Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 4/11/2024
It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
G-DRAGON – Power
That beat is not strong enough to carry an entire song on its own, I don’t care who’s nasally whining over the top.
BABYMONSTER – Drip
BabyMonster really are playing the 2NE3 card here with some parts of this song recalling the better early 2NE1 bangers, but the chorus is so shit that it undoes all of the good work elsewhere.
BABYMONSTER – Clik Clak
Mind you, I’ll take a failed mish-mash like “Drip” over a boring slow rap track that simply sucks on every level.
STAYC – GPT
Apparently the meaning of this song is it’s about a girl who is fed up with her boyfriend’s ChatGPT-like responses whenever she wants to talk about anything. So even though StayC have better songs than this, I now have to like this one anyway because anything that criticises AI for being shit is okay in my book.
TXT – Over The Moon
It’s not too bad but we all know TXT have had better songs than this and I’m bored so let’s just move on.
FIFTY FIFTY – Gravity
Hey everyone it’s our favourite girls Fifty Fifty and gosh darn it don’t they have another somewhat above average song yet again. Actually this one does lower the average just slightly, because I think they overdid the vocal processing in the chorus a bit to the point where it starts to teeter on the brink of Disneyfied shit, but I’d still eat Mickey’s ass if he wore the right dress.
Kep1er – Tipi-Tap
I have nothing to say about this Kep-one-er song which manages to follow the current trending sound in k-pop without sticking out whatsoever, so I’d just like to say thanks to all the people who filled out the latest Kpopalypse survey, you can now read the results at this post!
J.Y. Park – Easy Lover
The bad side of JYP’s retro-fetish is this disturbingly crap “soul” stuff he’s into. He even thinks it’s “sexy” or something, which is just gross because not only do we have to listen to him sing it, we have to watch him making it with the ladies, which is just a nope. I had to grow up back when that trash movie “The Committments” was huge, and this song isn’t even as good as the garbage “soul” songs in that. Mustang Sally, won’t you drive that mustang over JYP and then off a cliff.
Sooyoung – Unstoppable
Sooyoung’s solo effort sounds like a BoA song from 1963, and I mean that in a good way. Not sure what took her so long though, clearly the claim that she’s “unstoppable” is a lie given that something sure stopped her from doing anything at all as a solo artist for the last decade.
Moonbyul feat. ONEWE – Memories
Moonbyul finally realises her goddamn destiny and fronts a rock band, it’s about time. More of this RBW please.
MYTRO – Bomb Bomb Bomb
Apparently a trot group on SM Entertainment, and they just prove that SM should forget about trot and stick to their neo culture AI Kwangya fucking bullshit.
Minho – Call Back
He might have smashed it in the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey results this year, but I’m still going to leave this sleepy song on read.
ODD YOUTH – That’s Me
As “2020 k-pop by numbers” as it gets, with the shouty melody-less chorus and the “we’re bad girls as long as our agency says it’s okay” lyrical theme, this is notable only for allowing 1970s muscle cars in the music video which is actually relatively new territory for k-pop.
BEWAVE – Never lose you again
Basically a boring waste of time so let’s have our Asian but not Korean not pop not world music feature here instead! Did you know that one of the defining and most highly-regarded groups of the 1980s thrash metal scene along with Metallica, Slayer etc was San Francisco’s Death Angel? If you did know that, what you might not also know is that the band in their original lineup (shown here) were all Filipino. Now you do.
MADEIN – Dopamine
Same dodgy clothes as last week, different dodgy song.
SAY MY NAME – Be A Star
You know it’s not really about the music when they stop the song halfway through to do parasocial getting-to-know-you bullshit.
Jo Yuri – My Highlight
People have been asking me cover this for a while now so I guess I finally well even though it’s about a month old. So I’d just like to say that this song is written as badly as the video is animated.
Jamie – Bad Luck
Bad luck mainly for us.
UNIVERSE LEAGUE – We Ready
I know the colours are supposed to make things more obvious, but they just confused me. Is this one group? Three groups? One group with three subunits? One subunit made out of three other groups? A lame competition show where people picked straws? A waste of my time? Okay, the last one is likely.
Starlight Boys – Good Luck (Be My Luck)
Here’s what I assume is another hideous TV show thing, and the song’s somewhat better this time but not good enough to take my mind off the OH&S concerns. I don’t want to see boys or girls in groups dancing that close to any ledges, you just know that multiple people had falls while practicing on this video set.
Koyote – Four Seasons
An interesting group at their most boring.
BTOB – Please Stay
Boring ballad bullshit.
TVXQ! – Dearest
I guess there’s someone out there who finds this type of music inspirational or whatever as presumably intended, I hope they’re living their happy lives in their happy place and I never have to be stuck in a room with their music collection.
OMEGA X – Cool My Head
I didn’t completely hate this song, but the appearance of sportballs is a problem. Do you know how much carbon is put into the atmosphere each year due to sport? Well, neither do I, but it’s a non-zero number and that’s a good a reason to abolish it as any other.
NEXTU – R.I.P
Why am I noticing so many music videos lately where the lipsync is completely out of time? Do these video directors not know what SMPTE codes are? Did the Crowdstrike incident interferere with all the clocks on digital video cameras worldwide? Who the fuck knows but until the IT department fixes it, this is what we’re stuck with.
AVION – K*LL ME
The trend of asterisking out a letter in a word is mindnumbingly stupid and the type of thing only idiots come up with. I know it’s supposed to be “less triggering” or whatever but it actually has the opposite effect because it makes you fill in the blank in your own mind, heightening the impact of the word, not dampening it. I guess the word ‘kill’ does need a bit of extra impact here though because the song sure doesn’t have any.
Moon Jong Up – Twist Ya
Hey this is alright, apart from the incorrect Shure Super 55 use of course. Twist ya microphone around a bit, Jong Up!
Eunice – Daydream
This is also good, Eunice was from DIA so it’s good to hear her investigating actual decent music after her k-pop group hellride.
Lee Yejoon, Kassy, HYNN, EB – Love dust
Oh, no – they’re sitting down in fucking chairs AND they’re in long grass! You can be doubly sure that this is a ballad that trots out every ballad cliche in the book, specifically designed to bore actual music lovers to tears.
Balming Tiger – Big Butt
Balming Tiger are very hit and miss, and this one’s a miss, even if the concept is great.
Hanroro – The Compass
It’s just nice. I liked it. That is all.
TOUCHED – Addiction
I wasn’t into this song but this is more of a FYI that this type of thing is out there. I think some of my readers would dig it. Anyway that’ll do for this week I’ve tortured you enough.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
JUNGKOOKABURRA
Say hello to Jungkookaburra, a bird who lives in my neighbourhood, and who is the latest addition to Kpopalypse animal lore, plus an absolute mad cunt. This crazy bird isn’t afraid of shit, he doesn’t give a fuck about anything (and yes it is a he), he’s even happy to let some problematic bald Australian k-pop-liking cunt roll right up with the camera phone while blasting Eyedi, as one does. Jungkookaburra also likes to go to the rear of my house and bash in the flyscreens just for fun, I often think it’s someone knocking on my door but it’s just this motherfucking bird. What a caonima.
Yves and Heejin help a lucky gay couple get to the “next level”
My recent survey results show that most Kpopalypse readers are gay, and as it happens so are most men that Loona members randomly meet while cameras are rolling. Thanks to the person who sent this one in.
SHINee – Married To The Music
Just another one of SHINee’s middling mid-era tracks, if this was by any other group it would have vanished in time. SHINee do have some great songs worth remembering them for, but if I did review this song back in the day I probably would have talked about the room decor or something.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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