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

Heesung left Enhypen, which I’m sure isn’t a distraction from anything in particular, like a big k-pop CEO potentially facing life imprisonment for fraudulent activity, no, that couldn’t be possible…

ALLDAY PROJECT – I Don’t Bargain

Allday Project don’t bargain. They don’t do a lot of other things too, it seems. But what they should be doing is the latest Kpopalypse survey which is out now, CLICK HERE to participate and have your say in important matters concerning k-pop today!

YENA – Catch Catch

Yena goes for the old-school T-ara “Bo Peep” electro-banger vibes and certainly gets the sounds right, but the songwriting is lagging behind. Shinsadong Tiger is sorely missed and not just by bus enthusiasts.

BABY DONT CRY – Shapeshifter

A smoother sound than they’re known for so far (and lots of unfortunate AI slop) takes the edge off, but it’s still a pretty decent song regardless.

AtHeart – Butterfly Doors

A reasonably good song almost completely ruined by the wrong choice of rhythm for most of its running length. Why half of it is at funeral tempo in this age where we’ve well and truly established that Blackpinkian tempos just don’t cut it in k-pop anymore is anyone’s guess.

ODD YOUTH – Babyface

Definitely a redemption for Odd Youth after a horrible start to their careers, their new song comes off like a budget version of Twice’s “The Feels“.

NiziU – Dear

Dear Niziu,

This song is fucking boring.

Love, Kpopalypse.

Odetari feat. Soyeon of i-dle – Don’t Die

A song with a fast beat and literally nothing else going for it.

Yeojin – Sugar Talk

I don’t think there’s any “sugar talk” that can sweeten the fact that Loossemble is mentioned in the video title even though they don’t exist.

P1Harmony – Unique

Significantly less unique than hyped. Of course the main problem is the music but the AI slop sure doesn’t help. Did you know that it’s a common belief that my book covers are made by AI but this is in fact incorrect? The artist is the amazing Brazilian artist Caius Augustus and you should check his work out, it’s great, you can do so by clicking the Girls909 book pre-order page here and scrolling to where his social links are. He does commissions, if you hire him tell him I sent you!

ALL(H)OURS – Dead Man Walking

Listen at 1:04, that noise your dad makes after he gargles salt water is actually now a valid k-pop vocal tehcnique.

AB6IX – Bottoms Up

“Screw it, bottoms up” sure is one hell of a chorus, let’s make Korea’s alcoholism problem worse, fuck it. But the biggest mistake here is that they call their own group “A-B-Six” instead of what it really is, which is “A-B-Six-Ix”. Shame.

M.O.N.T – Keep It Slow

The guy at 0:18 is looking out of the window of his dorm at the stars, trying to determine the exact co-ordinates of his particular patch of Korean soil. M.O.N.T random patriotism will rise again!

DAILY:DIRECTION – Self

This group that sounds like a self-help course sure could a bit of help writing songs. They could use some better visual advice too. Check this video at 1:57, what in the random ugly AI crap?

Aoen – Instant Crush

Oh HYBE is launching a Japanese boy group now, gosh I guess crime really does pay for big labels if they’re lucky enough to maneuver themselves into “too big to fail” territory before they get caught that’s nice I hope they do well.

IN A MINUTE – Broken Doll

Well at least they didn’t do a “for the fans” video” although I suppose that’s hardly an option when it’s your second single.

CMDM – Leash

Nothing much going on here of interest but I’ve got to hand it to them for just letting a poorly-lit room be a poorly-lit room and not CGI-ing a bunch of AI slop crashing cars or bits of clocks or something.

V01D – Tug of War

I like it when k-pop boys song on top of rubbish heaps beacuse it reminds me of Einsturzende Neubauten’s “Armenia” which is a banger of a song, and some of these k-pop kids even have the same eyeliner as Blixa.

Dragon Pony – Oh Perfect!

Another bland rock song, another AI slop video. Just skip it, it’s the only way these people will learn.

Hi-Fi Un!corn – Hungry Heart

Hi-Fi Unexclamationmarkcorn’s song is actually pretty good, and the visuals don’t suck either. It is still possible, people.

