Kpopalypse roundup new k-pop releases 3/7/2023
It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s check out some new releases!
This guy and this girl are dating (supposedly, or maybe not idk) and apparently people care. They’re adults, they can fuck, can’t they? I don’t see the big deal in these things but I guess if your balls only just dropped last week you might be inclined to give a fuck, but then if your balls only just dropped last week you probably don’t even know who these people are.
EXO – Hear Me Out
Look, hear us out! We all love each other and the company so much, see us all in the same confined space at the same time? Look at us being all together in our togetherness! Yeah, we’re best friends! We’re one big happy family! You believe us, right? You wouldn’t break up our true soul love by supporting any boycotts, industrial action or lawsuits from individual members now, would you? There there, that’s a good fandom… now suck that corporate cock, all the way down…
SHINee – Juice
While the few remaining EXO members are phoning it in for the fangirl bucks these days, SHINee are doing their best to pull out their “we’re still relevant, move aside NCT kids here come the veterans” swag. Both the song and dance here have more energy than anything EXO have done in the last decade, and they even called it “Juice” just to rub it in. I bet there’s some crazy fistfights going on in the SM dorms these days.
ITZY – Bet On Me
Now that NMIXX exist are are here to take all JYP’s female noise experiments off his hands, we can look forward to the era of ITZY getting actual songs. Finally they have a song that’s just good, instead of good in spite of itself.
NMIXX – Roller Coaster
Meanwhile at camp Mix-a-lot, NMIXX impressively stick to one thing for an entire three minutes, and it’s not exactly mindblowing but it does have a pretty wacky fun electronic bassline and proves that they could potentially have a song in the future that is actually a song. Mind you this isn’t their ‘main’ release this time around (whatever the fuck that means) but some sort of B-track so let’s all cross our fingers and hope for a feature-feature-for-realsies that isn’t a car crash.
NMIXX – My Gosh
The B-B-track doesn’t have any change-ups either but it’s just the usual weird creepy nostalgia thing targeted at all the psycho fans so nobody sensible is really listening anyway.
YENA feat. Yuqi – Hate Rodrigo
Well it does kind of sound like Olivia Rodrigo, or at least the results of a “write something like Olivia Rodrigo” exercise for someone’s audio production class. All the stylistic conventions but none of what makes you give a fuck.
Swan – Twenty
Knocking it out of the park visually and the music’s not terrible either but there’s something about this that just makes me lose interest. It just needs something to get it to that next level musically, like a random zydeco section, or that guy from Hirax screaming, I don’t know. Just something to help it climb over the wall of “indie-voice” niceness.
KISS OF LIFE – Bye My Neverland
I was so bored by this that I thought to myself “this really needs one of them getting hit by a car to liven it up” and then it actually happened, no shit. Still didn’t help me like the song any, but at least I made it to the end of the video without falling asleep.
TREASURE (T5) – Move
It really is the week of the mid-tempo what-the-fuck-do-I-even-write-about-this-dull-crap songs. “Kpopalypse talk about the music challenge?” What about “k-pop agencies put out some music worth talking about challenge?” If they step it up, I might… but I probably won’t, because annoying you is still usually more fun than writing “well in the second chorus they introduce instrument x” like a boring cunt.
UKISS – The Wonderful Escape
This is more like it. This is what we want from veteran group comebacks, something that recaptures what was good about the group originally instead of trend-riding like a stupid bitch. U-KISS had some decent songs back in the day and if you told me this was an unreleased track from their debut days I’d believe it.
XG – GRL GVNG
Ths gvng vre defntely pullng ther weght vsuvlly wth cool effects vnd setpeces gvlore, f only they brought the svme effort to the trvck. Strp vwvy the sc-f fun vnd t’s just “gosh thvt Blvckpnk group were v bt successful, f we do somethng slow knd of lke thvt mvybe we cvn get out of debt too”.
NiziU – Coconut
Something that’s kind of Jackson Five-ish, kind of samba-ish, but ultimately completely forgettable because typical k-pop high-sheen production just doesn’t suit this kind of music. It’s worthless for exactly the same reason that Twice will never be remembered for their cover of “I Want You Back” (admit it, you forgot that they even did that).
Hwang Minwoo (Little PSY) – Oppa
Believe it or not… it’s actually alright. My prediction that he might get on the best-list one day in the future may not be incorrect (although he won’t this time around). This kind of sugary trot tomfoolery feels like Hwang Minwoo’s natural home. Just spare us the debut of “Little Little PSY” because nobody is asking for that.
