Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 28/8/2023

It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s check out some new releases!

Would you stalk this man? Some of you probably would, if just to ask him what drugs his songwriters are taking.

BLACKPINK – The Girls

Pretty much Blackpink-by-numbers, which makes sense as it’s only for some shitty mobile game so who could really even be fucked making much of an effort. If you had better songs up your sleeve as a songwriter, it’s logical that you’d save them for a song in the future where the girls could actually be bothered turning up in the video.

NCT 2023 – Golden Age

Yet another song that’s got the change-up disease, there’s some decent fragments of material here but it all falls flat because the switch-ups just don’t work.

NCT U – Baggy Jeans

The other NCT song this week actually isn’t bad – sure it’s cringe as shit lyrically but ignore the fact that you can understand 20% of the words and the musical changes actually work here, it’s not too much because it never completely breaks the flow. Just get one thing happening and do it well, songwriters. Or even half-well. Fuck, we’re desperate for good songs here, we’ll settle for that.

SEVENTEEN – Ima -Even if the world ends tomorrow

Seventeen fans can rejoice because they finally, after nearly a decade of getting mediocre roundup reviews, have a really fucking good song on their hands. Now if only they were girls and their group name was After School, but I guess you can’t have everything.

HYO – Picture

Who says idols don’t like objectification, the lyrics to this are basically “look at me, take my picture, you have my permission, this is how we make a living, now stop being such an uptight cunt about it, also remember me in ten months when votes open for the next Kpopalypse objectification survey tysm”.

Yerin – Bambambam

Yerin looks great and has a visual concept that suits her really well, the music is also a kind of “Mago“-lite that’s actually better than most of what Viviz have been up to, so big points for that. The only issue is there’s some very strange things happening rhythmically with the vocals, like she couldn’t sing it in time and they had to quantize the words after the fact (aka doing a “Chopper“). Which just means that she’s just as bad a singer as most everyone else in k-pop, which is basically fine for what it is.

Soyeon x Moono – I’m Ok

I guess Moono is that fucking yellow blob. What is that supposed to be, a fucking chicken? Battery cages must be really extreme these days if the poor birds are coming out shaped like that. This video definitely convinced me to always buy free range.

Jihyo feat. 24kGoldn – Talkin’ About It

Another bland Jihyo song and she doesn’t even rip her top off randomly in the video like last week so there’s even less reason to care than usual.

Dreamcatcher – Demian

Not the best Dreamcatcher song, but it does have some very cool bass guitar work, and let’s face it a below-average Dreamcatcher song is still pretty good by the standards of anyone else in k-pop.

H1-KEY – Time to Shine

At first I thought this was the first H1-key song I don’t actually like that much, but then I stuck with it and it became better than I expected. Some actual effort in the harmony writing lifts this one above the pack.

XG – New Dance

More proof that k-pop just wouldn’t be as popular with me if it was all in English because the super-cringe lyrics would just turn me right off. I’m sure that the words to Korean songs are equally as bad as this but because I can’t understand them, I don’t care.

SECRET NUMBER – Starlight

The secret number is still two.

Young K – Let It Be Summer

Hey this is cool, but why the fuck did Day6 as a full group get hardly any songs like this? Did the rest of the group really want to do mostly ballads instead?

Amber Liu feat. Jackson Wang & Yultron – Harder

Do you think Amber and Jackson sit down and have conversations about Asian politics? How do you think those chats go? I wonder if they talk about China taking over Hong Kong and making the subways safe.

iKON – Panorama

Not too bad actually, although they do have to shit the bed with that breakdown for fuck knows what reason.

The Rose – You’re Beautiful

Ewww, male “indie voice”.

OH MY GIRL – Dirty Laundry

Another song with a nice vibe ruined by a disastrous rap breakdown in the middle, it’s probably the best thing they’ve done in a while but it still did not make me feel like a shark chiki chika chu

Laysha – Summer Night

Look at them all running into the water at 3:04 and them immediately running straight back out again a second later. That’s the kind of foresight I bet they wish they all had when reading the contract.

TIOT – Unbeatable

Actually not a bad song, and the video’s entertaining, but that’s definitely a terrible group name. I need five syllables to pronounce that thing? Get outta here.

