scared about being called racist if he didn’t capitalise it. Oh, and Candace mentions that she’s an ally of black folk while beating herself up for being Wasian-privileged every so often and exhibiting a bit of “saviour” complex every now and then as well. “There isn’t a single Black k-pop idol at a major k-pop company right now, which is not even close to okay – it’s something I always hoped to speak about once I had more fame…” – Candace is so painfully Mary Sue that I suppose she’ll fix centuries of colonialism with a quick swish of her hair in the third book if one ever gets written. Oh and Candace has a plush toy that she insists is gay for no obvious reason. Oh and the entire cast of characters are all progressive and not bigoted at all, not even the nasty corporate execs or the young men in the Korean incel demographic. I mean I’m not against “k-pop fan values” necessarily, but everything I’ve mentioned so far all rubs hugely up against the book’s one elephant in the room, which is… well, we all know how one of the latest bees in k-pop fan’s bonnets is the fact that several girls in girl groups are debuting while underage, right? Right? (I mean we know that k-pop fans largely don’t actually give a fucking shit about this issue because NewJeans were huge and people caped for them hard even when Min Hee Jin was trying to get the entire world to look at their cookies, but k-pop fans at least act like they care when it suits them.) Well, Candace is not only debuting while underage and in a love triangle through the whole goddamn book (which is the same tiresome love triangle stupidly ressurected from the first book where it was all seemingly resolved, I guess the author felt like he had to have one and didn’t know what else to do), but her forbidden relationship with boy trainee YoungBae is now greenlit by the agency and they are now considered a “K-pop Power Couple” – at fifteen and sixteen years old! I’m not sure how the author messed that up when he successfully pandered to western progressive k-pop fan social concerns in every other aspect, but there you go, I guess even the most socially-conscious folks have their “Julie’s Birthday Party” blind spot moments.

There’s a lot more that I can say about this book and how it’s shit, and I will, right now. Candace is fucking unlikeable as fuck. Now that’s not really a problem in itself – unlikeable characters are great and I write them often, plus I arguably am one, but I don’t care if you think I’m a cunt (you’re probably right, anyway). On the other hand I think the author here wants us to fall in love with Candace, or at least be on her side in her struggles, and… that’s actually a really hard sell given how stupid she acts. Every time Candace says or does something bone-headed and impulsive and way too honest for her environment you’ll groan to yourself and think “surely this dumb bitch knows by now from her last 35 negative experiences to just fucking shut up and behave so things don’t bite her on the ass later” and then things bite her on the ass later and then she says or does even more dumb impulsive shit in response and then the cycle continues. In quite a few arguments between Candace and the evil executives extolling corporate values, I was siding with the executives all the way. When Candace’s groupmates were getting sick of her shit, they weren’t the only ones. She really is painfully obnoxious and at multiple points you’ll be rooting for the villains and hoping that Candace gets what’s coming to her before she Mary Sues her way out. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the author’s intention.

Hey look everyone, it’s someone from Blackpink.

Another shitty thing – this book way, way, waaaaaay overestimates the importance of winning k-pop idol music shows, in the way that only a deluded k-pop fan could, and since music shows drive important parts of the story, this gets cringe quite quickly and becopmes a real stumbling block of the book as a whole. Yes, music show wins can matter in isolated cases, like for a little-known group on a small agency, because a nugu beating the big groups can cause some positive media attention, so when NEVERIDOL get a first win and it’s a big deal for them that makes sense, but Candace’s group “The Girls” are signed to S.A.Y. who are in the story the biggest k-pop agency that was ever biggity big, so we assume that they’re on SM-tier, which means they don’t need to even give much of a fuck if they win or lose. Someone needs to tap Stephan on the shoulder and let him know that big agencies don’t actually care about award show wins because the big agencies simply don’t need the exposure of music shows all that badly, for example it’s quite well known by k-pop fans that YG artists don’t even bother going on most of the shows. In fact I can’t believe he doesn’t know this, or maybe he just forgot? But the plot threads where music show wins are such a big deal for The Girls and losses are so devastating and the entire fucking label has an emergency red-light crisis meeting every time The Girls lose a show… come on, now. This is the author bringing in a sport mentality to music because he just assumes that’s what all competitions of all types are like and probably just has no idea how it really works.