WEi – Overdrive
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident[1][2][a] were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, during 1989. The protests started on 15 April and were forcibly suppressed on 4 June in what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth Clearing[b] or June Fourth Massacre[c], in which Chinese government troops violently suppressed the demonstrators and those trying to block the military’s advance into Tiananmen Square. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.[3][4][5][6][7][8] The popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests is sometimes called the ’89 Democracy Movement[d] or the Tiananmen Square Incident[e].
The protests were precipitated by the death of pro-reform Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989 amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social change in post-Mao China, reflecting anxieties among the people and political elite about the country’s future. The reforms of the 1980s had led to a nascent market economy that benefited some people but seriously disadvantaged others, and the one-party political system also faced a challenge to its legitimacy. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy,[9] and restrictions on political participation. Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech.[10][11] Workers’ protests were generally focused on inflation and the erosion of welfare.[12] These groups united around anti-corruption demands, adjusting economic policies, and protecting social security.[12] At the height of the protests, about one million people assembled in the square.[13]
As the protests developed, the authorities responded with both conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership.[14] By May, a student-led hunger strike galvanized support around the country for the demonstrators, and the protests spread to some 400 cities.[15] Among the CCP’s top leadership, a meeting was held between the Party Elders, led by Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping and President Yang Shangkun, and members of the Chinese Politiburo led by Premier Li Peng. Following a report by Li on the development of the situation, it was decided that the Square would be cleared by force. [16]
[17][18] On 20 May, the State Council declared martial law. It mobilized as many as 300,000 troops to Beijing.[15] The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city’s major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of 4 June, killing both demonstrators and bystanders in the process. The military operations were under the overall command of General Yang Baibing, half-brother of President Yang Shangkun.[19]
The international community, human rights organizations, and political analysts condemned the Chinese government for the massacre. Western countries imposed arms embargoes on China in response to the crackdown.[20] In the aftermath of the protests, the Chinese government made widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, suppressed other protests around China, expelled foreign journalists, strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press, strengthened the police and internal security forces, and demoted or purged officials it deemed sympathetic to the protests.[21] More broadly, the suppression ended the political reforms began in 1986 and halted the policies of liberalization of the 1980s, which were only partly resumed after Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour in 1992.[22][23][24] Considered a watershed event, reaction to the protests set limits on political expression in China that have lasted up to the present day.[25] The protests and their subsequent suppression remain one of the most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China.[26][27]
Kim Sungkyu – Small Talk
Freeze it at 2:20 – that’s what I did, too.
Han Seungwoo – Dive Into
Boring. I’d rather read informative Wikipedia articles on Asian political history.
I.M – Habit
He looks like he’s in the trash compactor in Star Wars. Someone start it up quickly before he finds a way out. The problem with rooms like that is the walls always move too slow, in my future dystopia where I rule over all mankind I’ll make sure that my trash compactor rooms have walls that collapse on any would-be world-saving heroes much quicker than they can plan a way out. Destroy an entire planet with a laser but can’t make a wall move faster than one foot per second, Darth Vader your second-generation comeback energy is slipping.
DKB – 1 on 1
I just love the random jumping at 2:16. That’s a skill that will get you far in life, especially in my country when you randomly step on a snake or something.
Team 24 o’clock – 4:ever
Who the fuck are these people? Looks like they’ll let anyone into the k-pop stadium these days. I didn’t mind the song though, especially the very bold harmony breakdown, let’s see them do that live without a backing track.
Burvey – Don’t Look Away
We can’t look away, but only because we’re terrified. Gosh I hope these girls are okay.
Leejean – Told You So
Leejean pumping out the videos again, holy shit. How much money have you got, girl? Can you give me some, could really use it tbh, like, srs, cheers.
Leejan – She Moves
At 0:31 the reason why the boy is smiling is because he realises “that Leejean girl has a crush on me, damn I’ve heard she’s loaded and just churns out high budget music videos like it’s nothing, if we end up marrying I’m set for life”.
Seoi & Yel – It’s Raining
H1-key’s version of the usual “sitting on chairs” disaster is actually much better than these sort of things usually are. The only thing I can really criticise is that weirdly sloppy doubled-up snare drum. I’m not sure if it’s a really close echo effect, or if the guy playing the drums was suffering from narcolepsy, but I can’t unhear it and now neither can you, you’re welcome.