S2IT – What I Want

Once you get over that the song is 6dB quieter than everything else on YouTube for no clear reason, the song isn’t bad at all.

AFuture – Dream Land

The sort of song that would probably sound okay if a group with a budget did it, but you can’t really get away with this on a shoestring.

SKINZ – Poison Ivy

Where is Asian Junkie? Why isn’t he featuring this? He stanned Plave for about ten seconds but now he’s hung them and all the other avatar groups out to dry.

GIRLZONE – Song of Wave

I guess the budget didn’t extend to grass and foilage. I guess that’s a bit much to code on a tight schedule, but it’s sad when Infinity Nikki makes this look like one of those made-for-Kickstarter asset-flip scams.

Younha – Skybound

I’ve heard that the Younha spam lately is because she’s released a covers album… I didn’t know there were so many mid songs that one could cover in Korea. Oh wait, yes I did. But anyway this is definitely the best one.

Hoshi – Baby, Honey

We don’t want this. Orange Caramel comeback when?

ACE – Bonita

“Bonita” is one of those words where you know instantly if it’s used in a song title A. exactly what that song sounds like without listening to any of it and B. that it sucks. Don’t press play on the video, just try to imagine the song in your head first, then press play and see how close you got. I bet you were at least 85% right.

Rosesia feat. Noducksoon – B.O.M

Just a bunch of nothing at all, really.

M’ewn – Like That

This is a very popular nugu video location that I’ve seen a lot recently from different groups and soloists, all on the Z-tier. Add it to the Korean tourism sightseeing list!

CAMO – Tell Me

That Autotuned poop nobody likes.

Socialclub Hyangwu – Bleeding Cherry

mrcs

A Day In The Life Of An Enshittificator

If you’re wondering why roundup is late it’s because YouTube suddenly decided they won’t let me have a chronological subscription feed anymore, which makes these posts (or indeed any posts) of mine much harder to do. Of course they’ll probably, maybe, give it back to me if I sign up to their Premium tier or something, which is the whole strategy of these companies now – break something, and make people pay for you to fix it. Don’t reward these pricks. If you’re subscribed to YouTube on any sort of paid tier, cancel your subscription, give your money to people who don’t enshittify things. In the meantime this video can go here instead of the random music pick because fuck YouTube. Fucking dickheads.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

HYOKEY – I was a K-pop idol for 8 years, and I ended up with DEBT?

I know you’ve all seen this video (after all about 235 of my readers all recommended it to me) and it’s just all the stuff I’ve been saying and writing about already for over a decade, but just putting it here because it’s important and it never hurts to remind people. You never know, someone might be discovering and learning about this for the first time, it’s a good idea to make that process easier. Let’s not all fall into the Redditor trap: “there’s no point because everyone already knows stuff, man”.

Latency’s band practice is just as chaotic and annoying as the band you’re in

It’s just as shit as your own band practice, right down to the bit where everyone annoyingly swaps instruments to waste time, and they even give up after a while to play computer games instead. This is seriously how it goes. Realistic af.

Girl’s Day – Oh My God

A song in the “Roly Poly” style, and it’s inferior to that classic of course, but it’s still aged pretty well even if it’s a bit overlong. Just a shame about the video. These days we have AI slop ruining k-pop videos, 15 years ago it was random sound effects. How far we’ve come.

---

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

That’s right, the new Kpopalypse survey is here!

Do the survey below, or if no survey appears, click the very unexcited Eunha to open the survey as a separate webpage!

Have fun, caonimas!

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

“Park Bom drugs something Dara something something”. Sorry I don’t care. Click Bommie to find out the bigger news this week that so far most of your favourite k-pop “news” sites aren’t talking about…

H1-KEY – To. My First Love

H1-key are back saving k-pop once again, bringing back the Christian horse girl music that drew so many people to the style over the last decade but which has been largely absent from the 2020s for no good reason. It’s not the best song in this style that I’ve heard ever, but it might be the best one this decade, or at least very close to it. Get rid of the stupid AI floaties in the video and it would also be visually perfect.

