Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 23/6/2025

It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!

If k-pop fans were more pro-sex work, companies wouldn’t even be able to trump up false charges in order to kick your faves out of their group, because the social stigma behind sex work wouldn’t exist. We’re doing our part here at kpopalypse.com to destigmatise sexiness. Join us.

KATSEYE – Gabriela

Katseye continue to be surprising, this time trying their hand at reggae-lite, but they’re late to the party. This sound has been done before and much better in k-pop. Where’s Primary when you need him, hell even 2NE1 did a better job than this.

Hearts2Hearts – Style

Half a decade ago ago badass slow “in your area” jams were all the rage so we got SM Entertainment’s new girl group at that time aespa doing Blackpink-lite until that got tired and they finally found their own sound years later. Now it’s SM new girl group time again and the trend around Korea is ultra-young light breezy school-crush so SM have hopped right on board and it’ll probably be a good few years before Hearts2Hearts are allowed to have any identity of their own at all.

Baby Don’t Cry – F Girl

A song lots of people will both love and hate, and all for the wrong reasons. However it’s a banger, and what makes it work is the bass and drum track which is straight out of 80s new wave territory but without the shitty production from back then. In an era where groups debut with flat, boring songs and then their fans try to pass it off with “oh but it’s not the real debut” excuses, it’s good to hear a group put their best foot forward first… wait what do you mean this isn’t their debut, hey don’t ruin it for me…

ALLDAY PROJECT – Famous

I actually like the harmony choices here a lot, but I don’t like anything else about the track. It’s going to take a bit more than some shirtless posing and a couple nice chord progressions to make me give a shit.

Moonbyul – ICY BBY

Moonbyul has some really good solo songs but this isn’t one of them.

CRAVITY – SET NET G0?

One of the worst song titles in recent memory, the song is at least a little better than the title suggests. It’s a shame that I didn’t wait until after this song came out to write my post on modes and scales because this song has a devastatingly on-the-nose cringe use of melodic minor movement, this week’s fun project for caonimas is to see how much that post taught you by finding where it is.

KickFlip – Electricity

If I close my eyes and imagine aespa doing this song it kind of works in my head, but I don’t think it works with these too-cool-for-school dude voices on it.

PLAVE – Hide and Seek

You know times are tough when they’re animating Yongma Land.

ONE OR EIGHT – 365

How awful is visual design going to get this year. Someone please make it stop.

NOWZ feat. Yuqi – Fly to the youth

There really isn’t much happening this week, is there. So since this song is so mid I have nothing to say about it, this is just a little announcement to let you know that the Kpopalypse NeoSpring has been sunset and I’m moving the short-and-quick anonymous asks and answers over to a new platform YET AGAIN (sigh) but this time it’s my own platform ask.oppar.party (with thanks to supreme caonima az5he6ch cos technically it’s actually his but he’s letting me use it because he’s nice) so hopefully this will be the very last time I have to make a move like this. It’s very bare bones, no user accounts, no moderation, no social networking features, no fancy shit, just raw questions and answers the way nature intended. Head on over there for your anonymous question-asking fun times!

OX:N – You

Yeah okay, this isn’t mid though, this is just rubbish.

BE BOYS – I’m So Sorry, But I Love You

So you should be, you fucking cunt. This is probably what the 143 Ent CEO kept telling the members of Madein.

XONIK – Private

Somewhere an ex-box video set designer is crying because everyone just parks in the garage under his building and shoots their videos there.

DIGNITY – SWEET2TH

Imagine calling a k-pop group “dignity”, someone’s just taking the piss now.

TIOT – Always

Probably the most boring interpretation of the “Roly Poly” chords I’ve heard recently. You’d have to be a songwriting genius to fuck this formula up this badly.

VVUP – Giddy Boy

This song has a lot of things in it that I hate but combines them in ways that actually work. These nugus just out Red Velveted Red Velvet.

Bangtan Pink feat. Baekho – G.T.A (Good Time Ahead)

Not sure exactly what this is all about but the song is kind of Gfriend-lite and Baekho gets his shirt off, that’s probably all you need to know.

Sefo, Poy, Loki feat. Kim Jiyool – Let’s Vaunce

When you’re a child, you’re not old enough to “jop” so you have to “vaunce” instead until you grow old enough to be in an SM Entertainment group.

WISHes – Dear Moon

“Ah, some lazy AI trash for my upcoming Nugu Alert episode featuring all lazy AI trash” but then I look at the viewcount and it’s got half a million views in five days… who’s endlessly watching this crap?