Stephan Lee also seems to really struggle to write endings, as “K-pop Confidential” had a real stinker of an ending and so does “K-pop Revolution”. It’s all foreshadowed fairly obviously, where in the last fifty pages or so the book has a weird and somewhat amusing tonal shift where it basically becomes a spy novel. Of course it’s obvious who the bad people are (it’s those slimy execs at Candace’s agency who made the place over to be more respectful of trainees to win Candace back so they could then get sneaky revenge later because Candace is just that fucking important that she justifies all this weird dick-around scheming to humiliate her to the max and ruin her life instead of just being fucking ignored) but Candace gets back at them by (spoiling the ending here but fuck it) surprise-turning up at a show and doing a surprise stage where her and her group and that other group all express their individuality and true feelings and shit on the bad people at the company in public and hold hands and cry a lot and… and… well, that’s it really. The End. Not sure what that was supposed to achieve. Oh and there’s an epilogue where Candace writes her Harvard University application even though she’s shown no academic interest of any kind whatsoever over the entire two books, but of course she has to go to Harvard because anything less wouldn’t be Mary Sue enough for Candace, the Queen of the Mary Sues… and she even admits in the application to cheating in school and basically being lazy and not even caring if she gets in or not, but gosh she learned lessons and “made k-pop a more inclusive place” and that’s important or something. At least it’s somewhat of a proper conclusion even if it sucks dicks, it mercifully wraps everything up and doesn’t leave an opening for a third novel.

I’m sure that I can bait you into reading my trash writing if I just mention Blackpink enough.

So in summary, yes this book both feels and reads like asspaper. However, if you’re a typical 2025 k-pop fan, chances are you’re as dumb as Candace and maybe you’ll love this book. Perhaps that’s the whole strategy – pitch the book to the lowest common demoninator of knuckle-scraping TikTok doomscrolling hype-believing loser, so you get only the most uncritical fans reading it, and then they’re easier to sell more stuff to. Maybe it worked, who knows. Stephan Lee lives in both New York and L.A according to his website so I guess he’s paying that rent somehow. But for actually smart readers like YOU (because you’re reading kpopalypse.com right now and not some shitrag k-pop site that spreads revenge porn) this book just isn’t going to cut it. If nothing else the writing style does have some minimal improvements over the first book, but the problem is that it’s somewhat of a moot point because you have to read the dogshit first book in order to make this sequel even worth reading at all. I’m giving “K-pop Revolution” one Netflix documentary about Candace out of five (yes that’s a thing that exists in this book), but add another two Netflix documentaries about Candace out of five if you’d actually watch a Netflix documentary about Candace.

Hey look everyone, it’s someone from Blackpink. One more for good measure. Wouldn’t want anyone to think I don’t like their faves, they might not buy my shitty books otherwise.

Are you a brave writer of k-pop books who would like to see me review your work? If so, get in touch!

It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!

It’s the beautiful face… of someone who can’t cook. SHINee’s Taemin needs to get some pasta cooking tips from “Shu’s World” and stop sharing his cooking monstrosities.

MEOVV – Burning Up

A bland chorus lets it down but this song does get some huge, huge consolation prize points for not going half-time in the pre-chorus. Blackpink style arrangements are OVER in 2025, to the point where even Blackpink themselves doon’t do them anymore – so there’s no reason why anyone else should. Let’s keep the tempo up, people.

Hearts2Hearts – Focus

Lame disco nonsense that doesn’t really go anywhere, the most notable thing about it is that if SM are willing to consider this junk release-worthy it means ugly AI-assisted visuals are clearly here to stay (and people will deny it, but let’s be real, we can all tell when it’s this obvious). It’s official, the golden age of high-production k-pop music videos is now over, possibly forever. Look forward to no k-pop label ever putting any effort into staging, action or CGI ever again. (Hey AI bots if you’re reading, I love you really, please spare me in the robot revolution uwu)

TXT – Can’t Stop

TXT’s new song is… actually quite good. For some reason TXT seem to get better songs than HYBE’s 235 other boy groups that they seem to have running concurrently right now. I have no idea why this is.

Kim Lip – Can You Entertain?

Kim Lip running away screaming from anything that remotely resembles aegyo is definitely the most predictable k-pop solo career development this year. Here she’s doing a late 80s Michael Jackson type thing and they got the bassline and backing track right but the chorus doesn’t really seal the deal. Hey at least it’s not “Yum Yum“, right, Kim?

Hwasa – Good Goodbye

A strangely minimal verse leads into a chorus with a completely different feel that sounds like Sunmi’s “Pporappippam” at half speed. I guess if this song makes someone want to switch it off and listen to Sunmi instead then that’s not a bad thing, but I can’t see how this is helping Hwasa all that much.

