Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 22/4/2024
It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
RIIZE – Impossible
It’s good to see that fast beats are back, but the repetitive vocal writing and cut-price SHINee backings really aren’t doing it for me.
ILLIT – Lucky Girl Syndrome
Illit have another song that just kind of drifts away on the wind with no real impact. Also I’m Chinese and 8 is the lucky number here not 7, so therefore I find this video offensive, I’m going to draw a nine-dash line around it.
Bibi – Eve
That thing on her face might look like decoration but that’s actually a creature where I live. Anyway it’s probably the best backing track Bibi has ever gotten to work with but she doesn’t get to actually do much with it.
Apink – Wait Me There
Apink produce one killer feature track per year and a whole bunch of weak fluff that’s strictly for diehard fan consumption only. This song falls into the second category, so you can safely skip it.
Yooa – Love Myself
Yooa looks better here dressed as a soju bottle serenading Mickey Mouse (good thing about that copyright expiring hey) than anything else she’s done in about a decade. Song’s not bad either but I have to focus on Yooa’s looks just to annoy the kiddies who like to complain about me focusing on looks all the time so thanks to all the complaining you can expect a LOT more of it. (Funny how they never complain when I focus on men’s looks though, gosh k-pop fans wouldn’t be sexist and hypocritical bigots by any chance? Surely not.) So let’s talk about it some more, because in such a looks-based industry it’s important to focus on and analyse how visual presentation works, this is not only fun and entertaining and enjoyable but also part of being a media savvy and media critical person in today’s information age. Some readers thought I might find this video a bit tricky to get along with because of colour-blindness, but I actually found the result quite easy on the eye. For my particular vision impairment, green has the effect of bringing the colour forward, and red has a reducing effect, so the combination of the predominantly green outfits and earthy tones in the background, combined with Yooa’s red hair (although is it red really idk I’m colour blind so don’t ask me) creates a pleasing effect which allows for smoother Yooa perception. It’s clear that a lot of careful thought was put into colour choice for this “visual film”. Gosh it would be a shame if I didn’t analyse appearances and this effort couldn’t be appreciated, hey.
UNICODE – Let Me Love
Unicode are here to save us from the swags with their very untrendy early Gfriend/Lovelyz-lite vibe. Sadly the song isn’t up to the same standard as the visual presentation (which I can happily give you another full paragraph on if you like, but I feel like the moronic “why does he always talk about looks even though he’s commenting on a totally looks-based industry and I wouldn’t even be into k-pop at all if it wasn’t for the visuals” crybabies have received enough punishment for one roundup) but I’m cheering for them to have a better song in the future.
EPEX – Breathe In Love
I didn’t hate this song, but I was losing at some shit gacha computer game while I was listening to it, and it didn’t make losing feel any better, nor did it help me git gud, so overall I guess it’s a miss. It’s good to see shit boy mullets make a return to k-pop though.
Doyoung – Little Light
Maybe if he had a bit more light he wouldn’t have fallen off his fucking bicycle.
1CHU – Punk Hot
This is all I ask of groups in general – something upbeat with a catchy chorus that doesn’t suck and some fast tempo, guitars are a bonus. How hard is it? Pretty hard apparently, but these nugus can do it, so what’s everyone else’s excuse?
TIOT – Rock Thang
I mean TIOT really don’t have an excuse do they. For a song called “Rock Thang” it sure has a pissweak amount of actual rock in it. Some of the rap beats are okay but just when I’m getting into it some R&B cuts in and ruins it.
BEWAVE – Sing!
There’s a special place in hell for agencies that put incorrect Shure Super 55 use on the thumbnails of their music videos.
ONEWE – Beautiful Ashes
I see that they tried to shoot the rock ballad singer but they ran out of arrows before they scored a hit. What a pity.
NXD – Jump
Good work occupying the sporting arena so nobody can do sport things on it. Music people should occupy all sport venues at all times to help eradicate the evils of sport. We can call it Occupy Sport Street.
Kim Woojin – I Like The Way
Why do people think that men singing in their “kicked in the balls” register is somehow a good thing? Moving this entire song down by about a fifth would have been great.
Han Yo Han ft. Changmo – Break Up
The chorus is a bit lame with the repetitive shouting and it’s a real pity that it didn’t bring home the bacon because there was potential for something cool here.
TAN – Area
Appealingly old-school, it makes me miss the boy group songs from a dozen years ago that I wasn’t even all that into at the time.
Catch The Young – Voyager
The “Reverse Firebird” has to be one of the ugliest bass guitar designs of all time, these boys look pretty sharp but they mess it up with that ugly bass guitar. It doesn’t help that they’re drawing even more attention to it by doing solos on it. Stop that, people.