Rolling Quartz, Yoon Ilsang – Red Hot

Rolling Quartz take a stab at something grunge-ish (that recalls Nirvana’s “Lithium” in structure) and they actually do a pretty good job of getting the right guitar tone and general instrumental feel. However the melody and harmony is too blues-based to be interesting (they definitely didn’t co-opt any of Kurt Cobain’s Pixies-influenced songwriting smarts, a pity) and the singer’s vocal delivery is all wrong for this style. Nice try.

EVERGLOW – Code

Everglow made it safely back from Russia and they must have had a round table meeting with Putin because they’re now threatening to destabilise western democracies with below-average music which is nothing like the sounds that initially made them popular. It might be time to enact sanctions.

MADEIN – Pung!

Nice enough but just kind of nothingish and insignificant, like those AI-generated colour-splotches, or their CEO’s press statements.

GIRLSET – Tweak

It’s pretty easy to see why Katseye have had some success while VCHA/Girlset have always struggled. One group is taking risks, one is playing it super safe. I think JYP needs to dump the bible sermons and get a bit unholy on our asses if Girlset are going to actually get anywhere.

X:IN – Who Dat

At first I thought that this song was a tribute to Julie’s birthday party, and after hearing all of it, I’m still thinking that maybe it might be. It’s definitely not as awful as it could have been but why would anyone even listen to this when actual hip-hop exists.

WJSN – Mirror

The usual “for the fans” poop, which is obvious from the thumbnail. You can always tell it’s some crap when they try to make recording studio sessions look actually interesting like a place where performers want to be.

Kickflip – Twenty

I actually caught the YouTube premiere of this one. They’re always worth attending if possible just so you can say your piece in the live chat where the One True Fans will see it.

Of course a lot of people just go and type stuff like “flop” to troll but I think it’s just better to be honest.

Someone has to set an example that it’s okay to just have a basic opinion.

NCT JNJM – Wind Up

K-pop groups still talking about “east side” and “west side” in 2026. It’s never going to get any better, folks. In 2088 Julie’s granddaughter is going to have a birthday party and she will be wearing ten baseball caps at once and bugging her eyes out like Flavor Flav while eating watermelon. You might as well learn to love it because it’s not going anywhere.

Big Ocean – One Man Army

As usual the group full of deaf people have a song which is not significantly worse than that of any of the non-deaf people in k-pop. You can make up your own mind what that says about k-pop in 2026.

TUNEXX – I’m Alive

The best thing about this song is that after the very first note plays, theres’a a reasonable gap before the second notes plays, giving you the listener ample time to reconsider your life choices and stop watching.

NoeurA – Pop It Like

Nothing much here of interest except the usual slow boy-pop nonsense and the usual AI-slop video that the fans will scream “it’s not AI” about as if any k-pop company has the CGI budget to create all those assets within a typical boy-pop release schedule. Come on kids, you’re supposed to be smarter than this.

V01D – Rockrock

They had to call the song “Rock Rock” because Korean idol rock is so pussified and weak that they have to double up on the amount of rock just to make it sound like a normal rock song.

Younha – Sub Character

Younha in rock mode is decent, but don’t die of shock, I actually think her ballad with RM is better than this.

Younha – Seasonal Crime

This other song is boring. At 1:00 Younha does an interesting thing where she plays about nine notes but we only hear five, that’s a pretty good trick she must be very talented.

Younha – Karma

Wow Younha is busy this week. I guess this is meant to be the big feature and it’s appropriately upbeat but again it’s just not a great song.

n.SSign – Feelin’ Good

Big, brassy and boring. People want me to write longer reviews but how about your favourite groups give me something to write about?

NOWZ feat. YRD Leo – Ammo

“Now Z” seems like a great idea, zzzzzz….

SUCTION – Still Hurt

There are still groups out there doing Orange Caramel style fun visuals, they just don’t have good songs, that’s all.

SIKKOO – Kinda Guilty

What is this poop. The YouTube comments are interesting, I’m getting the feeling this guy isn’t liked very much? You always know when Koreans don’t like someone because they laugh a lot in comments sections ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ hate seems to bring them joy, bless their cotton socks. I’m pretty certain that this is Busker Busker’s fault somehow.

