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

If you liked VVUP’s contributions to k-pop last year, you’d better savour them as I don’t know if they’ll be around much longer. Allegedly their agency hasn’t just not paid the girls (which is normal for k-pop) but they suppsedly haven’t paid anyone else either, and now the lawsuits are flying from unpaid contractors. Good luck, everyone!

Aespa – Lemonade

A great concept with aggressive rhythm and arresting visual style (even if partially ruined by the now-mandatory AI-slop add-ons) but sadly the chant chorus is lame and lets the whole show down. For those who asked, the outfit quality is the outfits at 2:47 > the race queen stuff > the fascist army officer stuff > whatever Zimzalabimmed monstrosity they’re wearing in the thumbnail.

NMIXX, Anderson .Paak – Caution

NMIXX are doing well lately on their own, but their western collabs, not so much. Exercise caution before pressing play.

IVE – Lucid Dream

Bland and a chore to sift through, like when you fill the sink with dishes and water and then leave it there overnight.

CORTIS – Blue Lips

I wonder why these boys are laying around the pool mumbling pathetically and looking all depressed. Maybe it’s because they want to do a ballad but nobody can find the control to dial down the Autotune.

SHINee – Atmos

SHINee go back to the sound of “View“, which isn’t exactly the best era of the group but it’s probably still better than what your bias is doing lately.

TREASURE – If I

You remember how Treasure had one of the best songs of last year? Well… that was last year, ahem.

MEOVV – DDI RO RI

Fascinatingly incompetent, with some of the most laugh-out-loud ugly visual ideas I’ve ever seen in a k-pop video. The song isn’t much better, stapling a verse and chorus together that aren’t too bad in isolation but don’t work at all when combined.

FIFTY FIFTY – Like a Bubble

I have to say that Fifty Fifty’s music has taken a quality dip lately. This isn’t as good as “Starry Night“, now that’s a song you could listen to, if you wanted.

tripleS – Baby Flower

Probably on the better end of tripleS songs, not quite up there with the Christian horse girl classics but hey it’s an attempt. Also I appreciate the captions telling you who is singing when, because otherwise who the fuck would know. I might be able to write that tripleS identification post soon thanks to this.

Taeyang feat. Tarzzan, Woochan – Would You

Don’t die of shock but there’s actually some good melody writing here. Of course whenever one of the other guys turns up to babble away everything goes completely to shit, but it’d be a decent song without those parts.

Taeyang – Bad

This other song is just shit though.

BoA – Ain’t No Hard Feelings

Look at BoA wandering around all relaxed and shit, probably saying to herself “finally I don’t have to do a tightly choreographed dance in a music video!” Being released from SM must feel like Bad Boy Bubby does when he finally gets let out of the house.

XLOV – Serve

XLOV are gradually filling the space left by N.O.M and I think it’s working, folks.

AND2BLE – Curious

How is anyone supposed to say these group names. There should be a moratorium on digits in idol group names. Anyway a wrong choice of chorus beat kills the significant promise of this one. Why so slow and dreary? There’s an early SHINee banger here trying to get out that’s completely hamstrung by the beat choice.

ALPHA DRIVE ONE – OMG!

I don’t have anything to say about this one and I don’t have anything random to say either so here’s a picture of my cat standing on her hind legs to grab her dinner.

ONEWE – Icarus

Very millennial and not all that interesting. Nice guitar solo though but it’s too short.

IDID – Fly!

I was more interested in the shirts being worn than the song itself. Bjork? Public Image Ltd? The costume department are sure making an effort, even if nobody else did.

HEART OF WOMAN – Lost in Proof

Heart Of Woman impress again – I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I would listen to this by choice, but it’s about as good as this type of style ever gets. Oh and ignore the botched audio transfer that varies in volume for no reason (it shoots up in volume at 0:20 and then back down again at 0:35 for no reason), it’s not like that on the actual official audio.

Queenz Eye – Y2K

A pretty awful concept and a pretty awful song, but… the outfits look good? That’s something. Hey I’m trying to be all positive and shit here. It’s hard, man.

H//PE Princess – One Day

Hslashslashpeprincess definitely haven’t been around for long enough to deserve a video with montage elements in it. Maybe one day?

Seeya – You, Like Spring

Yeah nah.