Roa – Signal
Another one of those mid-paced songs where the bass player is trying really hard to make something of it. One day there’d be a “Cutting Crew” type expose of k-pop and we’ll find out it’s the same bass player on each and every one of those boring tracks.
Minimani – Stop (Remix)
As I mentioned last week, remixes are for pedophiles only, and this is no exception. Whatever gains they made by speeding the track up a bit are lost by simultaneously ripping all the bass our of the mix, the result is still so similar to the original that they may as well have not bothered.
Dynamic Duo – All Day
How deluded must Dynamic Duo be to think that what we want from them is endless “nice rap music for nice people” and not something more like THIS? Choiza needs to find a Sulli 2.0 to go out with, seems like that was the only thing fuelling his creative energy. May I recommend Han Seo Hee, she gets out of prison soon and could be looking for love, she’s lovely once you get to know her well I promise…
Raon & DAZBEE – Eclipse
Everybody knows anime is basically a disease so instead here’s your weekly lesson in black music, pay attention class. Did you know that one of the first groups that introduced boring acne-scarred metalheads to the joys of sampling and turntabling was 1980s thrash group Mordred who unapologetically debuted a keyboard-playing, sample-triggering, vinyl-scratching member when it was deeply untrendy among metalheads and thought of as a mere gimmick and not the artform that it is today? Mordred came on the scene right at the height of hair-metal’s aqua-net phase and were kind of a heavier Faith No More but far less successful and you probably won’t like the 51 minute long live concert I’ve linked above but that’s probably because you’re racist. They’re also still around so if you want to repent and be more inclusive you could, but you probably won’t do that either because you’re too busy staring at whitewashed pictures of your Korean faves while they pose at the Holocaust memorial for the “vibes“, tsk tsk.
Saera x SER!N – Why avoid me!
Actually this goes almost as hard, with its constant snare-on-the-one, delayed crash cymbals in the best Lars tradition and guitar solos everywhere. It’s just begging for a metal cover.
Minsung – See That!
First it’s Viviz and now this guy wants to be all “Another One Bites The Dust” on us, but Viviz is more of a sub-heavy reimagining whereas this is a straight meter-strict rip-off. Oh well, why not I guess.
Huhgak – I’ll Just Do It
In the infamous Judas Priest trials, it was alleged by the prosecution that the band drove someone to suicide because one of their songs, when played backwards, said the words “do it” and this apparently was the trigger. So imagine how many people are dead because of this song right here where he’s encouraging people to “do it” and he’s singing it forwards so you can actually understand it. The only reason why not many people know about this guy is that most of his fans don’t live long enough to tell another person about the great new artist that they’ve found.
Synsnake x NCSOUND – Instinct Of The Blue Wings
Not my favourite thing Synsnake have ever done, but it’s still pretty alright even though I have no idea what’s going on here, what computer game it’s for, or why she’s smiling so much. Maybe she just beat Johnny Noh at Asteroids (no I will not let Aileegate go, maybe you think it’s okay to visit a site run by a revenge porn spreading misogynist but I don’t).
Plave – Wait For You
If you think I was harsh before about anime being a disease, you won’t think so after watching this. Let’s just end roundup here for the good of humanity.
BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Stray Kids – S-Class (SKZOO ver.)
K-pop fans often wonder why the style attracts haters. Anyone in that particular boat, perhaps watch this video for a while, and I don’t know, just think about how it might look to an outsider. “But I don’t care…” OF COURSE you don’t care, we already know that, and that’s actually the right attitude, but it’s also not the point. Just trying to get you to see the world from a different perspective, as part of your general cultural enrichment, that is all.
ONEWE – Unforgiven (cover)
A pretty interesting version of the original song that changes quite a few things up. Most notably, the removal of Nile Rodgers. (who?)
T-ara & Supernova – Time To Love
I just hope everyone had a happy Global Netizen Stupidity Day and Sexy Love Backing Track Day Of Mourning. Also this song is good because it’s T-ara and pretty much everything they did was good except for the stuff which wasn’t, but most of that stuff which wasn’t, also wasn’t on their Absolute First Album which this is from, the absolute teaseringest album of k-pop (because calling something “first album” implies a “second album” which still hasn’t materialised two decades later). Thanks, caonimas.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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