HORI7ON – Birthday

Sorry but Hori7on’s song sucks this week so it gets the flick and instead it’s time for the weekly black music feature, pay attention class. Zulu are an American group that combine elements of various modern metal styles into… I don’t even fucking know what, but the result is just fucking phenomenal and heavy as shit. Aside from the heaviness, it’s the sheer atmosphere of their music that sets them apart from so many other bands that sounds like this, they just nail a really specific kind of vibe which is frisson central and is relatively free of the usual odious tough-guy posing that hardcore groups especially these days are known for (except when they’re beating up KKK members for lulz, but then that’s just funny). This song here is one of their longer ones with most of their tunes falling well short of two minutes, but sometimes a short statement is all you need and this is one hell of a musical ride packed into a really small space. Oh and they’re great live, too. You could check them out more if you wanted.

JO1 – RadioVision

From Zulu to this, yeah nah.

DXTEEN – Firework

I don’t hate this one, it kinda of works I suppose. It’s not great but it’s harmless enough, it’s not going to give you tooth decay probably.

BDC – Rest

Oh wow I’m falling asleep. Next.

U-KNOW – Spotlight

It’s competent I suppose but I wouldn’t listen to this by choice if there was literally anything else to listen to.

Kim Junsu (XIA) – Red Diamond

At least he’s doing better than his non-contract-resigning ex-buddies. This song is so depressing that even the knitted creatures are falling off tall buildings and killing themselves.

MUSTB – Rush

Gosh there “Mustb” better songs than this to listen to this week! I’m not going to waste my time, I “mustb” moving on. Sorry but a boy group with a name like that deserves no mercy.

YOUNGEST – Bad Girl

No. No more of this type of thing, thank you.

PLAVE – The 6th Summer

I must be watching too many of those hentai links people keep sending me on Retrospring because I kept expecting these guys to suddenly drop their trousers and start sucking each other off mid-chorus. Sadly it was not to be, I guess the ultimate boy-love hentai k-pop group concept will have to wait for another day.

Kim So Yeon – Tok Tok

Your weekly trot entrant is here and it’s… a trot song. Nothing all that good or bad about it. Next.

HYB – Happiness

Look at these boring cunts.

Se So Neon – Kidd

I get the anthemic kind of feel that they’re going for, but this shit just kind of drones on and on for me. The ball-clenching vocals probably don’t help.

Animal Divers – Metamorphosis

I know what you want to ask me, but no, there’s no taboo about people who are not indigenous Australians playing the didgeridoo – or electrifying it for that matter. I’ve even had aboriginal people in my own bands teach me how to play it, a friend of mine left his didge in my house for a whole year so I could learn. I could never master that thing either, just couldn’t get the circular breathing going with any confidence. I guess I sucked at it too hard… or maybe I didn’t suck hard enough, who knows.

Yang Joon Il – Fantasy X Rock

Just including this one for the guy’s stage moves, which certainly are unique. He looks like he was choreographed by an AI.

Mugi – Love Again

Here’s the ‘indie rock’ version of the “street harrassment video concept” where the guy annoyingly pursues the girl all throughout the video and they try to play it off like it’s so aegyo and cute and gosh he really likes her golly gee she’d better say yes or she’s a bad person for not wanting to be stalked uwu

Luli Lee – I Want You

About 23 of you all recommended this to me at once, as if I’d miss it. It’s not bad with some cool riffs and I always like how Luli Lee has the bass front and center of the mix as well as her visuals. It honestly feel like the song is a showcase for the riffs, rather than the other way around, and honestly with every second k-pop track over the last decade being ruined by hideously overblown showoffy ego-stroking vocal “performances”, hearing the voice take a back seat to the riffs for once is actually pleasant.

Chillin Boi G feat. Howler & Malitabu – Fake Love

Fucking hell what is this ass.

Chillin Homie feat. Shyboiitobii – Ambition Over Lonely

More ‘chillin’ people, global warming hurry up.

Wonstein – Apocalypse

Someone save the children from this shit music. Let’s save them right now and stop roundup here.

Yoyomi – Swimming

But wait! Yoyomi has a song! All is well in the world. This video demonstrates exactly what I was talking about in my bias list – Yoyomi in a bikini slapping her ass like she’s the hottest thing ever kind of makes her the hottest thing ever. Confidence is sexy.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

VIVIZ is my life Ep. 1

Viviz learn the art of pole dancing and prove that it’s actually rather difficult by failing at it spectacularly (but cutely so it’s okay). Just imagine what those poor After School girls had to go through.

A-yeon – Self-washing my Mercedes

Ayeon washes her Mercedes (which is barely even dirty) in a way which is actually illegal where I live, you can’t use a hose to wash a vehicle in my town because of water preservation rules.

Jessica H.O – Life Is Good

Definitely the best Jessi song, it’s actually decent and has a melody, it’s been about a decade at least since she’s explored sounds like that. How the hell she went from this to the noise she does now I have no idea.

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