Solar x Accusefive – There’s Always a Planet That Belongs to You (Your Own Star)

If I were some kid and some singer abducted me to go and see them rehearse in a tent with signs saying “free hugs” I think I’d run and try to find a responsible adult to take me away from there.

Eric Nam – How The Fire Started

Actually… quite good? A good song really can come from anywhere. Also, I’m pretty sure this video will match the interests of quite a few of my readers.

Onew – Tough Love

This song must be about the “tough love” he administers in clubs in Seoul. Anyway, song is poop, next.

Omega Sapien – Hands Up in the Club

I’m not sure what’s going on but that thumbnail was a choice.

WOODZ – Human Extinction

Wow, Woodz has a good song this week too. We really are living in opposite land, I think H1-Key doing Christian horse girl music this week has upset the entire balance of our universe. Go Woodz, Kpopalypse is cheering for you. Release some more songs and make the most of this rift in the space-time continuum quickly before things return to normal.

Kim Sungkyu – When I think about you

When you think about Infinite members, you think about better songs than this.

B.I. feat. Coogie, Gray – Buzzin

Oh my god attack of the Autotunes. Also this just in: Gray hasn’t quit music yet. I wonder if he’ll turn in a banger one day. Probably not… but then if this week teaches me anything, it’s that you never know.

Shin Wonho – Warzone

No not that Wonho, this guy was from Cross Gene apparently, and the song isn’t bad but I don’t know, something’s missing here. Maybe it’s the lack of pecs. Maybe I really am that superficial. Oh well – so are you, probably.

Jay Chang – Feel

I feel like not talking about this song. Let’s move on.

Lim Sejun – Pray For God

Okay so at 0:16, because you folks still can’t tell apparently, the microphone is pointed straight up at the ceiling. He has his fingers over the part that he should be actually singing into. You’re welcome.

Minseo – Deep Dawn

Hey here’s another good song. I like it for much the same reasons that I like Eyedi’s “&New“. Minseo’s song doesn’t feature the same deliberately lo-fi production dicking-around, but they’re both good songs at their core.

Dbo – Real Purpose

His real purpose is to ride a HORSE.

Loopy feat. Foggyatthebottom – Still Lov3

Imagine posing out with sports cars and thinking that makes you look like anything other than a fuckhead. People like this actually exist. Society is in trouble.

Xooos – Pop Pop

Who does she have to shoot her own video in a big ass house on her own? Doesn’t she have any friends to hold the camera? She should reach out to Kpopalypse and I’ll introduce her to all my readers. We can be friends, then for the next video we can all go over to her house and have a party and make her videos look less empty.

DeVita – Tricycle

I guess it’s different but I’m not exactly into this. Anyway that’s enough songs for roundup I’ve punished you all enough.

Milli – One Punch

For this week’s non-Korean music feature I just thought I’d check in on how Thai rapper Milli is going lately. Better than your bias, as it happens.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Winter got scammed by ChatGPT

Since Korea love aespa and they love AI slop, perhaps Winter speaking out about how ChatGPT fucked her up when trying to purchase a phone case will be the kick in the pants that Korea needs as a culture to realise that not a single person alive wants AI slop in their lives in any sort of creative realm.

Wonyoung Wonyoungs for 4 minutes straight

How many products can IVE’s endorsement queen Wonyoung advertise in four minutes? The answer is, all of them. I bet she could afford the Elon Musk tier on my ko-fi with all that sponsorship money coming in. Mind you watching this is a bit of an endurance test, there’s only so much Wonyounging my brain can receive within a fixed timeframe.

Girls’ Generation – Way To Go

Might as well put the original Christian horse girls here, which just shows how close H1-key got to the mark this week. In fact I’d say that H1-key song is better than this due to far better songwriting and production, Girls’ Generation have super-distant drums and that horrible Rocktek-pedal guitar tone which lets an otherwise reasonably good song down a bit. Speaking of which my new Christian horse girl k-pop book which is really very nice really apart from all the horrible parts is now available for pre-order, you could order it from Amazon or Kobo here if you wanted, but you probably shouldn’t read it because it will likely just upset you and give you trauma and make you question how you even got to this point in your life where you’re reading some extremely messed up book from some random asshole who runs a cunty k-pop website, hey at least I’m honest you’re welcome.

