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It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
MC Mong and Sowon seem to share similar taste in interior decorating. Dating, perhaps? You heard it here first!ITZY – Tunnel Vision
Itzy try hard to do a modern day aespa sound (right down to the “Dirty Work” catchphrase, could they make the influence any more obvious) but although there’s some great sounds in isolated places it doesn’t “work, work, work” all that well as a song due to the chorus not really fitting in too well with the rest of it.
Sunmi – Cynical
The chorus vocal treatments are annoying but the song is very good apart from that, it’s certainly a decent addition to Sunmi’s catalog. Sunmi in “The Ring” cosplay is definitely great too, next time a T-ara member appears in a horror film they should also cast Sunmi as the ghost.
Yeonjun – Coma + Let Me Tell You feat. Daniela + Talk To You
According to my song submitter “the MV include the short ver of two bside, Coma and Let Me Tell You. The title track is called Talk To You and starts at 3:08” so hopefully that’s helpful in navigating your way through this crap but I’d suggest don’t even bother.
KISS OF LIFE – Lucky
Not much going on here musically but at least they’re still giving your friends at university something to write their ethnic studies thesis on.
FIFTY FIFTY – Eeny meeny miny moe
I can’t believe it, Fifty Fifty have finally done something incredible. They’ve released a completely fucking shit song! You go girls! Girls can do anything! Releasing dogshit music isn’t just for boy groups anymore! Yass queens!
FIFTY FIFTY – Skittlez
Their other song is… not very good either. Not sure what’s happened over at camp Fifty Fifty this week, I think someone’s been playing with their “skittlez” a bit too much…
CRAVITY – Lemonade Fever
Not too much subtlety going on with the k-pop euphemisms this week, is there.
RESCENE – Heart Drop
Rescene are the lateset victim of NewJeansification and I don’t think it really will bother anyone because it’s not like anyone was expecting the next banger to come from them anyway, were they, let’s be real.
J.Y. Park with Kwon Jinah – Happy Hour
The good thing about JYP being so keen on retro pop music is that occasionally you get some amazing bangers where he draws from the best of what makes those old styles work. The downside is that he’s also aware of about 76 subgenres of shit ballad from the old days of k-pop and has the skills to pop out a new recreation of any of those, at any time.
Illit – Secret Quest
Well at least it’s not about labubus. Right, Asian Junkie?
NCT WISH – Dreamcatcher
Some SM group calling their new shitty song “Dreamcatcher” as if that will be more memorable than Dreamcatcher the group, now that’s got to be the ultimate insult.
XLOV – Rizz
Kim Lip’s missile solo has long been abandoned and it now seems like dirty, smelly boy groups have now moved in and are squatting. Clearly this is a breach of facility security and someone needs to go in and sort out the problem.
AHOF – Pinocchio
Millennial-whooping has gone out of fashion in recent years so it’s starting to beccomes less annoying to hear it again thanks to less exposure. Song isn’t too bad at all though for old fart music. I guess I would know.
Xdinary Heroes – Love Me 2 Death
Here’s your weekly obligatory attempt at rock music from JYPE. Gosh, they keep trying, don’t they. It’s like holding a snack six feet above a kitten and watching it try to grab it – cute but wasted energy.
LUCY feat. Wonstein – In A rush
It says a lot about the state of Korean “rock” when the “heavy breakdown” happens in this song and it still sounds like coffee shop music.
ARcC – Skiid
More like “skid mark”.
ARcC with Moon Sua & Siyoon – WoW (Way of Winning)
This trash is way worse though, some horrible jazz fusion thing. Not sure what they’re winning here, but what I am sure of is that we’re all losing.
NEWBEAT – Look So Good
The sort of song that would normally be boring but they’ve got the right beat and the right synth riffs to make it work.
ONF – Put It Back
Yeah this is shit. What happened to ONF, they were the new hope of boy k-pop for about two or three songs before they got back to sucking.
NTX – Ice Luv
K-pop producers will never learn to stop putting synthetic whistles in songs, will they.
Yunamong, Bbanggyul – Cupid’s Trick
2:03 mrcs
TEMPEST – Nocturnal
I’ve been leaving out most of the tempest stuff from roundups lately but I thought I’d add this one in because it’s actually decent reminding me of the debut era Infinite style.
NPC – Creeper
While this video was loading I was about to make a joke about Minecraft creepers, and then the band actually beat me to it.