Jay Park & LNGSHOT – Run It Up

Jay Park pushing his way into his new boy group instead of letting them stand on their own two feet, they must be so sick of him at this point. Hey Jay why not run it up to Dan Murphy’s and get my girlfriend a soju bottle?

AB6IX – Endless

Oh my god, I just found the best copypasta in the comments.

Thank you, AB6IX, really, really. I’ve been to a total of three concerts: the one the year before last, last year, and this one. When I go to a concert venue, everyone there knows AB6IX and knows their songs. So, it felt like I was connected to everyone there. And when the concert starts, that feeling of connection intensifies; my head feels clear, my heart races, and I realize that I am truly enjoying AB6IX—that my AB6IX isn’t a fantasy, but reality. On the 23rd, the day of the concert, Daehwi said, “AB6IX albums are a 7-year diary filled with our hearts.” To me, AB6IX albums feel like a play button for those 7 years of memories…? For example, back in 2022, when I was in my second year of middle school, I was on the bus going to my cram school when the highlight medley for “Complete With You” started playing! I remember quietly putting on my earphones and listening to the songs on that highlight medley in that sunlit bus, and that memory comes to mind every time I listen to the “Complete With You” album. And when you give me an answer, I remember when my tutoring class finished right before the VIVID comeback show, so I told my mom to play it for me in advance… There are just so many things. I really want to talk about everything. Also, while waiting for the concert merchandise, I became close with another Avenue member. I thought to myself, if I hadn’t liked AB6IX or if they hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have had this connection. I also became close with a friend in my third year of middle school by talking about idols, but if AB6IX hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have known the first thing about idols haha… That’s how much AB6IX is like a lifelong friend who has been there for the seven years of my teenage years. Lastly, there is something the AB6IX members keep saying: “I’m sorry I couldn’t become a better singer.” Honestly, frankly… if we compare ourselves to others, there might be parts where we lose. But still, happiness is subjective, isn’t it? I’m not saying this just for comfort or without meaning; the memories that I, the Avenue members, and AB6IX have built over the past seven years make us happy. That is a fact that won’t lose to anyone. So, you are the singers who gave us happiness. Thank you so much. Also, I haven’t mentioned this here until now, but I am a man. I’ve been explaining up until now by saying, “I don’t like same-sex people; I’m just a fan because I genuinely love the team AB6IX, their songs, and their albums.” But yesterday, while talking with Avenue, whom I became close with, I realized something. Whether you are a man or a woman, the reason people like AB6IX and become fans is the same. So, there is no need to feel intimidated or hide it (though I do like the opposite sex). Anyway, that’s it. Lastly, I’ll leave one sentence for the members before I go. Woong-hyung, thank you for becoming the oldest member of AB6IX; I was so happy that you made the atmosphere so good and became the main vocalist of the team. Donghyun-hyung, thank you for making so many fan songs and for elevating AB6IX’s visuals. Woojin-hyung, thank you for silently doing your job as the only member in charge of rapping, even though it might have been difficult. Daehwi-hyung, thank you for becoming AB6IX’s producer, and thank you so much for making AB6IX’s songs the standard for my music. I am so happy to be an AB6IX fan, Avenue. I feel like I want to write down every single good thing I can say before I leave. TEAM AB6IX FOREVER

Definitely using this in future.

VVS – Mixin’ Thangs

Just your regular reminder that lyric videos that are just lazily looped footage are not eligible for roundup. Even if the bikini presentation is on point.

CrazAngel – Land of Dreams

These are lyrics designed to brainwash the girls singing them into the idea that they’re actually not wasting their time and they’re going to get somewhere meaningful with their group one day. It’s not for you, it’s for them.

Boyfriend – Starlit Voices

Boyfriend have been around for 15 years now, that’s a pretty good run. Enjoy your Christian horse boys.

xikers – Outsider

Wow, did every single nobody boy group release a song this week? Oh wait, BTS haven’t done anything…

Hi-Fi Un!corn – By Chance

I really wish Hi-Fi Unicorn would just stop making music for a while, have a little break. They’re dipping into country-infused music now so you know they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to put in a music video.

PINK CLONE – Go On!