---

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

It’s time for another album review – this time Kpopalypse is taking a look at “Alive” and “Still Alive” by BigBang!

It seems that I’ve been neglecting the male groups in my retro album reviews so far, so let’s redress the balance and take a look at BigBang’s “Alive” and “Still Alive”. Tracks from these album were much-requested in my DJ days and were also some of my favourite male-fronted k-pop tracks at the time. But how do they hold up over a decade later? Do I still want to “Boom-shaka-laka?”

---

BigBang – Alive

Technically not an album but an “extended play”, “Alive” was still more or less of album length so it was considered more or less an album by fans. It also came with an impressively ugly chunky DVD-size silver case a full decade before the Cybertruck’s impractical clunkiness, truly BigBang and their label YG Entertainment paved the way for horrid design choices by narcissistic egomaniacs. This mini-album (or whatever) was hugely popular and formed a large part of a platform that launched BigBang from national Korean stars to international megastars across all of east Asia. All tracks were lyrically completely written by members of the group (mostly G-Dragon and T.O.P) and G-Dragon also had at least some creative input into the music of every track, working with Teddy, Choice37 and other YG producers.

---

1. Alive

A pointless, time-wasting album intro, “Alive” is actually a preview of the title track “Still Alive” from the repackage that was to be released later (covered below). It’s actually a great song in its full form but in this preview format nobody cares, why anyone would do something like this anywhere on any album, let alone right at the start, is beyond me. It’s especially annoying if you like listening to albums on random shuffle. Almost anything else would have functioned better as an album intro than this.

2. Blue

The first proper song of the album is an odd choice given that it doesn’t exactly start with a bang (pun intended) but rather warms you up to the album slowly. The YG semi-ballad songwriting style that was in vogue at the time is fairly evident here, and “Blue” sounds very similar to tracks by YG’s girl group 2NE1 that were released around the same period. It’s not the best or worst example of this type of song, playing all its musical choices fairly safe, but it’s pleasant enough and doesn’t contain anything that sounds embarassing in retrospect, unlike a lot of other songs from the same time period that ruined themselves with endless dubstep drops and hard Autotune. The video might be another matter because nobody wants to see convicted sex criminal Seungri pining for some random music video model in 2026, but you’re going to get that same problem with any of these songs more or less.

3. Love Dust

When I listen to something like Saja Boys’ “Soda Pop” I feel like this is actually what they’re aiming for musically. “Love Dust” feels like a continuation of “Blue” because of the similar rhythms, but the mood here is a lot brighter and we’re definitely aiming for sunnier pop territory. This makes it a worse song however, as the moodiness of “Blue” helped it out, whereas “Love Dust” is just too sunny and bland for me to really give much of a shit. It’s nothing awful but it’s also easily forgettable, don’t be suprised if you have “Soda Pop” playing in your head after listening to “Love Dust” instead of “Love Dust”.

4. Bad Boy

We all love a good k-pop street harassment video, and “Bad Boy” definitely is that, having the guys in BigBang going all-out chasing multiple disinterested women (although it loses points for realism because after the girl he’s pursuing saying no, Seungri actually stops). It’s hard to blame the girls for not being keen on spending time with the BigBang members, as the music these guys are pushing to try and impress them is some mid-paced ballad which just sort of plods along in a dull way, not doing a whole lot of interest. It’s hardly terrible, but this isn’t really a k-pop song you’d listen to yourself, but rather a k-pop song you’d put on while your parents were around so they wouldn’t get mad that you were listening to something that might influence you away from your homework desk to do anything resembling actual excitement.

5. Ain’t No Fun

Accurate song title of the album, “Ain’t No Fun” is dreary and somehow ends up being even more plodding than “Bad Boy” despite having a faster tempo. The entire song sounds like a clearing house for ideas that were supposed to go into other tracks on the album but didn’t fit so they just wind up here in some kind of random jumble. Everything about it is pretty repetitious and dull, although I do like the lyric video here that I’ve chosen for it because the boys all look miserable trapped inside their headwear which is kind of how it feels to listen to. A definite skip.

