Kpopalypse’s clearing house roundup post for 2024 – part 1 of 2 – new songs

15 hours ago 2

Welcome to the first part of Kpopalypse’s clearing house roundup of 2024! Here we’ll be looking at new songs that missed roundups during the December hiatus! Let’s take a look!

This post is cherry-picking the last new stuff of the year, leaving out a lot of things that just weren’t that interesting. Anything that comes out after now is eligible for 2025 lists instead. There’s a lot of stuff so I’ve divided this post into two halves so your browser has a chance of loading it. This post has all the new shit, the second post will have a bunch of the shit from earlier in the year that I missed.

Stray Kids – Walkin On Water

Not the worst thing in the world because at least the beat slams, but there are no good raps or good melodies here.

BABYMONSTER – Love In My Heart

Someone at YG realised that Babymonster’s comebacks so far have all been a hot mess and is now pushing them in the “Lovesick Girls” direction because “hey we’re all out of ideas and this worked for our last big girl group so fuck it, why not try it”. The result isn’t actually bad, but it’s not great either because the melody writing isn’t to the same standard, mind you it’s still Babymonster’s best song by a mile.

KARD – Detox

Just KARD doing KARD things, highly uninteresting.

Miyeon – Sky Walking

Miyeon doesn’t have much of a song, I guess her fans won’t care because nobody’s into Miyeon for the music, but everyone else will just skip this.

ATEEZ – Enough

Enough indeed.

Alexa – Under The Armor

Actually not a new comeback but something that was recorded years ago and is only seeing the light of day now for unknown reasons. Alexa is apparently just as confused about this as the rest of us, and had no idea about it even coming out. Nothing new under the sun though, Alexa’s just the latest victim – the history of agencies blindsiding their artists in weird ways is as old as recorded music history itself.

Hyunjin – So Good

Pretty uninteresting stuff, unless you like Hyunjin’s midriff in which case you’re fairly well catered to here.

Hyunjin – Thank You

The other Hyunjin doesn’t have much of a song either but this might be the last you hear of the Loossemble channel so enjoy it while you can I guess. Mind you they might do what Alexa’s label has been doing and just milk stuff from the vault for a few years who knows.

Felix – Unfair

More Stray Kids solos, I guess we’re going to have to put up with these from each band member but given the quality here I’m not sure if I could even be fucked writing about them all.

Han – Hold my hand

Yawn, Han’s song is okay I guess? Not great though.

I.N – Hallucination

Yeah I should have just skipped these.

Seungmin – As We Are

Yawn, so boring. I’m not reviewing any more of these fuck it. At least it mrcs

Mark feat. Lee Youngji – Fraktsiya

As usual, when Youngji raps she completely shames anyone who she’s on a track with. Mark, just go home.

ONEW – YAY

To his credit, Onew’s solo comebacks are always something a little different. Different doesn’t always mean something I want to listen to though.

Henry – Hypnotized

Wait, someone playing a violin in a Henry video, and it’s not Henry himself? What happened to the days when they made him dance inside a box that was the shape of the inside of a violin? Shameful, bring back Henry violin dance concept.

BIBI feat. Dean – Burn It

They’re only using 30% of the screen space so here’s 30% of a review. Neither Bibi nor Dean have ever had

&TEAM – Yukiakari

Just another boring HYBE comeback, hey why don’t I use this space to tell you that isn’t it interesting how HYBE has allegedly made an acquisition deal with the same PR team that’s been responsible for manufacturing negative online opinion of Blake Lively, with personnel who were also involved in character assassination of Amber Heard. Question everything you see in the media and on social networking about everyone, people, and that includes the stuff you agree with. Half of your “friends” are being manipulated into spreading falsehoods, and it’s only going to get worse. That thing you do on April 1st where you double and triple check everything to make sure it’s real, you should be adopting an April 1st fact-checking attitude to every single thing you see online every day of the year.

ENHYPEN – Daydream

Why do they whisper 80% of this song? Are they ashamed of how it sounds? They probably should be, so this is maybe quite smart actually.

YOUNITE – Taste

Okay due to having a bit of tempo to it but I’m not going to remember anything about this song’s existence in a week. It really has been a year of middling boy group comebacks, you won’t see many of them on the favourites list OR the worst list this year.

UNIVERSE LEAGUE – Ignition

Some dicksucking new TV show thing, the usual cheesy nonsense.

UNIVERSE LEAGUE – Prison

This is a better song and the song title seems apt too. Maybe they penned this one themselves about what it’s like to join one of these things.

UNIVERSE LEAGUE – Mamma Mia (Who We Are)

Here’s the third one and I have nothing to say about it, just putting it here so people don’t go “you missed the third one”.

SEVENUS – SLOMO

It’s pretty fuckin’ slomo I guess.

8TURN – Like a Friend

I was waiting for another “street harassment” concept but the boys just decide to sing a mediocre song about her instead and otherwise leave her alone. I suppose there are worse fates one could be subjected to.

Kei – Winter Garden

This is Kei? From Lovelyz? Really? Holy shit what the fuck happened.

ONE OR EIGHT with Big Sean – Kawasaki

Not the first OR the worst rap song called “Kawasaki” in Korea, believe it or not, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good either.

L5ST – Free Fall

I didn’t mind this song from Lfivest, I guess.

KISSXS – Mermaid

It’s vaguely tropical but it’s not. It’s also not very good.

Yohan Kim – Whiplash

Terrifying. SM prove yet again they they fundamentally don’t understand what makes music even work, and that when they get a banger it’s just pure luck plus someone from the outside insisting that they do the right thing for a change.

Seoul Magic Club – CC

Seoul Magic Club had a couple songs out this week but I’ll just put the better one here or nobody will be able to load this post what with all the damn embedded videos in it. AS it is, I had to split this post into two parts. It’s not a bad song at all.

Frankie DaPonte – Birthday

It’s true that just about every ex-member of a group ever gets a solo project these days, that’s why roundup is so clogged with music you don’t care about week after week and I have to ditch most of it without even reviewing it. However I thought you’d like to know that the beard-guy from EXP Edition is still doing something or other. Actually you probably didn’t want to know that, but now you do, enjoy your cursed knowledge for today.

Shannon Bae – You Too? Me Too!

Speaking of awful comebacks you defintiely didn’t want, here’s an ex-Pristin member doing a thing and it’s really, really bad. Enjoy, or not.

JoFoxGirls – GangSister

I don’t know what this is, there’s surely a backstory here I’m not in on, but then the music is poop so I don’t think I care too much.

EPIC TRAVELS (EPTS) – Burnt Out Cake

This is pretty silly and low budget, but I didn’t hate it.

Balming Tiger – Cunning City

As usual, Balming Tiger have cool sounds and no song at all. They need Alice Longyu Gao to come back and organise their shit for them.

Song Sun – Trouble Me

Not that exciting, definitely a skip, but at least she has something to do after TRI.BE. Mystifyingly, tons of you insisted that I cover this on the end of year survey even though I’d picked it up anyway before I checked the responses. A lot of fuss over an extremely middling song.

The Deep – Sad Girls Club

Wow, definitely the best song The Deep has ever been involved with, I didn’t mind this at all. Sure it goes a bit smooth in the chorus when it should be keeping it harsh but hey, definitely an improvement over her usual thing so I’m not going to be too fussy this time around.