I’m not in the loop on why this exists but it’s definitely a parody of 2010-era 4minute/2NE1 style k-pop. Weirdly they forgot to smother everything in hard Autotune but apart from that it’s pretty accurate.

FRAME THE X – No Exit

As generic as it gets… until the chorus where there’s some pretty weird and interesting use of distorted guitar. It’s too messy to be good, but there was potential here.

DROP – Wiki Wiki

We’ve got nugu groups naming themselves after Wikipedia now.

UR:L – Wish Me Love

And another group named after website addresses. Is the flood of AI slop in Korea creating a fascination with old-web culture? Or do people just not know how to name things?

Krystal – PWLT

Yes, it’s that Krystal. Unfortunately she’s not much better at solo music than her sister, this song is pretty dreary. Maybe she should walk the path paved by Jessica like I did and get into novel writing?

Soran feat. Miyeon – Ceremony

How much do you reckon it costs to get Miyeon to feature in your song and video? I reckon she’d do a good deal, I mean it’s Miyeon not Wonyoung, you could probably hire her for a few grand. Worth thinking about if you’re in Korea trying to get a start.

Can’t Be Blue feat. Han – Can’t Love

Oh, we can be blue alright.

Kim Jaejoong – Oasis

My stream watchers observed that Jaejoong is looking pretty good. Of course it’s partly the TV makeup and editing and CGI (they AI-slopped the background, so you know they filtered the fuck out of his face too) but hey I won’t interfere with my reader’s fap experience. A better song would have been nice though, we know he has it in him.

Jang Hyunseung – My Only One

Lots of comments on this video along the lines of “only leave nice comments or I’m going to beat you up”, if that isn’t an invitation to troll I don’t know what is. Of course I would never do anything like that…

J.Seph – Easy

Some guy from KARD has a solo song and it sounds… like KARD. What was the point? Might as well have just made it a KARD song.

Yaochen – INTP

Crap song but it does have non-AI-generated horses and other fauna in the video so it’s not completely worthless.

Henry Lau – Enjoy The Show

After about 2358967234508976 years Henry finally leans into the fast pace and violin playing again. The song is pure nonsense but it’s kind of entertaining in its wanton relentless shameless cheesiness, best thing he’s done in ages.

BewhY – Stigmata

Some cool synth treatments help out the otherwise weak beat and get things over the line. Anyway god says I should stop roundup here.

CUTIE STREET – Can’t we just be cute?

According to my song submitter “the song was originally in japanese but they released in full korean lyrics and they promoted in korean music shows”. But I’m not going to allow j-shit like this into end of year lists or even future roundups based on such a technically or otherwise picks 1 to 30 on the worst list will just all be horrid crap exactly like this, and we have enough fully Korean garbage to shit on each and every week. It’s the same reason that OSTs don’t get in. But it can get in now as the week’s non-Korean pick even though it sucks major fucking ass.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Most Popular Girl Groups (2004 – 2026)

I always enjoy these bar graph videos about almost anything because I’m a nerd and I like numbers. This video is based on internet searches per month, watch the gradual takeover of k-pop in the girl group space and marvel at how The Supremes keep hanging in there. They paved the way.

4X4 PERFECT SYNC – Have You Ever Seen 80 Professional Dancers Perform a K-POP Random Play Dance?

This huge ensemble dance thing might be of interest. Lots of k-pop songs here, pretty much all modern ones so it’s a mixed quality bag but still cool to watch.

Harisu – Liar

Harisu is the first trans k-pop idol and this song really isn’t bad at all. Back when she was around this type of slightly-trot dance banger was big. Perhaps now that this sound is trending again we’ll see a revival?

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

Curious caonimas wish to know the meaning of “Christian horse girl music” and Kpopalypse has the answers! Or maybe not, but here’s a post about it anyway, enjoy!

The fine readers of kpopalypse.com will know that “Christian horse girl music” is something that’s been getting referred to more and more in the kpoponlineosphere. So what exactly are people talking about?