6. Fantastic Baby

What this great song is doing buried so far back on the album tracklist and behind so many other inferior songs is anybody’s guess. “Fantastic Baby” works where many other tracks on the album fall flat by having a far better command of dynamics in the songwriting. The keyboard riffs are mixed forward and really pop, and the differences between the member’s vocal delivery are used to much greater contrasting effect in this song than elsewhere on the album. This helps the catchier parts of the song really punch through, so the inherent repetitiousness of the song isn’t as irritating. In the last twenty seconds there’s a truly horrid jumping-the-shark moment where the vocal melodies switch to major scale for no reason, but apart from this, we’re all good.

7. Wings

Actually a solo song by Daesung, I’m not sure why it’s here, but I’m glad that it is as it’s definitely one of the better tracks and probably should have either been placed higher on the tracklist, or perhaps even had the entire group involved and made a BigBang song proper. Some pretty nice clean guitar riffs drive the song until the drums kick in, and while the more synthetic sounding chorus guitar is a bit of a weakness it’s overall still a more interesting track than the album’s first few songs.

---

---

REPACKAGE – STILL ALIVE

The designation between what is technically an album vs something else isn’t that important for these album review posts, as long as we have enough songs in total for a decent length post. That’s fine in this case as we’re also looking at the repackage “Still Alive” in this post which has a surpisingly different tracklist, making it somewhat less scammy and money-grubbing than the usual k-pop repackage which only usually has one or two new tracks but expects you to buy the entire thing again at full price. “Still Alive” also has a much more sensible tracklist order in general, which is great to see but it also makes me wonder how they managed to fuck up the track ordering so badly on the original release.

1. Still Alive

The full “Still Alive” track is a crazily good disco banger and a much, much better choice as an album opener than the cut-down version on the original album. Harking back to Bee Gees style disco but with the added punch of modern production and synths, T.O.P’s rapping is actually the highlight here, as his deep delivery gives everything some much-needed grit which BigBang as a whole could have probably leaned into a bit more. It’s so good that I might even listen to it again after I finish publishing this album review, now that’s fucking unprecedented.

 2. Monster

The semi-ballad “Monster” is actually BigBang’s finest hour as a group, and is genuinely emotive in a way that k-pop as a whole usually lacks, with beautiful piano backing and a soaring melody that hits all the right notes. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right to be thinking it, but the song actually hits way harder just as a song in the wake of Burning Sun. “Monster” was supposedly released in response to some nothingburger scandals from back in the day that everyone has since forgotten, but the songs’s plea to forgive the performers of their sins resonates much deeper now that the group members have clocked up a few more of them. Not that we should forgive Seungri of course, but listening to him and his friends beg sure is entertaining.

3. Feeling

Back into the disco and “Feeling” isn’t too bad but after “Still Alive” it certainly comes off as a lazy distant second-best. This song probably sounds pretty good in the club at 3am after you’ve taken some whiskey laced with GHB but as a sober listening experience it’s nothing much all that interesting and hits some fairly generic disco cliches.

4. Fantastic Baby

5. Bad Boy

6. Blue

7. Bingle Bingle

“Bingle Bingle” has a rock sound not found anywhere else on the album which definitely sets it apart and the placing on the album here is sensible, a song to wake you up a little after the main slower and semi-ballad songs from the original “Alive” release. It’s nothing that great as a song though and has some pretty insipid lyrics but at least it’s not one of those horrible songs where they have the acoustic guitar that slaps the strings on beats two and four.

8. Ego

One of those horrible songs where they have the acoustic guitar that slaps the strings on beats two and four… well, at least at first. Fortunately, the song claws its way out of “More Than Words” territory by the time the chorus happens, thank fuck, but then we also have a completely terrible chorus hook that sounds like G-Dragon is taunting the listener, so there’s no escape from the awfulness really. Definitely a skip and by far the worst song on the either version of the album.

