Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 9/2/2026
It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
IVE – Bang Bang
Whoever cleared this song for release is a dumb fuck, I swear. It’s fantastic when the beat is going fast and boring as batshit when it’s going slow. The songwriters had the good sense to at least make the most important sections of the song the fast ones, so it’s definitely still much more of a win than a loss, but it could have been k-pop song of the fucking millennium if they just resisted the urge to constantly dick around with the tempo for no reason.
ILLIT – Not Me
Illit drink some of KiiiKiii’s debut bathwater here, and the results are as tragic as you might expect. Illit, like KiiiKiii, are one of the more “high risk, high reward” groups in k-pop – sometimes great, sometimes utterly worthless, but rarely boring.
MADEIN – Super Obvious
Madein is out here losing more members than John Bobbitt, speaking of which maybe in their next video when they’re swinging baseball bats they should be hitting their CEO, I think the fans would like that.
Raina – Almost Love
I’m clearly having Orange Caramel withdrawal symptoms because whenever I watch one of Raina’s new solo videos I can’t actually find Raina anywhere and this other girl keeps popping up. I have no idea who she is. Someone book me into rehab.
Chungha – Save Me
Poop visualisers of AI nothingshit are not eligible for roundup but I’m putting this here anyway just so you know I didn’t forget, I ignored this song deliberately.
ATEEZ – Adrenaline
A pretty cool bassline driving the track in the verses is the best thing about this song, it’s sadly lacking adrenaline elsewhere.
MONSTA X – Growing Pains
Monsta X have one of the better hit-rates out of k-pop boy groups but this is just the typical for-the-fans poop that everyone does so feel free to skip.
ZEROBASEONE (ZB1) – Lovepocalypse
They wanted to call it “Kpopalypse” but that name was taken. I think it’s only a matter of time before some hapless PR person actually does do that and I pick up a bunch of extra traffic and go viral for being an asshole for the 298th time.
THE SSYNDROME – Good Boy
Actually not too bad, I’ll take this over the likes of generic boy idol “rock” groups. Although they could have dumped that scratchy Tim Henson-ish rhythm guitar playing that’s trendy now and put a fucking guitar solo in there. And why is the keyboard player’s hands off the keyboard during the keyboard’s big solo moment? We need proper rock music video direction for these things.
LNGSHOT – Never Let Go
Someone gotta tell these kids that before you do “for the fans” videos it’s a good idea that you actually have fans to do them for.
AxMxP – Thereafter
Every boy-rock song is a lost opportunity for a girl-rock song to exist in its place.
Kim Miso x Avion – Jamila
Not entirely sure what’s going on here but it’s not all that great. I just wanted to alert you to the fact that this group has a guy in it who looks like a cross between Shindong and that guy from Lionesses with the really annoying voice.
Navillera – No Limit
This badly-edited mess would be perfect for Nugu Alert but it’s already way too popular to qualify. Hey at least they named themselves after a Gfriend song. What the hell is a “Navillera”, anyway?
Youngest – Night Long
I actually remember this group, from back before they were calculus-solving age when they were “Youngest Posse“. They actually weren’t completely awful even back then, and this new song isn’t amazing but it’s still unironically better than a lot of A-list stuff.
SKINZ – Why U Mad
Not sure about that group name, but anyway, there’s so many of these PLAVE-alikes these days, who can even keep up.
Jeong Eunji – Parrot
A pretty awful ballad but it’s worth checking out just to take a look at Eunji’s impressive mouth dimensions. This is probably the best solid focusing on her mouth in any Eunji or Apink video ever so enjoy if that’s what you’re into.
Sungmin – Godsaeng
I’m told this guy was in Super Junior but who can even be sure about that. SM Entertainment are always doing too much with their boy groups, having 57 members across ten countries in six different subunits nobody can remember, they sure paved the way for TripleS. I think that’s why it was BTS who broke through in the end and not an SM boy group, if you dilute the fan-crazy energy too much, you just end up with people acting normal and that’s no good for selling shitty product.