Firstly, there’s the “Christian” aspect. I’ve used the idea of a “Christian horse girl” as a loose template for Eunice, the lead character in my book Girls909, who is a Christian girl that likes horses and makes music. But that’s not quite the same thing that people are talking about. When k-pop talks about “Christian horse girl music” they’re talking about groups like…

…Gfriend. All four of these videos that claim to explain the term use images of Gfriend for their chosen clickbait thumbnail. So Gfriend must be an important part of Christian horse girl music, whatever that is. However, Gfriend are also…

…a bunch of dirty goat-worshipping first-wave-of-Black-Metal-listening Satanists like Kpopalypse, as this song’s lyrical content demonstrates. They even named the album this is from Walpurgis Night, after the noted Satanic ritual. There’s definitely no Christianity going on here.

So we can count Christianity out as the one deciding factor. What about horses?

There are many horses in k-pop music videos, but aespa are the only k-pop group to feature a song containing a horse that seems to have musical input. Strangely, the horse’s voice sounds like G-Dragon, but we won’t judge, kpopalypse.com is a safe space for horses that sound like G-Dragon. But what it doesn’t sound like, is any era of Gfriend.

Even the witchy-spell-casting, blood-sacrificing, apple-from-the-Tree-Of-Life-munching era of Gfriend doesn’t sound like aespa. That brings us to “girl”.

Something that does sound like Gfriend, quite a lot actually, is k-pop boy group The Wind.

More recently TWS have also jumped on the concept, but as usual, it wasn’t a HYBE boy group that paved the way.

Obviously we want girls in our Christian horse girl content, but do we strictly need them for that content to still qualify? The fact is that in 2026 it’s a lot easier to find boy groups with this sound these days than girl groups. Are k-pop fans who claim to champion progressive causes such as trans rights also happy with their favourite music changing its gender identity?

I asked my readers what defined “Christian horse girl” a while back and here’s what I got. Most of the possibilities here can be counted out immediately due to having no k-pop example. The general opinion in the result is that early, Gfriend, Apink, Girls Generation and Lovelyz represent “Christian horse girl” more than… an actual Christian horse girl. Sorry, Eunice.

Now let’s look at these three videos again and see if we can make any sense out of them.

This video from Kpopping opens boldly with an actual dictionary-styled definition of the term:

So that wouldn’t rule out this, for example.

Or even this:

So “innocent, bright and youthful sound and aesthetic” clearly isn’t the whole story. The video also says that the term is “pure fan-speak”. It also says that Christian horse girl music is partly about “the emotional maximalism that only k-pop can bring” but in its conclusion also says that the style is dying because of a “shift towards maximalism”. No real discussion of the music of any substance other than that orchestration is probably important. Regarding Oh My Girl’s breakdown, they say “it doesn’t just build, it ascends”, even though the melodic line actually descends in that section. Perhaps Kpopping shouldn’t have left such an important issue to AI slop scriptwriting.

The second video shows signs of actually being written and narrated by a human, so that’s nice. There’s also a reasonable attempt to define the music here, “building up to a crescendo”, “high note”, “no anti-drop”, “orchestral”. Okay, got you covered.

Wait, what do you mean it’s too slow? What do you mean “youth is important”? Pfft. Ok, so apparently we need young people and at least “moderate tempo”. Okay, so… trot music, then?

I’m pretty sure that’s not what they meant, but it ticks all the boxes. They also talk about how vocal harmony is important or something, but that’s bullshit, the vast majority of this music doesn’t actually have any vocal harmony. A lot of people all singing the same thing in unison at the same pitch is not vocal harmony. Anyway I refuse to take too seriously the opinion of a girl who says in the video that she doesn’t even like horses.

This third video is light on the explanation but gives lots of musical examples. It’s just as well that they’re light on the explanation because they clearly don’t know much musically, skirting around any actual discussion of music and instead giving vague emotive descriptors that are sometimes weirdly chosen.

Calling Girls’ Generation’s “Girls’ Generation” meloncholic (sic) is definitely a stretch, whoever made this video perhaps needs to check not just their spellchecker but their medication levels.

I liked the last video the most just because it acknowledged that k-pop fans tend to think of the actual music as secondary to the colour of their bias’ toenail polish. This one’s pretty good actually with a lot of correct information, even if a lot of the observations the video creator makes (such as use of major and minor keys, key changes during the song etc) don’t really define whether something is actually Christian horse girl music or not.