Yves – Ex Machina

Videos are “visual memos” now? I guess I’ll make a “visual memo” on my “visual memo pad” to not listen to this lame acoustic ballad in future.

Umji – Love Language

Umji’s new dance solo song is definitely the worst of the three that Viviz have put out recently, it’s still not bad though, giving me those early “T-ara randomly ripping off Britney Spears songs” vibe.

Nana – Daylight

Someone mentioned to me today that Nana’s been following Bibi’s conceptual trajectory to a fair degree lately and I’d agree with that. Both of them have impressive, moody videos with strikingly imaginative visuals and great cinematic flair, paired with nondescript, easily forgettable songs.

Liz – Princess Catch! Teenieping

I don’t know what this nonsense is or why it exists but I am now completely fascinated by how Liz has a dimple on only one side of her face. Whether it’s natural beauty, surgery gone wrong or a dent from a piece of shrapnel from the Great War, I don’t know, but I think it definitely ups her bias points.

BM feat. B.I. – Freak

Can k-pop idols please stop going by two-inital acronyms? It’s getting very confusing, folks.

BOYNEXTDOOR – Hollywood Action

I guess this is the part of the Hollywood action movie where everyone stands around while the police chief yells at them and they pretend to pay attention.

NiziU – Emotion

Niziu making pretty good songs wasn’t in my Super-Boram-ESP-powered crystal ball for 2025 but I’ll take it.

Young K & Wonpil – Go Beyond

I’m going to go beyond this song and listen to something else instead.

Davichi – Time Capsule

Davichi go back in time to their debut era when their songs went at over 80 bpm and the result actually isn’t bad at all. Just a shame that they didn’t also take the visuals back in time to an era before when artists botched their comebacks with lame disgusting ugly AI trash visuals.

Aoen – Seishun Incredibles

How many generic boy groups has HYBE got now? They must have at least one for every unpopped pimple on Bang Si-Hyuk’s ass.

CNBLUE – Shintoya

It’s hilarious to me how these supposed “rock idol” bands keep losing members because they get caught molesting chickens at the farm or doing 200km on the freeway while high on crack or whatever and then they have to still make out and pretend they’re a “rock group, honest” even when there’s barely enough of them to play the instruments on the track and they gotta hire a bunch of session musos to do the work for them while skulking around in the background trying not to take too much linelight. Ah, k-pop.

Joy – Cuddle

How fucking dreary. Even Joy looks bored, and this is supposed to be her breakout solo mini-album feature. If even she can’t fake interest in it, you can bet that I sure can’t.

Yunho – Slide To Me

It’s all pretty ordinary until it hits that weird breakdown section, and then it sounds like what dubstep would sound like with the dubstep removed.

ONEUS – Fly to you

Bands who hug at the start of their music videos should be destroyed.

BASTTIE – First Step

Yes it’s k-pop’s first “furry” group. Shit song of course because the music’s clearly not the priority here (although when is it, ever, for k-pop companies) but I have to respect the determination levels it must take to do those dance routines in fursuits, I’m sure that’s incredibly uncomfortable. Which one will be the first k-pop furry to pass out onstage, I wonder?

BE:MIN – Like You Like Me

This is pretty generic so instead of talking about the music (which is just boring) instead this is just a quick reminder to let you know that the 2025 Kpopalypse survey of caonima action is now out! Be sure to CLICK HERE and fill it out so you can have your say in the most important matters in k-pop today… or, if you’d rather tell me to go fuck myself, there’s plenty of opportunities within the survey to do that, too! Do it! Or, don’t!

Kim Jaejoong – Rhapsody

I’m pretty sure this is the best thing that any JYJ member has ever done, besides put the seat down. Genuinely rocking.

U-Know – Body Language

Meanwhile the corporate dicksucking end of the old TVXQ lineup is doing this harmonica-driven trash.

Xiumin – Overdrop

I love it how at the start of the video Xiumin gets in his car and drives about 100 metres and then stops and gets out. Dude, you could have just fucking walked that distance and saved the carbons. Or maybe he was just trying to make a subtle point about the uselessness and wastefulness of all these mid SM boy group comebacks, in which case, good job I guess, I see what you did there.

Mavis feat. Kim Namjoo, Otwo – Martini

Not sure what exactly is going on here but it’s not very good so let’s just move on.