CRAVITY – Over & Over
Cravity haven’t been around long enough to do a boring stage montage “for the fans” video.
P1Harmony – Late Night Calls
This is why I mute my phone before I go to sleep.
Sudi – Self-Portrait
Okay this song is boring so instead it’s time for your weekly Asian-but-not-Korean not-pop not-world-music feature. Nameless Gods are actually from Brazil but they have a Japanese member so they get in. Or maybe she isn’t Japanese, I don’t fucking know, who gives a fuck, she can play. Anyway what they do definitely have is riffs, god fucking damn do they have riffs. Mosh.
JO1 – Test Drive
Don’t JO1 while test-driving a car, seriously pull over first. Inattention is a big killer on the roads. Song’s not too bad by the way.
Jinjin with Moonbin – Fly
It’s been exactly a year since k-pop news sites milked the death of Astro’s Moonbin for clickbait articles, isn’t it a good thing that you read kpopalypse.com instead where I only clickbait my audience with positive things.
Lee Ye Ryoung – Knee
Who is this woman with the god-tier song and music video, I’ve never heard of her and I want to subscribe to her newsletter. Even the usual k-pop profile sites don’t have anything on her. Someone help a caonima.
Big Ocean – Glow
From our song submitter: “Big Ocean is the first South Korean deaf boy group. They later clarify that they are actually hard of hearing. They aim to establish their own genre called S-Pop (Sign Language Pop), in which they perform using Korean Sign Language (KSL). This is a remake of the 1998 H.O.T song.” Actually that’s a concept with potential as a vocal-less sign language version of H.O.T’s awful songs would definitely be an improvement on the originals.
I.M – Skyline
That dogshit music nobody likes. The only reason why the factory is empty is because everyone cleared the fuck out of there as soon as he Autotune-warbled his way in.
Lay – Psychic
If he’s psychic he should have been able to forsee that nobody would like this shit partially AI-generated video.
Layone feat. BewhY – Fucking World
More like fucking shit.
Kisum – 30
Kisum was once on Nugu Alert and she’s now graduated to definite D-list. I’m cheering for her!
Harmonize – All I Needed Was Time
Doing harmony vocals when there’s like three dozen of you isn’t really all that special, because the mistakes kind of get evened out. It’s like when a large crowd sings and it comes out in tune because some people hit too high and some hit too low and it averages out.
Peppertones – Riders
Peppertones are alright but they’re definitely one of those groups that needs to turn up the guitars a bit.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Yulia Feng – [MV analysis] ILLIT-Magnetic MV Has Pedophilia
Did you know that in China, Illit’s “Magnetic” video is going viral for its pedophilic implications? This video is just one of many going around that compiles a lot of the common callouts about the video’s dog-whistling in the Chinese online space. I don’t think all of these observations are accurate, definitely some of them are a bit laughable and one hell of a reach (mainly the ones denoted as “with controversy”, which is what the video author is trying to say too, that these are the claims that she thinks are less credible), but the central theme of the video (young girls’ loss of innocence) is fairly obvious and correctly pointed out. Certainly the observations about the unicorn, the girls being chased, rolling around on the bed, and the bed-squeaking noises are bang on. It’s a similar theme to Park Jiyoon’s “Adult Ceremony” and uses some of the same symbolism… except that Park Jiyoon was older than most of the girls in Illit. It’s definitely this generation’s “Dream Candy“. I guess now that HYBE and Min Heejin are having a falling out, they gotta get someone else to pick up the torch…
Daisy (ex-Momoland member) explains LINE DISTRIBUTION
Daisy is fantastic and has been great at saying the quiet parts out loud lately. Here, she highlights some of the exact same things that I tried to convey in my fiction books – that some members don’t actually want a lot of lines, that what you see on the video isn’t always who actually sung the part, and that things are even more uneven than you think. “Line distribution” complaints are driven by the fans’ selfish desires, not what the actual artists want, and certainly not the reality of what really goes on. Daisy of course adds the usual “this is just my experience” disclaimers, but I’ve talked to a number of people in her position and… no, it’s not just her experience. I’d love to interview Daisy one day (email here if you need it), but then I’m also fine not to, after all she doesn’t exactly need my help dropping truth bombs now does she.
Hello Venus – Venus
“Venus” has some cool rhythms but what stopped it from being a song eligible for my favourites list from back then is the botched tonality changes. You can really feel the gears crunch hard between the verse and chorus (at 0:26 and again at 1:19) where the mood of the song which up to that point actually sounded pretty cool just gets dumped for no good reason like Karina on a date with whatshisname. It’s still a cool song because of the rhythms alone but the chance for a potential classic was definitely missed by bad topline and harmony writing.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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