9. Love Dust

---

---

FINAL THOUGHTS

“Alive” and “Still Alive” were hugely popular releases back in the day and I don’t regret picking them up at the time. “Still Alive” is especially notable, as it’s a rare case of a repackaged album not only being superior to the original but also fixing a lot of problems with the initial release just by drilling down to the better material, fixing the song order and adding enough extra quality tracks to make it a worthwhile additional purchase even if you already have the original album. BigBang sadly jumped the shark hardcore after this came out, when G-Dragon fell in love with trap music in 2013 and sadly let this influence pollute both his and BigBang’s output way too much, and later music from the group suffers horribly in retrospect. However there’s no denying that in 2012 BigBang were firing on all cylinders and despite a few patchy weak spots, they achieved a hit-rate for quality k-pop songs at that time that very few male idols groups have come anywhere near.

---

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

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

Here’s Yechan from ChoCo 1 x ChoCo 2, giving us a look at his pretty painted nails. I guess he’s showing them off to his neighbours.

BLACKPINK – Go

Some elements here really work, like the semi-dubstepian chorus and that slow strings breakdown tho thirds of the way through, and the rest of it really fucking doesn’t. It’s as messy musically as the AI slop video is visually.

NMIXX feat. Pabllo Vittar – Tic Tic

K-pop has come pretty far in terms of LGBT acceptance over this past year which is great, but there’s not much here musically of interest to talk about in this song except that the “tic tic” chorus is kind of annoying actually so instead I’ll just let you know that in case you missed it, my new book Girls909 is now available for pre-order, click here for more info and there’s no particular reason why I’m using this review to mention it. It’s a lovely book about a nice Christian girl called Eunice who auditions for a Korean elimination variety show group recruitment thing, and the wonderful adventures she goes on. Full of lovely warm heartfelt moments. I’m not fooling any of you, am I. This book is not appropriate for children. It’s not appropriate for most adults either. You probably shouldn’t read it if you’re easily triggered by anything at all. Perhaps forget I even mentioned it. Nice day isn’t it. Hey doesn’t that NMIXX and Pabllo stage look great, yes it does. La de da, nothing to see here.

WJSN – Bloom Hour

After a pathetic start, this song suddenly gets good at the first chorus and then remains good for the rest of the running length. Not sure who thought making the first minute or so of music suck balls was a good marketing strategy, but you can just skip that part I guess.

Gaeul – Odd

It’s not too bad I suppose as a quick distraction before the next IVE song, but I don’t think I’ll be listening to it in a week.

AtHeart – Shut Up

Not amazing but definitely the best song from AtHeart since “Good Girl“, the harmony and melodic choice reminded me of Alizee of all things.

RESCENE – Busy Boy

The problem with this office fashion is that although it does look good, the lanyards don’t have breakpoints in the middle of the strap, which means that if you’re very careless you can get caught by a closing lift door and strangled to death. Let’s keep our k-pop fashion OH&S compliant, folks.

Sysnake – Arena

This sounds pretty much like every other Synsnake song, so pretty good in other words, even if it’s not exactly my favourite genre of metal.

Lee Youngji – Robot

It’s NewJeansification for everyone. And you thought Ailee sounded awkward doing this style. Definitely not playing to Youngji’s strengths here.

ONEPACT – Sane

Ugly AI slop sadly distracts from a song that actually has some cool ideas and change-ups that actually work well in context. It sounds okay, just try not to look.

QQQ – Uncool

OnlyOneOf members still at it with the subtle BGP. It’s good to know that in this crazy ever-changing world we can still rely on some things to always be there for us.

DAILY:DIRECTION – Roombadoomba

Oh my god what is this musical poop and why did they feel the need to cram in a Blackpinkian amount of AI slop. That’s going to sadly be Blackpink’s new legacy in the late 2020s, not music.

ASC2NT – Still Rose

Hey this is great! Just really simple and good. Sure it’s not exactly innovative but I’ll take a solid good song that doesn’t change music as we know it over some weird-ass bullshit that doesn’t work.

CHASER – Invincible

Calling your group “Chaser” is a good way to market yourselves to second-gen boy group k-pop fans I guess, but the song lacks something to really seal the deal on that promise.