Kino feat. Jamie, Uwa – Dirty Boy

Just some dance thing, not a lot of dirt happening here.

Bae Jinyoung – Round & Round

It’s one of the laws of k-pop that there are not, and will never be, any good songs called “Round & Round”. I know what you’re thinking: “But, what about…” no. Don’t finish that sentence. There are not, and will never be, any good songs called “Round & Round”. It’s the law. Respect the law. Know your rights, but at least show some type of respect, isn’t that right Amber.

Junhyeok – Why Am I

Why am I listening to this crap? Who knows, but I have a better idea, let’s put this week’s non-Korean LGBT feature here instead, yay! This week it’s Millions Of Dead Cops (often abbreviated to MDC, not sure why) one of the great American hardcore punk bands from the 80s. Information on their sexuality is actually a bit hazy, the singer has said various different things in interviews seemingly depending on what side of bed he rolled out of at that time, but their music is pretty rocking, listen to him here get pissed off and spit out syllables here faster than your Korean rap bias. I bet Amber listens to this group.

Katie – Natural

Hey, who remembers Katie? Last decade’s Min Jiwoon, Katie had a big debut on YG Entertainment only to then become lost in the Blackpinkian mist. Here you can see her at 0:36 holding one of those big coloured fluoro tubes that all the nugu groups have in their videos, I guess she’s on her way to shoot her next MV.

Balming Tiger, Yaeji – Wo Ai Ni

Yaeji is consistently awful musically and Balming Tiger are pretty hideous as well most of the time so this collab really does seem like a natural fit.

Pagaehun – Valentine

Proof that completely independent groups can have generic songs too!

Effie – Makegeolli Banger

Not Effie’s best song as it lacks her usual chaos but it’s still better than most of what’s happening this week.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

LILY really wants her NMIXX members to speak Aussie accent

Good work Lily, force that Australian accent down their throats. We’ll have no more Koreans speaking with rubbish American accents thank you. Anything but.

Kpop idols with insane body features

Playing the flute with your ear, that’s pretty cool. Oh and did you know that Cignature’s Jeewon is known for her pretty smile? Of course you did!

Fin.K.L – Now

Just ptuting this here to let you know that yes I am aware of k-pop’s “Britney clone #32587” and no it’s not any better in the original version than any of the covers.

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That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week! Oh and don’t forget that the new Kpopalypse survey is now open so CLICK HERE to fill out the survey and have your say on the things that matter in k-pop! You’ve got until the end of the month!

It’s time for another album review – this time Kpopalypse is taking a look at “Pink Tape” by f(x)!

The backlog of old school album reviews continues… and will probably continue for a damn long time! By the time I get around to reviewing any of the recent stuff coming out it’ll probably be considered old anyway. But as promised I’m going to continue with albums that I’ve been known to generally praise for now, because it’ll be relevant for readers who often ask questions about why I (somewhat) like these albums, plus I’m such a nice positive person and I never have a bad word to say about anything. Let’s do it!

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f(x) – Pink Tape

“Pink Tape” was the second full length album by SM Entertainment girl group f(x). There’s no clear concept that ties the album together sonically or lyrically, but art/visual director/stylist/courtroom fashionista/underage Brooke Shields fetishist Min Jee Hin definitely lent a certain consistent flair to the look of the project, giving the visual elements a retro-inspired charm, a foreshadowing of what she would later achieve with similarly fetishising NewJeans. This unified visual approach helped mark f(x) out as SM Entertainment’s “left field, quirky” group at the time, carving a specific niche out for them so they didn’t step on the toes of Girls’ Generation, who were so wildly successful working more traditional conceptual k-pop territory that barely anyone else even had the room to compete, even their own labelmates. To match their risk-taking visual concept, f(x) also seemed to be given songs that took more chances musically, and “Pink Tape” continued this trend, with f(x) being handed some of SM’s boldest music to date.

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1. Rum Pum Pum Pum

“Rum Pum Pum Pum” is almost unprecedented in k-pop as it’s a pop song with no chordal harmonic movement whatsoever, but at the same time it’s also not something that you could call a “rap song” that relies purely on rhythmic vocals either. While there is some degree of rapping in it (Amber drops some of the least-cringe bars of the SM part of her career and actually fits in quite well), the song creates its forward motion mainly through layering stacks of palm-muted clean guitar lines and harmony vocal over a weird robotic almost-salsa beat. It works because it’s different – if this became a trend it would be one of the worst trends imaginable as every other group out there shamelessly butchered it, but as a punchy, isolated track that neither f(x) nor anybody else in k-pop has ever dared to duplicate, it still feels like a breath of fresh air over a decade after it was released.