So now that I’ve spent this entire post shitting on everyone else’s opinions, what’s my own opinion on this important topic? All the videos above are at least somewhat correct to varying degrees. It’s obvious that “Christian horse girl music” is not nothing… we know it when we hear it (early Gfriend), and we also know when we definitely don’t hear it (aespa, Blackpink etc). So let’s try to break it down.

There’s a long list of things that I think are a “nice to have” rather than a “must have” for Christian horse girl music. We’ve already established that we don’t need Christians, horses or girls. Add to that list:

Vocal harmony. It’s barely in k-pop anyway. K-pop fans just literally don’t know what harmony vocals are, or they get tricked into thinking harmonies exist when they don’t by the layered production/aural excitation that is applied to k-pop vocal treatments.

Gfriend’s “Rough” is a song pretty much everyone would agree represents “Christian horse girl music”. It has no vocal harmony, everything is sung in unison. That’s how it’s done in all these groups – the girls generally can’t harmonise anyway, so they don’t, because of the awkward position it puts them in vocally. Ask anyone who has tried to sing actual harmony vocals while doing an energetic dance routine how hard it is… oh wait you can’t, because almost nobody ever actually does that, because it’s literally impossible unless you’re an insane person. If you’re not a musician or a singer and are struggling to understand why, know that trying to hit dead-on vocal harmonies while doing energetic k-pop style dancing is like trying to do a controlled even-flow pee while sprinting. One requires fast movement, the other requires a measure of stillness and muscular focus.

(The exception with “Rough” not having harmony is of course the wailing high-note overdub at the end, but that’s a separate melodic line and not specifically harmonising against the main melody. It’s also completely superfluous to the point, the song wouldn’t lose anything that makes it “Christian horse girl” if that part was removed.)

Orchestral (strings) elements. Often present. Not actually needed.

The early period of Girls’ Generation is an era that people will point to as one of the purest, most undiluted examples of “Christian horse girl music”. Yet SNSD’s title track, which is used as an example of the form in one of the videos above, has no orchestral elements at all.

Lyrics about [insert lyrical theme here]. Nobody cares. It’s pop music. If you’re listening to or caring about lyrics, you’re doing it wrong.

New Jack Swing beats. Whatever the fuck that even is. Stuff that sounds like Bell Biv Devoe” I guess, I don’t know.

Apink’s “Mr. Chu” is just straight up disco. No genre-blending here at all, of any kind.

On the other hand NewJeans’ “Super Shy” does have New Jack Swing beats, or whatever the fuck. (Or if it doesn’t, it’s sure as hell a lot closer to that than “Mr Chu” is.) It’s also bright, youthful (ahem), innocent, has no anti-drop, but nobody’s calling this Christian horse girl music, which brings us to…

Something about “innocence” or whatever. Not needed.

I rest my case.

So that’s all the optional stuff. Now here’s the things that I actually think are required for Christian horse girl music, that I’m not seeing a lot of talk about. Just one of the following indicators isn’t enough – all need to present for a song to be Christian horse girl music.

THINGS THAT ACTUALLY DEFINE CHRISTIAN HORSE GIRL MUSIC 1: Dynamic structure

H1-key’s “To. My First Love” qualifies as Christian horse girl music despite the lack of strings orchestration, because we have a very strict dynamic structure of a chorus that is either higher in pitch or more densely vocally layered (the big theme) and more subdued lower-pitched/sparser verses, which is the part where the narrative of the song is told. (Plus all the other boxes below are ticked as well.) A specific “high note” is not required, but a general commitment to “going harder” vocally in the chorus is.

Loona’s “Flip That” meets a lot of Christian horse girl music criteria in other areas, but as the chorus is relatively melodically static and repeats just one motif, it doesn’t give enough of the same type of vibes to get over the line. Although the video looks like it could be for a Christian horse girl song, the music does not match.

A lot of k-pop from the early 2020s uses the opposite structure, pulling all the layers out in the chorus to leave something more bare bones. Babymonster here is doing the opposite of a Christian horse girl song. (Satanic donkey boy?)

THINGS THAT ACTUALLY DEFINE CHRISTIAN HORSE GIRL MUSIC 2: “Organic” vocals

“Organic” in quotes here because we all know that all k-pop vocals everywhere are machine-altered to fuck. The determining factor is how much does it sound machine-altered to fuck to the untrained ear… or even the trained ear, as plenty of trained singers and singing teachers get fooled by machine-altered performances. We’re talking about audible artifacts that are obvious to absolutely anyone, even some moronic “YouTube voice coach” who probably knows even less about vocals than a casual listener does.