SMUZ – Wake Up!

Okay, what’s going on here, I don’t know.

SMUZ – Unfinished Day

Now I’m even more confused. Is SMUZ the backing band and they just have random ass guests doing vocals each time? Someone fill me in.

Chanty – Carry Me

I’m realibly informed that Chanty is from Lapillus, and she’s doing some christian crap now to try and atone for her nugu group sins I guess. Don’t tell her that it’s harder for Jeewon to fit through the eye of a needle than it is for a nugu to enter the kingdom of god.

Kang Daniel – Episode

This is the episode that was made long after the series died.

Hoshi – I Want You Back

Guess what, it’s 2025 and solos from male members of k-pop boy groups are still terrible. Since you already knew this, let’s have our weekly non-Korean LGBT feature here, yay! This week it’s GG Allin, someone who much of the LGBT community probably would rather not claim as one of their own for understandable reasons, but too bad for them because he was anyway (there’s enough pictures and first-hand stories of him doing very LGBT things with his fans to confirm it). A lot has been written and said about him (I recommend the movie about him released shortly after his death in 1993 “Hated” to get a pretty complete picture that’s in the context of the times unlike the more recent clickbaity YouTube content made about him… but be warned, it’s a pretty R-rated watch) but at the end of the day all that matters to me is that he did have a handful of really good punk songs that get ignored while people focus on all the other stuff… like this song here for instance, which is another “Roly Poly” chord masterpiece.

Hwang Min Woo – Vroom

Years ago, I predicted that Hwang Min Woo (aka Little Psy) was on an upward trajectory and would one day have songs that didn’t suck, and… well, not all Kpopalypse predictions come true, but it’s still better than the stuff he did as a kid.

Nina – Freeze!

Pretty hookless and annoying.

Fairy Mai – Light Please (Remix)

This remix removes the best thing about the original song which is that looping guitar riff, and replaces it with a bunch of generic dance loops. The result is as you’d expect not that great.

Balming Tiger feat. Atarashii Gakko! – Narani Narani

Balming Tiger and their side projects sometimes get it right, but here they don’t. This is just annoying and boring.

Big Naughty feat. Lee Changhyuk – Music

Oh wow it’s so dreary, I just want to get that tower of musical instruments that he’s hanging off and push it all over on top of him just because I think it would make a more interesting noise.

Ash-B – C’mon

Ash-B coming through to save roundup with something that’s musically and visually very much in sync. Someone has to show weak-minded k-pop fans what sexy is before you go and cancel another idol for having impure thoughts.

COOING – Long Distance

Cooing has been boring for years but recently she just sort of got good. This song continues the trend, being a punchier and better version of every A-list k-pop star’s lame lounge music b-sides.

Jo Jung Min – Love Without It

The biggest problem with trot is the dated instrumental choices, when the producers fix those issues often the songs come off pretty well. Jo Jung Min here just exemplifies the problem, whoever added that piercingly dry synth melody line to the intro needs a good slap in the Hong Jin Youngs.

015B feat. KYLY – Keep Dreamin’

Oh my god, it’s great from start to finish. 015B are the retro gods and are at their best when trying new retro styles instead of just doing yacht rock ballads all the time. The only thing that’s missing here is some Eddie Van Halen style guitar stunt work (yes there is a little, but not anywhere near enough), they could have had song of the year had they added it.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Jennie Cries For Help While Eating Spicy Wings

Jennie has no chilli tolerance at all therefore she’s the perfect person to go on this show and be tortured, Rose and Lisa were relatively uninteresting because they could handle the spice somewhat, Jennie is literally staring death in the face here.

Producer Soyeon helping Shuhua

The mark of a good producer: being able to coach better performances out of your team using whatever it takes. Some strange things happen inside recording studios to get just the right sound out of performers. Some digital workstation company please hurry up and give Soyeon an endorsement, she’s earned it by now, and we all know cheap-ass CUBE will never give her enough money to afford her own equipment.

Wassup – Nom Nom Nom

After a pretty cool self-titled debut song, Wassup never regained those heights again as a full group, and “Nom Nom Nom” was certainly one of many letdowns that followed. At least they got the visuals right, paving the way for other girl groups to have hip-hop birthday parties… just kidding, somehow they even made it look like shit, I think it’s the sportswear that’s to blame. If the result of the current backlash against Kiss Of Life is that everybody around the world will become too scared to wear sports clothing for fear of doing it “incorrectly”, then I’m down for cancelling those girls just as much as anyone else is. Let’s all unite against sport, the real enemy of all that is good in this world.

That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!