BAE173 – Always, Stood Still

Pocketdol’s Temu-NCT group are still at it, and this isn’t going to win them any new fans, or even keep many of the fans they’ve got.

ChoCo 1 x ChoCo 2 – Gimme

All my neighbours want to know what I think of the rapping in this song, but it’s actually that annoying pitch-bendy “gimmegimmegimmegimme” chorus hook that I find to be problematic.

Wendy, Alec Benjamin – Emotions

They used some disastrous looking AI slop video for this instead of Wendy probably because they were worried that she might start doing impressions of her neighbours.

SAVVVY – Skidding

I don’t mind the song because the rhythms are actually good and different for k-pop but I’m not sure what’s going on with the vocals because there’s 67 people in the group but it’s all obviously sung by one or two people.

SIKKOO – Bappy

That trash music nobody likes.

Parc Jae Jung, Sullyoon – Always

A duet ballad song that sounds exactly the same as every other duet ballad song ever created by anyone ever.

Love x Stereo – Bite You

I know Love X Stereo reads this site sometimes so I just want to say in the hope that they’re reading: can you please tell all of your friends in the Korean music scene that AI videos are universally despised with the passion of a thousand suns by pretty much all music fans everywhere outside of Korea of new-music-appreciating age (boomers who listen to classic rock are easily fooled by the tech and don’t care so much, anyone younger than that is not impressed). We need the word to spread within Korea. Nobody wants AI in their music videos. Nobody is looking forward to the new video by their favourite group and thinking “Gosh, I hope they used AI!” Yeah, I absolutely understand why it’s being used by indie bands, it’s because you’re all making fuck-all money from this shit and AI is cheap (so this is more forgivable than say, Blackpink doing it), but three and a half minutes of your dog would have been a much better video choice, would have probably cost even less, and definitely would have saved a few carbons. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Gongwon – All of me

Gongwon in ballad mode isn’t too bad I guess but I don’t think this would be the highlight of the live set, I’d probably take a piss during this song if I saw them live.

Shaun – Diary

Shaun had a reputation for being the chart-fixing king back in the 2010s but he also had pretty consistently okay tunes. This isn’t his best but it’s more tolerable than a lot of this week’s boring crap.

Yunsae – Forevermore

Too unpopular to write about in roundup, too boring to feature in Nugu Alert. Come on nugus, step it up.

MUU – Hello, Wonderland

I’m all for the Browse In & Save version of IU’s “Modern Times”. Definitely a fashion boost.

CAMO – JYP

JYP surely wouldn’t allow such mumbling nonsense on his own label. Even his own boy groups opened thir mouths a bit more than this.

Effie – Red Horse

As usual Effie sounds nuts. Definitely the right attitude, she’s great. I’m getting serious RSI from typing “this song sucks” so I’m going to leave roundup here.

Yuki Chiba & Lil Moshpit – Annyeounghaseyo

This can be the non-Korean music pick of the week even though it’s Korean. Kpopalypse out here doing my bit to end Korean/Japanese tensions you’re welcome. When world peace breaks out, remember I did it first, they’re plagiarising me.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Charlene Kaye – Kpop is crazy for this

It’s good to see stuff like this being acknowledged in the comedy space. I’m glad that she isn’t getting the hate that I got a decade ago for humourously pointing out the same thing. I walked so these comedians could run. Care for some “Love Cherry Motion”? Or would you like a “Cookie”?

Hearts2Hearts – Why Are We So Desperate to Be Funny?! No Mercy Comedy Battle Hearts Sauna✦ʚ Hearts Chase EP.16

You know that friend of yours who has to always be talking and can’t just shut the fuck up and enjoy silence for two seconds, but has to compulsively open their mouth even if they don’t have anything to say? Well SM has a whole new girl group who are just like that.

Dbo – Horse

“Horse” never made it into roundup back in the day because I can’t, and never have, and never will, be able to cover everything that comes out each week, but it deserves a spot somewhere on this site just for existing. And this is definitely a song that exists. There are many songs out there, and this is one of them. It is one of the songs of all time. Enjoy. (Even though it’s about horses, Eunice wouldn’t like this song, she doesn’t like rap music.)

---

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