Saturday 30 September 2023

Kpopalypse Nugu Alert Episode 78 – Dohee, WGAG, Sean Park, Joy Choi

By admin at September 30, 2023

It’s time for another episode of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert! Let’s take a look at some more nugus!

One of the takeaways from the latest Kpopalypse survey (still active at the time of writing so do it if you haven’t) is that you’re all a bit disappointed with song quality this year so far. In order to help you the reader, this episode of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert is about nothing other than bringing you nugu songs that I thought were musically interesting and worthy of attention. Here we go!

Usual rules apply:

Less than 20,000 views on official channels
Probably not on your curated algorithmic playlist
Relevant to Kpopalypse

Let’s go!

Dohee – One

I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the Dohee from Cignature, but whoever it is, it’s clear that nobody gives a fuck about her so she can certainly go here in Nugu Alert. That’s a damn shame too because her song is pretty good and worth some attention. She does sound a bit uncomfortable in the chorus, and that dance break is a bit silly, but other than that there’ s not much to complain about here. The video doesn’t look embarrassing either, they did crank up the colour filters to eleven but it works in context, even if it’s just to hide Dohee’s prominent Qri-like nose mole. It’s not up to the production level of something like Eyedi but there’s certainly some similar vibes here and it definitely works.

Youtube views at the time of writing: 2846

Notable attribute: blink-and-you’ll-miss-it white fluffy dog definitely mrds

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

WGAG (Wet Gong Agong) – To (What I Really Want To Say To You)

It might seem unusual to regular readers that know my ballad-hating ways, but I actually really enjoyed this mid-tempo coffee-shop style acoustic ballad, because I thought the melody writing and playing was really well done, it’s nice and perky and doesn’t drag at all. The cheap but cheerful drama video is pretty nice too, depicting a man and a woman meeting through very awkward but wholesome circumstances that Kpopalypse definitely can’t relate to, especially as they involve sportballs and in-ear headphones, two things that I’ve sworn against because of the potential for both to be mentally damaging. I guess these two are made for each other, here’s hoping that their relationship lasts long enough for a part two.

Youtube views at the time of writing: 1576

Notable attribute: film advertised at 1:40 on the poster in the glass window looks like a low budget Korean Transformers clone, does anyone have more information

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

Sean Park – Pale Blue

Sean Park has a pretty sweet song that doesn’t exactly have a whole lot to it, but with pop music often simple is best and this definitely delivers, with really nice and subtle instrumentation and some catchy melody. The musical action is paired with a shoestring video that seems to entirely rely on night street lighting to illuminate the scenes of Sean singing, dancing with his guitar and playing the sportball. He clearly sucks at the latter however, as the only daytime scenes in the whole video are when he comes back the next morning after the video shoot to try again and finally get a ball through the hoop thing, I guess just to prove that he can. I assume that this made the digit go up or something, anyway here’s hoping his music career takes off and he doesn’t have to resort to such desperate shenanigans in the future.

Youtube views at the time of writing: 766

Notable attribute: guy taking his late-night shopping home across the street at 2:22 is the k-pop nugu equivalent of that guy in the background of The Beatles “Abbey Road” LP cover

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

Joy Choi – My Husband is Crazy

Joy Choi may have tattoos to rival After School’s Nana, but her music couldn’t be further from the aegyo of Orange Caramel, serving up a fast-paced semi-industrial dance type tune with quite a few twists and turns in it. The video is equally strange, and while there’s a lot of skin on display the mood isn’t sexual in the slightest, or at least not in the kind of way that you’re probably used to in Korean music content. The fast cutting of random nature images for no clear reason actually reminded me of The Young Gods, and there’s a bit of musical similarity there too once the song gets going so maybe I’m not imagining that. Anyway, Joy Choi has an album here and it’s pretty different and you could listen to it if you wanted.

Youtube views at the time of writing: 457

Notable attribute: cameo by an ex T-ara member at 1:08, good to see she’s looking healthy

Nugu Alert rating: extreme