Do you think Berry Good didn’t use Autotune on “Angel”? Oh, please – of course they fucking used it, this was recorded in the 21st century. However the song does give the audible impression of being actually sung without pitch correction, you could certainly fool somebody ignorant enough. And the impression of natural vocals is all that is required for this style.

However nobody is fooled by Dara. You can have the most melodic song in the world, as soon as that robot voice comes cruising in, we’re no longer in Christian horse girl territory. Christian girls don’t use hard Autotune, they trust god to apply a more subtle pitch-correction setting to fix their lousy voices in post-record.

THINGS THAT ACTUALLY DEFINE CHRISTIAN HORSE GIRL MUSIC 3: Traditional melody and harmony is doing the heavy lifting, not rhythm or texture

While Girls’ Generation’s “Into The New World” gets over the line as Christian horse girl music, “Gee” does not. That’s because the main vocal and instrumental hooks in “Gee” are more rhythm-focused and there’s less work for the melodic and harmonic aspects of the song to do. “Into The New World” has much busier (more varied) melody and harmony and that’s a hallmark of Christian horse girl music.

“Rum Pum Pum Pum” by f(x) also doesn’t get over the line for a multitude of reasons but the main one is that the harmony is completely static and the melody is modal, not major/minor. It’s simply not conventional enough. “Christian horse girl” may not be literally by conservatives, but it’s a conservative style that doesn’t take chances like this.

Blackpink’s most successful songs are riff-based, not melody/harmony-based. Hooks are simple, catchy repeating phrases and lines, rhythm is at the forefront, harmony on the other hand is very simplistic and takes a firm back seat. This is especially noticeable in “Pretty Savage” which is a heavy metal song in all aspects except guitar and drum usage. The Christians have left the building.

THINGS THAT ACTUALLY DEFINE CHRISTIAN HORSE GIRL MUSIC 4: Traditional pop/rock textures

While strings orchestration in Christian horse girl music is common, it’s not a requirement. However the building blocks of traditional pop/rock – drums that hit the snare on beats 2 and 4, bass, guitars and/or keyboards – do need to be present.

Seo Eve’s “Talk Talk” has all the musical elements of a traditional pop or rock band in the backing track. It also ticks other boxes for the style. This is Christian horse girl music 100%, so much for it being dead, why aren’t you stanning Seo Eve yet?

Disco works too, if the melody and harmony has enough breathing room. After School Blue’s “Wonder Boy” has all the hallmarks of the style, and while it’s a disco song, the beat stays simple and is there to support the melodic and harmony choices, not the other way around.

NewJeans’ “Ditto” fits into the idea of Christian horse girl music in some ways, but it does not use traditional pop/rock style drums. The off-beat loops and syncopated bass drum give the song a flavour which does not match the Christian horse girl aesthetic.

Red Velvet’s “Ice Cream Cake” has the appropriately bright mood but static harmony for long sections, plus far too much general weirdness. The strange segues and textures give the song some extra interest but also push it far, far away from Christian horse girl territory.

CSR’s “Pop Pop” also has strange segues and general weirdness, but they’re more in the background. Sound effects aren’t included to the point where it completely derails the melody or harmony. The Christian horse girl vibes are stronger here as a result.

Dreamcatcher, at their best, straddled a line between Christian horse girl music and heavy metal. “Fly High” is definitely on the Christian horse girl side of that line thanks to favouring predominantly straightforward rhythm, whereas “Good Night” has a more syncopated rhythmic focus in larger sections of the song, making it edge closer to heavy metal.

THINGS THAT ACTUALLY DEFINE CHRISTIAN HORSE GIRL MUSIC 5: Harmony is complex

Lovelyz’ “Ah-Choo” is extremely harmonically complex, it would be considered complex by jazz standards, let alone pop standards. This is a song where the instrumental harmony is doing most of the work. Not all Christian horse girl music has to be quite this involved, but there needs to, at minimum, be some sort of harmonic complexity added to the traditional “four chords” melodic pop structure.