Sungmin – Dancing under the stars
His other song is marginally better but let’s be real, if SM did a poll asking their fans to pick someone random from k-pop to do a trot song he’d probably be about 573rd on almost everyone’s list of choices.
Hwi – That’s Me
Actually sounds really good up until 0:10 and then it’s all over. When will rappers learn that nobody wants to hear them Autotune.
SLAY & Nam Gyuri – Sorrow at my door
Hey, it’s a decent ballad! They do exist, they are just super rare. Of course it’s Nam Gyuri from Seeya, bringing back the old school Pocketdol style ballad… but without Pocketdol, probably not a bad thing.
Lee Nalchi – Do You Know The Five Virtues?
Oh no it’s the tiger lady back again… I think one of the five virtues is “don’t use AI in music videos”, and another is “don’t let Lee Nalchi near a microphone.”
Uneducated Kid – High
Halfway through the song this guy directly asks us why we’re hating. Dude, why do you think? Holy shit it’s not rocket science, you have shit music, that’s all it is. Get better music, or stop making music, or just do it in the privacy of your bedroom and leave us out of it if you want to suck this badly.
Dbo – Let it burn
I give Dbo points this week, he’s not using Autotune (much). He got the message, finally. If you fake-hip-hop douchebags in Korea won’t listen to me, at least listen to other fake hip-hop douchebags.
Sik-K feat. Ley – Namsan Tower
Or don’t. There was so much crap just like this song submitted this week and I got rid of almost all of it. I let this one survive, the way a movie character slaughters a bunch of gang members but lets the one who represents the least future threat live so they can go back and tell their boss not to try that shit ever again.
Rituality – It’s your turn to shine
Starts off sounding impressive but once the shock and awe of Koreans using actual distortion wears off this is surprisingly generic and dull.
Kyuss – Green Machine
Here’s this week’s random music pick and it’s for the person who went to my ask thingy and wanted stoner rock recommendations, you’re welcome (even though it’s not very stonery compared to say, Electric Wizard or something). I know a guy who went to see Kyuss and Slayer play together and booed Kyuss all through Kyuss’ set because he was a huge Slayer fan, and Slayer fans being intolerant of any support act is just what Slayer fans do, apparently. Years later he became a stoner rock fan and realised how great Kyuss were, PLUS how ballsy Kyuss were to even accept the Slayer support gig in the first place knowing full well the reaction they would get, and this was his deepest regret, not appreciating seeing Kyuss properly at the time. Sadly he’s no longer with us, he took that regret to the grave. Don’t be like him. Stan Kyuss.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Le Sserafim’s Lost Media: Everything HYBE Deleted After Garam Left
Here’s a hot tip for people making YouTube videos: if you want people to believe that the things you’re saying in a video are true, don’t use AI to make the fucking video. Also I’m not sure how this person is going to go with their hard legal stance in the intro when they’re literally just showing another company’s copyrighted stuff. YouTube grifters think copyright is like the fucking Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus and an ATM rolled into one these days, mind you it’s probably not entirely their fault that they’re this stupid given the way YouTube itself encourages the abuse of copyright in unfair ways (by empowering copyright trolls, and by not respecting Fair Use or public domain works, for instance). Anyway I can’t confirm or deny anything in this video, I’m just putting this here to remind you that Kim Garam exists and the legacy of her chalk art will forever be remembered.
Hotelie Pattie – I Became a K-Pop Trainee for 30 Days
Cringe as fuck with tons of unwatchable staged nonsense but I guess if this type of approach is what it takes to get the kiddies who won’t read Kpopalypse.com to realise what it’s like doing the k-pop training thing, why not.
Diva – Joy
Oh come on. How can you even seriously be mad. It’s just funny. But putting aside the old school hip-hop birthday party intro, this song (which finally starts for real at 1:02) is pretty generic for the era and sounds exactly the same as a ton of other stuff from back when it was made. Imagine growing up in a time and place when this was the trend, Koreans my age must feel like they’re on acid when they look at what k-pop is now.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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