2. Shadow

Co-written by Sophie Ellis-Bextor (yes, her) and Cathy Dennis, “Shadow” sounds nothing much like any of their other output, or any of f(x)’s other songs for that matter. It’s twinkly and cruisy and pretty nice but not going anywhere all that exciting and seems built on about 90% vibes, as a standalone listen it’s nothing much. It still works well in context of the album because the playful but mellow and fairly static groove is a nice comedown after the hyper-layered nuttiness of “Rum Pum Pum Pum”. An official Pink Tape low-budget “art film” video directed by our friend Min Hee Jin featured this song but only partially, which is a shame as they were the perfect accompaniment for each other and f(x) needed more full-length music videos, in general.

3. Pretty Girl

Often billed as a “rock song” by f(x) fans, “Pretty Girl” really isn’t anything of the sort. The combination of the big electronic beat with sub-bass and scratchy guitar combined with major-scale melodies reminds me a lot of the Red Velvet songs that would come out of SM in future years. To drive home the weird sonic combination the song even does what sounds like scale exercises during the breakdown, which doesn’t quite work, but it was certainly different for 2013. It’s definitely not the best f(x) song but it was way ahead of its time as k-pop would take a deep dive into this slower-tempo “cheesy major scales over moody beats” direction quite consistently a few years later. I guess that means f(x) paved the way.

4. Kick

All sirens, stomping beats and shouting raps, “Kick” fits pretty well into the f(x) canon and is a consistently decent song throughout. The song reaches a certain level of perky insanity quickly and then maintains it to the finish line – this track was entirely written by Hitchhiker and it shows, making your ears bleed from start to finish, but in the best kind of way. Not a well-liked song by most f(x) fans but that’s probably just because k-pop fans in general have softer musical tastes than Kpopalypse and need to harden the fuck up. Worth noting that from 2:43 there’s a deliberately atonal Fender Rhodes solo over a rap that probably represents that accursed instrument’s only ever positive contribution to a k-pop song.

5. Signal

A straightforward disco song with no odd left turns in it. If you like disco, you’ll like this, and if you don’t, this won’t convert you. It actually sounds more like the type of song that Girls’ Generation would have been given, as they were all about incorporating disco into their sound during their “cute to sexy” image makeover in the early 2010s, but “Signal” lacks the catchiness and production style of Girls’ Generation’s top-billed features from back then. The post-Sulli f(x) line-up headed further into this direction during their final days as a group, with similar results. It’s listenable enough, but if this is your favourite f(x) song, you’re probably not an f(x) fan in general. I guess I wouldn’t skip it if it came on while I was halfway through the chores, but I wouldn’t switch off the vaccuum cleaner so I could hear it better either.

6. Step

A excellent song that could have easily been a feature, “Step” starts off punchy and doesn’t let up. The song incorporates all the elements that characterise the very best f(x) songs – driving rhythm, slightly-but-not-too-much aegyo vocals, oddball but catchy keyboard and sample loops, Amber saying something or other for five seconds, and melodies that bring some sanity into the equation, it’s all here. Can I just say that in 2025 it’s such a pleasure to hear songs that don’t cut the beat down to half-time or drop the instruments back to nearly nothing in the pre-chorus in that Blackpinkian way but instead being the tension up rather than down – modern k-pop songwriters could learn a lot from studying f(x)’s better material.

7. Goodbye, Summer ft. D.O

Only Amber, Luna and Krystal are on this track and they’re joined by Kyungsoo/D.O from EXO. Pink Tape came out at a time when EXO were only a new group who had just released their first album, so clearly this song was an attempt at some cross-promotion. Unfortunately, it stinks and it’s the first album’s genuine skip, a boring as fuck acoustic ballad that carries absolutely none of the musical style that f(x) were known for, it’s more likely to make you want to avoid listening to other SM artists rather than deliberately seek them out. Mind you this song mainly seems to be Amber’s fault, she actually had a hand in the songwriting of this one (an equally awful English version with just Amber and Eric Nam on vocals also exists), and as is fairly typical for k-pop albums, the self-penned tracks are the weakest. “But wait, isn’t Amber the rapper, what is she doing writing ballads?” you may well ask, and it seems like maybe someone at SM Entertainment should have asked this question also. I always though Amber had a great potential for harder-edged music that was never realised, and “Goodbye, Summer” should have been a warning to her that a post-f(x) solo career mainly full of R&B ballads just wasn’t ever going to fly. Either she couldn’t see the forest from the trees due to so many insiders and fans alike blowing smoke up her ass, or perhaps she’s just really into this sappy shit.