Itzy’s “Motto” doesn’t quite make the grade for Christian horse girl music due to the fairly bare-bones harmony. It’s quite a good song though and I’m warming up to it a lot more now I have been watching this and not their AI-puke-infused official video. But Christian horse girl dress up doesn’t hide the fact that this song doesn’t have the right vibes.

Oh My Girl’s “Closer” is about as harmonically simple as Christian horse girl music is allowed to get, with a four-chord structure and even a rap section. It was written by a songwriter from outside Asia and it shows, the song definitely sounds like a westerner’s take on Christian horse girl style. However despite not quite being “the real deal” harmonically, the descending vocal harmony breakdown, bass register passing notes, and a big investment in heavy orchestration help cover for the harmonic simplicity and get it across the line… but only just. It’s definitely an edge case, but the lesson here is that the simpler the basic harmony would be on a lead sheet, the more you have to orchestrate it to squeeze out the Christian horse girl vibes.

Year 7 Class 1’s “Oppa Virus” on the other hand has harmony that is complex enough, and as a result it would still sound like a Christian horse girl song even if the orchestral parts were completely absent. You could play and sing this solo with an acoustic guitar and also be a boy and it would still sound like Christian horse girl music.

THINGS THAT ACTUALLY DEFINE CHRISTIAN HORSE GIRL MUSIC 6: fuck it who cares srsly

You don’t need to worry about any of this stuff, you know. Caring about whether your favourite song fits into some dumb category is really not necessary, just listen to the music you like and enjoy it and try not to worry about what some cunt who makes a list thinks. That includes this cunt right here. But it is sometimes useful to be able to identify a sound that you like, so the labels can still be handy for that reason, just don’t let them close you off to cool stuff you might like.

Oh, and did you know that BonusBaby’s agency (among other crimes ahem) wanted “Christian horse girl” concepts so badly they’d make the girls sing right at the top of their ranges, which fucked their voices? It’s quite difficult for girls with lower voices to do the styles they want, or even to get in the music business at all sometimes, because “high voice = more feminine = more marketable to boys”, or something. All Yoojin of BonusBaby wanted was to be a hip-hop. So remember all you weirdos creepily obsessed with high notes – your bullshit comes at a human cost. Just putting that out there.

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Hopefully this post has been helpful for all the caonimas out there struggling to interpret the world of the k-pops! Kpopalypse will return!

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

Latency probably aren’t at the level where they can afford roadies yet, so Hyunjin probably checked out of the group as soon as she realised she’d have to lug her drumkit everywhere.

LE SSERAFIM – Boompala

It’s not bad until it hits that horrible Redvelvetised chant chorus. I guess at least it’s a good demonstration of why you shouldn’t trust AI.

Lisa, Anitta, Rema – Goals

Sports songs are not eligible for roundup consideration really and this song won’t be considered for end of year lists either. This entry is just here so you know that I ignored it on purpose. Sport: not even once. Sport is no fun. Sport endangers the lives and happiness of millions. It must stop. We appeal in particular to the youth of today. Stop the madness! There are better things in life

I.O.I – Suddenly

I.O.I finally have a really good song. It only took them a decade of hiatus while their agencies fucked around and tried to milk the fame every other which way.

BIBI – Bumpa

Some almost-bossanova thing which is very boring but Bibi’s waterbomb credentials definitely shine through here. “It’s not sexual, it’s about having a big water party” – that’s what TikTok says so it must be true.

QWER – Bad Habit

QWER go for a 2000s rock revival type sound and I’m not really sure if it plays to their strengths but the chorus is pretty good so I’ll take it.

TWS – All the Possibilities

There are several possibilities in life, but the one that I like the best is the one where I don’t listen to this song again.

xikers – Okay

A lot of k-pop songs get “metal versions” from fans and those versions are mostly a downgrade because it’s just the usual chug-chug generic Johnny one-note riffs that are trendy in modern metal, but I think it would actually do some good here.

Unchild – Energy

Pretty cool actually – simple, punchy, fun, stays in the same mood and doesn’t do anything stupid. That’s all we want really.

Shownu & Hyungwon – Do You Love Me

Well you’re not Wonho, let’s put it that way.

NAZE – Pretty Pink Socks

Look at 1:36. These agencies are acutely aware of how stupid fans are. That’s why they don’t ever listen to anything you say.