ISEGYE IDOL – Nameless
One big takeaway from the results of the latest Kpopalypse survey is that you think anime idol groups are total fucking shit and you’d rather not see them in roundup at all. So let’s have our weekly non-Korean LGBT feature here instead, yay! This week it’s Laeather Strip, a Danish industrial group… well it’s just one person really, but anyway like a lot of that stuff he peaked in the 90s and it’s good, industrial music is probably the single most BADING music scene out there. I saw this guy play a set a few years back and it was actually really sad and disappointing but it wasn’t his fault, the engineers were amatuers who had no clue how to operate the PA they had set up and he kept asking for more volume and they couldn’t make it work for some reason. The perils of audio tech noobs trying to figure out digital desks.
U-Know – Stretch
SM Entertainment’s grown men are at their best when they’re doing stuff like this, fast punchy, modern and ballad-free.
Bang Chan – Roman Empire
I’m not really in the loop on this, but I’ve heard that men are supposed to all care about the Roman Empire for some reason? If what they mean by that is they care about this song, I think that’s false.
U Chae – Bad Guy
Hey this is decent, especially for a ballad – see, good ballads can be done. Also it’s kind of cool to see someone fucking up microphone use with a mic other than the Shure Super 55 for a change, in this video the mic is actually pointing either at the ceiling or the camera the whole time, not her mouth.
Kang Seung Yoon – Me
Yeah this isn’t good. Nice sonics, bad songwriting, oh well.
Mark Tuan – Sunsets & Cigarettes
I’m always shocked when a boy group member actually has a decent solo song and you thought I was going to twist this around and say “but this isn’t one so I’m totally not shocked and by the way fuck you all hahaha” but actually this is solidly good and I really dig it. See, that didn’t end badly at all, nothing to worry about Mark Tuan fans only good times and sunny vibes here at kpopalypse.com isn’t that right cunts
Zion.T – Love Me
Eww.
Nah Yoon Kwon & Doh Kyung Soo – If It Were Me
If it were me, I’d see a thumbnail of two guys sitting on chairs in a nature setting, realise it was a shit ballad and just keep scrolling down without clicking.
Mirani – Clutch
It’s every single “drab, dark, we don’t do box videos no more we just film in gritty warehouses and parking lots and shit” k-pop stage in the one video.
SM Jazz Trio – Growl
“Growl” is such a pathetic, limp, nothingy song in its original form that when you think about it, it’s a perfect template for jazz wankers to masturbate all over. I mean this version still sucks, but it’s actually a marginal improvement over the original.
Jaurim – Life!
Jaurim’s song is really good this week.
Mew – Watashi Obassani Nattemo
What the fuck is this trash, why is she dressed like she’s in a Chris Dane Owens video (thanks caonimas for pointing him out to me, my life will never be the same), and what the hell is she doing with her left hand all the way through this thing like she’s practising her car handjobs. Let’s leave roundup here, for all our sakes.
Rockit Girl – Travel Route
Oh but wait. Sorry I forgot about Rockit Girl last week so I’d better put them in now. What a great band. Hey a family relation just found out about my k-pop writing for the first time the other day, and she thought it was hilarious that my site has (amongst other things) a “best asses” post. So just for her if she’s reading I think this video at 1:56 is very relevant, you’re welcome.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
only nuggets – 11 Mistakes Will Ruin Your K-pop Idol Dream (Watch This Before it’s Too Late)
1. Don’t be active on k-pop fan social media, espcially don’t run a site like mine
2. No visible tattoos
3. Your school bullying history will follow you
4. Don’t bitch about internal company shit/groupmates to your friends, d’oh
5. Don’t think you’re gonna debut soon/quickly/at all (lol)
6. Keep your dating life private before you debut, no selfies, dick picks etc
7. Keep up with trends once you debut ignore this, it’s not in your control, just pray your company isn’t run by out-of-touch boomers
8. read the fucking contract, dumbass
9. care about artistry not fame actually you’re better off not caring about fame OR artistry as you’ll probably get to experience neither
10. mind your business and don’t be a cunt, cunt
11. if you’re burning out take breaks oh wait the manager won’t let you hahahaha this video is so funny I swear, anyway I saved you a click and nearly 8 minutes of your life
Vanity Fair – How EJAE & Mark Sonnenblick Created Grammy-Nominated “Golden” From KPop Demon Hunters
A reader thought this might be interesting to some of you and it probably is. Why not take a look at how some real artists work instead of idols giving a bit of creativity their first shot for the cameras.
Blady – Blood Type B Girl
A pretty awful song from back in the day, with forgettable melodies and some very weird lumpy instrument choices – what the fuck is going on in the lower mids of this song during the choruses, nobody knows. The person who sent this to me theorised that the title of the song might be because “blood type” was the obsession du jour of the k-pop world before all the little kidlets discovered the eugenics-lite thought cancer that is MBTI. Who knows where k-pop will go next, maybe phrenology will be the next big trend, or maybe they’ll cut to the chase and just start drawing swastikas on everything. Gangkiz paved the way.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
English (US) · 