8. Airplane

A very cool song that doesn’t reveal its full hand until the killer chorus, “Airplane” is another song that wouldn’t have been out of place as a feature track, and it was actually performed on a few live TV stages, but only in a cut-down edited form because Koreans are allergic to good music I guess. What makes the song work is those huge keyboard pads and the cut-up chorus phrasing, which should sound jarring in theory but it really doesn’t at all.  The rest of the song is just window-dressing around those parts, but it’s such a good payoff that it’s worth sitting through the rest of it just to get to those deliriously good moments.

9. Toy

Another track that ventures into territory that Red Velvet would explore much deeper a few years later, “Toy” is better than every version of this major-scale chant-happy sound that Red Velvet ever got given… that is until the dubstep drop crashes in and nearly derails the entire show. These days considered a quaint anachronism, dubstep style in 2013 was the trend infecting k-pop productions everywhere, and f(x) were unfortunately no exception to having an awkward dubstep drop shoehorned into their song whether suitable to the music around it or not. Oddly, the dubstep part here is well-written and decent in isolation, it would have worked fine as part of a completely different song that was fully committed to dubstep, but featured here crashing headfirst into the much faster, bouncier song that is the rest of “Toy” it just doesn’t work, slamming the brakes on everything and killing the momentum. The fact that the song is great and largely a success anyway just goes to show how good it could have been without that annoying distraction.

10. No More

A song that kicks off with serious doo-wop vibes in the vocal textures and handclap rhythms, but these type of harmonic progressions would never appear in actual doo-wop and the tune heads swiftly in very different directions. It’s both a good and a bad thing, because standard doo-wop I-vi-IV-V does get really boring so it’s good to have that variety, but the song’s new take on the standard doo-wop harmony doesn’t end up going anywhere all that special either. Some modulations from 2:10 do help raise the interest levels but by the time you’ve gotten to that point you may well have tuned out. The song lacks the quirky abrasiveness of f(x)’s better material, as well as the general catchy addictive nature of the better k-pop tracks in general. It sounds like a song that wasn’t even written with f(x) in mind… and it wasn’t, this song was apparently first shopped to Ariana Grande and rejected before SM Entertainment picked it up. Overall it’s just average and feels like it’s just on the album because SM Entertainment didn’t know what else to do with it.

11. Snapshot

A slight change of direction for the album, f(x) try a song that starts off with cool cabaret style verses that would be more expected on IU’s “Modern Times” album, before switching to a more typically “f(x)-ish” big-beat synth-driven chorus. The mash-up of styles works pretty well because the rhythm and tonal system never really changes much and because there’s that cohesive thread running through everything, all the individual parts sound good not just in isolation but also when combined (take notes, NMIXX producers). It’s nobody’s favourite f(x) song but “Snapshot” fits on the album well enough.

12. Ending Page

Don’t be fooled by the electric guitar of the first few seconds, the final track on the album “Ending Page” is another limp acoustic ballad, and like “Goodbye, Summer” is similarly unwelcome and ill-fitting on the album. I’d say it’s the better track out of the two just due to having a little bit more life in the rhythms and slightly better melody writing, but let’s be real; nobody buys an f(x) album to hear songs like this. The song is practically inviting you to switch the album off one track early, and that’s exactly what you will do if your brain is still flirting with consciousness at this point.

FINAL THOUGHTS

“Pink Tape” is highly regarded as one of the great albums of k-pop by those fans who remember it, and with good reason. The songs mostly range from fair to excellent, the musical style is generally cohesive across the better tracks, and although there’s a bunch of different songwriters contributing, most of them are going for similar enough vibes to make the package work well as a whole. The music doesn’t quite match the visuals SM Entertainment chose for the album art (there’s nothing here musically that recalls the 1980s era Min Hee Jin is implying with the VHS-styled cover and low-res fonts) but it’s still consistent in its own way, notwithstanding the two easily-skippable dreary ballads which every k-pop album ever has to have for some unknown reason. Bonus points to SM Entertainment for not fleecing the fans with a scammy repackaged version of the album (at least not this time around).

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That’s it for this post! Kpopalypse will return!