DXMON – DXMON

One of those songs that there’s isn’t anything all that wrong with, it just really needed to be faster. Play this at 1.25x speed and it’s actually decent.

DXMON – Make It Rain

There’s no saving this one though, it sucks at any speed other than “off”.

Billlie – Soupasta

I like the part where it sounds like the Goat Simulator theme song with that stupid whistle noise. The rest of it’s relatively ordinary.

Big Ocean – Make It Up To You

More proof that even if you’re deaf you can probably still make a song better than 90% of the k-pop that comes out each week.

THE SSYNDROME – My First Love

That boring soft rock shit that Koreans are addicted to but that the rest of the world puts on only when the insomnia is kicking in.

GPP – Ate!

Take away the shitty slow section where they repeat “ate” mindlessly like they’re playing The Stanley Parable, and it’s like a latter-day Japanese Girls’ Generation song (a good thing).

Jay Park & LNGSHOT – Moya

Nobody cares about your new shit boy group, Jay. What we care about is your soju. Hurry up and send some to my post office box somy girlfriend can drink it and I can review it.

82MAJOR – W.T.F

So short and unspectacular that it barely even exists. Just like this review.

ONE PACT – Pull Up

That Autotuned R&B poop that we all hate.

TNX – Love Letter

Their fourth anniversary song, apparently. Who even knew this group’s boring-ass songs existed, let alone for four years?

Hyojung – Purple Note

A nice try but the songwriting just isn’t quite there for something like this.

Yoon Sanha – IDK ME

Just in case you were wondering, the reason why there’s no other posts besides roundup this week is that for some reason my website admin page wasn’t loading. After a few days of being flummoxed I managed to get around it by pointing my VPN to the Philippines and I don’t know why that fixes it but it does so there you go. I realise that’s probably not very interesting information for many of you, but I promise that if I wrote anything about this song it would be even less interesting.

Yaochen – Hold On

We even gotta use AI-assisted image generation for eating chips now. Can’t we just eat a chip normally, JYP? LISTEN TO LILY WHEN SHE IS SPEAKING TO YOU.

Gabee – Bromm, Taki

Disco bollocks, as generic as it gets.

Yeeun – Elevator

Yeeun’s version of disco bollocks is slightly better but it’s still nothing all that much.

Balming Tiger – Keep On

It’s a nice touch how the video features a guy at the end listening to the song on headphones and gradually descending into mental illness, very relatable.

Jiselle, SUMMERCAKE – Circle in Me

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This is boring too and it’s actually so boring that I forgot what I was going to put in this place instead of a song review so I guess nothing goes here.

Mio – BWB

And this literally sounds like a continuation of the previous boring song. How much generic soft shit can you take? Nobody became a k-pop fan to listen to music like this.

YORCH feat. Sik-k, Bryan Chase – Blow Your Mind

Well it certainly blows something.

Baek Eun Byeol – My Satan

A lot of boring stuff this week that I just skipped and this is boring too but at least it has BADING vibes to rival a Kpopalypse “fiction” novel. Although it’s amusing that the difference between a normal person and a satanic love interest is apparently a few piercings.

Reble ft. Parimal Shais – New Riot

This week’s non-Korean random music pick is this girl from India who raps better than your bias and then some. Enjoy.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

HallyU – English Pop Songs Turned Into K-Pop (ft. WAY Too Many SM Songs)

A combination of literal covers, pretty close soundalikes, songs that are only similar for about two seconds, and massive reaches that have nothing in common with each other at all apart from maybe one solitary keyboard patch and a small section of similar vocal meter. Still an interesting video, I’d like to see a more modern version tackling the 2020s.

NewJeans – Super Shy (water cover)

Look, someone got all the tears that everyone cried about NewJeans and made a NewJeans song with them!

Outsider – Loner

Before Gwangil Jo there was Outsider, although honestly I prefer Gwangil Jo because his beat selection is generally better. This romantic strings track is pretty bland honestly. If you rap real fast it’s not going to make her come back to you, you know. I’ve never met a woman who looked at “fast rappers” with anything other than disdain. Maybe it’s different overseas, but saying that you rap in Australia is like saying you’re into NFTs or Andrew Tate, it’s a real swipe-left situation.

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