Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 26/5/2025

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

In 2025 “queerbaiting” is some shoulder-pad adjustments and lying on the floor together. K-pop’s pathetic “conservative pretending to be progressive” fans will whine about everything until nothing is permissible except sitting on a chair, singing a ballad.

Irene & Seulgi – Tilt

Queerbaiting my foot, anyone hoping for some hardcore Kpopalypse-book-tier lesbianism here is probably going to feel seriously let down, but personally I’m only let down by the music, which is pretty bland and basic, definitely not living up to all the fuss. Even the most diehard fan knows that these girls have done better.

BLACKSWAN – I Like It Hot

Lots of style and visual flair, song’s just kind of average though. It has its moments but because the song keeps changing all the time, whenever it gets on something good it dumps it about ten seconds later for something else. The result is something that’s harder to ride along with than that dune buggy.

Shin Jiyoon – Did You Love Me?

Ex-sidebar girl and ex-Weeekly Jiyoon has a look that really suits her here, the song not so much but apparently this is all self-written so I have to hand it to her for trying, it’s still better than all this week’s A-list stuff.

SEVENTEEN – Thunder

This generic dance bollocks is more like a fizzle.

SHINee – Poet | Artist

Apparently a song from the vault complete with Jonghyun’s voice, it’s actually not bad and it’s a nice moneymaking gesture for the fans but it’s no “Lucifer” that’s for sure. Posthumous releases like this are generally always mid (also see Queen’s “Made In Heaven”, and the 235 Tupac albums that came out after he died) because the songs usually remained on the bench the first time around for a reason.

Bibi – Scott and Zelda

Bibi entering her lounge music era now, which probably suits her because her music is generally pretty sleepy anyway.

KickFlip – Freeze

Again JYP messing around with mix and match styles that just don’t go together, clearly he’s forgotten what made Wonder Girls so big.

RIIZE – The End of the Day

Fucking dogshit. The boys know it too – look at them slumping on those chairs, when you can’t even sit up straight for your generic “sitting on chairs” ballad, that’s when you really don’t give a shit. They are reading this right now and nodding their heads.

NEXZ – Slo-mo

Look at them having a seance around the dinner table. They’re probably trying to summon some carbs using black magic. Summon a better songwriter while you’re there, boys.

Big Ocean – Fade Out

It says a lot about your shitty bias and their crap songs that a group of deaf people can realistically compete with them musically. I know that I say that each time I review this group, but it’s only because it keeps being true.

Hi-Fi Unicorn – Game

The song isn’t really there but at least it has guitar and it’s fast, so it still gets a hard pass.

MCND – I was created for U

This “for the fans” junk was fundamentally uninteresting, so this week’s non-Korean LGBT feature can go here instead, yay! I thought about putting seminal lesbian queercore group Tribe8 in this feature ever since it began, but I decided against it because I bought the Tribe8 album “Snarkism” back in the 1990s after reading an (excellent) interview with them, and regretted it straight away, musically the album was boring, it had no songs. Having actually good music is a requirement for this feature thing, you know. Anyway, a reader reminded me of them this week and also linked a song that’s actually way better than anything on that album, and I wish I’d heard this song back when I first discovered the group and not their shitty later stuff.

DKB – Forever

Back to Korean “for the fans” junk, and this is some of that junk. Next.

SMORZ – I want to do

Apparently another “global girl group” (groan) but they’re actually all from Hong Kong, however they’re promoting in Korea and aimed at the Korean market so we’ll let them in here. It doesn’t hurt that the song is actually absolutely fantastic. I bet Jackson Wang stans.

ISEGYE IDOL – Stargazers

Somehow these lifeless CGI girls still look slightly less bored than the average sitting-on-chairs boy group.

Zanmang Loopy, Keita, Lee Jeonghyeon – Newbie

Oh what the fuck. Can we just have people back in videos or is that asking too much in 2025 when there’s carbons to burn.

Soorin – Boys can be

Hey wow, another great song by someone I’ve never heard of. Meanwhile all the big groups are sleeping right now or just shitting the bed.

Koi Kat – Wake Up Call

This one’s not bad either if a bit cheesy and overdone with the stupid vocal improvs.

Eric – For You

Shit song and really so short it barely even qualifies to be here at all but just including it because Eric nearly slaps himself in the balls with a concrete bollard at 1:08, I would have paid to see that.

Kim Jaejoong – Rockstar

You could be listening to actual rock music instead of this posing crap, just saying.

eaJ – Merry go round

Why does he spend so much time on the floor in this video, I think that’s what a thot would do.

Yoon Jisung – Voyage

This guy goes to the beach, but does he get his top off, or at least get in the water? No, he shits on a fucking chair and sings a ballad. What a fail.

Kim Taewoo feat. Yang Jeongwan – Joker

Do it.

Gohi – Nirvana

I liked this guy a lot more when he was playing headless guitars in Vallinare and cropping out his ex-girlfriend on the bass.

Kim Hyerim – F5

Imagine fronting a rock band and singing a ballad. What a waste.

Jeong Hyobean – E-oh!

This song’s better but what I really like about it is how the girl isn’t even pretending to play the guitar in the bits where she’s obviously not playing guitar. We need this kind of honesty in Korean music.

Tabber – Hysteric Glamour

Some really godo sonic choices here wasted on a song that doesn’t do a lot with them. Oh well at least there’s abs so all those “we hate Kpopalypse because of all the objectification I promise… oh wait” people will secretly be happy. I won’t tell.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Rose is part of the Myers Briggs cult now, let’s pray she gets out soon

It’s amazing how a whole country believes in a bunch of psychobabble bullshit that was debunked in the 1980s, but I guess religion is really popular around the world too, so I guess humans are just hardwired to believe in lies. “Oh but it’s just fun…” yeah just wait. Cults are all fun and games until someone loses three relatives in a school shooting because somebody rolled the wrong personality type in an online survey and couldn’t handle it when the ENFPs rolled their eyes or whatever.

whenfinish – Is the kpop fandom REALLY this toxic? a video essay

Spoiler: yes.

Lee Junghyun – Suspicious Man

A pretty good song only ruined by too much hard-Autotune-reliance, but then that was the trend back then and far be it for k-pop to ever go against trends, someone’s brain might fucking explode.

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