It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Apparently Super Junior’s Heechul says some bad stuff but I can’t find a full unedited English transcript anywhere so I don’t even know what it’s about really, just boy group members being dicks as usual I guess. Whatever it was, for the most part Super Junior’s music will still always be the most problematic thing about them.
TripleS – Rising
We were all hoping for a Loona clone and instead we got a NewJeans clone, oh well. At least it’s reasonably melodic and actually sounds somewhat like a song. Yes the bar really is that low at the moment for girl groups.
Key – Killer
Key’s just been really good lately, first “Another Life” and now this. It can’t be coincidence because nobody else at SM is getting songs this good right now. It’s possible that Key might actually have music taste and is actually insisting on good songs. Imagine that.
PIMRYPIE feat. HYO – Party
Hyoyeon barely contributes at all to this garbage, and it’s so bad that I forgot what I was even going to write about it. At least there’s no crab claw for me to imagine being shoved up my ass against my will, I can’t say that about all Hyoyeon videos.
Raina – The Way We Were
The ex #1 Kpopalypse bias is looking great these days, and she’s finally getting screentime in her videos again, I might have to move her up a few places. No I’m not discussing the music because if you think music like this needs discussing you’re a thousand times more problematic and damaging to society than someone saying “gosh this attractive person is attractive”. Although I do dig the scene where she’s bouncing up and down on the bed as the guy plays a song on the acoustic guitar, judging by the joyful dancing he’s asking her to recreate her old Orange Caramel dances and not this ballad rubbish.
Seulgi – Anywhere But Home
“Special film” = “Some B-side filler garbage song we’re not going to spend money on, here’s a handycam just go and record whatever for a few hours and then we’ll spend ten minutes trying to edit it down into something vaguely resembling a music video”.
MONSTA X – It’s Alright
“Self cam” is pretty much the same thing. The agency is just like “we’re already in shitloads of debt, we’re not making it worse just for a fucking B-side, if you want your music video go and shoot your own”.
BEAUTYBOX – Favorite
I don’t even know these people but the girl with the lighter pink dress has M on one side and RS on the other. Clearly, she is a Kpopalypse reader, thanks for the shout out! As for the music it’s just generic girl group stuff until the chorus kicks in and then suddenly the background is taken over by some weird droning noise that sounds like it’s from a boss level of a Diablo game.
Jay Park – Yesterday
Yesterday / all my troubles seemed so far away / now it looks as though they’re here to stay / with this shit song called yesterday
Yang Yoseob – Again, goodbye
They stare on the beach at nothing in particular. They stare in traffic at nothing in particular. They stare on the floor at nothing in particular. There’s never a bad time in a Korean ballad for staring at nothing in particular.
W24 – Love Me (2022)
For some reason if I see an unplugged guitar or a drum set with no microphones in a music video, I’m like “it’s just a video”, but as soon as I see a keyboard that’s not plugged in I’m like “what a bunch of fake fucks”. I’m not sure why this is.
Vivid Slow feat. H3ATHR SUN – Waiting
The reason why I haven’t been keeping you in the loop on H3athr Sun stuff is because “Super Single Magician” appears to be a one off.
015B feat. Minjeong – Copenaghen
Actually a pretty decent semi-reggae-dance-whatever thing, even if Minjeong seems to be struck with indie voice disease.
Bryn – Fill Me Up
Bryn’s usually awful, like, really awful, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself digging this.
Bryn – Nowdays
The song she shot the video for the morning after is just her usual crap though.
Damduck – Time Machine
“Oh, all you have to do to get a good review on Kpopalypse is have guitars in your song” – that’s absolutely right. Problem, cunt?
The Deep – Sensitive Cat
She really thought that wig was so good that it was worthy of an entire music video. We needed less of this girl trying to be a cat, and more actual cat.
SOOVI feat. Dvwn – Missing You
Yeah, the ‘without you’ panel has more animals in it, just dump him.
Bikini Cactus – 2tails
Fucking nuts. Stick with it, this definitely goes places you won’t be expecting. Swapping styles doesn’t work that well for pure pop songs but it works a lot better here.
Bikini Cactus – OUT!
Their other song doesn’t make much sense either, but it’s not quite as good, oh well.
Woman Human – crispy, cream no sugar
Nice Lenny Kravitz production style but once you subtract it there’s not much of a song to be had. Just watch it for the completely bonkers guitar solo at 2:40.
INO – No
Another song where the instrumentalists are trying really fucking hard to lift up the boring song and it’s not quite enough. Full marks for effort though.
Genie You feat. Smew – Last Queen
Someone asked me about looper pedals on the latest livestream so that means it’s time for your weekly lesson in black music, because all Korean pop fans love black music, we know this because they tell us this all the time so it must be true. Reggie Watts didn’t invent the looper pedal but he’s the best person at using one that I’ve ever seen, so enjoy this performance where he does his usual looper pedal thing plus a whole bunch of other stuff which I won’t spoil for you. It’s worth watching all of this shit, trust me.
Jung Chae Won – Billies Bounce
But if you want to see a Korean use looper pedals instead because you’re racist and you only like it when Koreans do things and not anybody else, then here you go. Never let it be said that I don’t cater to everyone.
Haneol – Earphone
What’s with the disorienting camera angles here, someone’s been watching too much Battlefield Earth.
Park Jin – What’s Happening
Your weekly disturbing trot song with a cringe overacted video, enjoy this because the next Nugu Alert is coming very soon and it will have a ton of these.
MSG Wannabe (M.O.M) – Confessing my love
I don’t know what’s going on here with the massively overblown drama video, but the song sucks so whatever I guess.
GPS feat. SC4F, Louie – Everyday
Incredibly, music like this still gets made from time to time by humans on this earth.
MAN1AC X BigGee – FAKAZ
Imagine waving around one of those NFT apes in a rap video like it’s a sports car or some jewels or something. I guess it’s different – usually rappers are showing off how they’re rich, not how they just got scammed like the bunch of losers that they are.
Im Chang Jung – I’m a fool
Isn’t this the guy who sold off half his song catalogue so he could launch mimiirose? You’re not a fool, you did good, because we’d rather hear a new song from them than this.
Rockit GIrl – Crazy Love
Kpopalypse would just like to declare a small victory in the war against people using microphones the wrong way. When Rockit Girl dropped a video a month ago I left a comment saying Leeseul wasn’t singing into the correct part of it, and clearly they listened because they’ve fixed the issue here. Stan Rockit Girl. Now, where’s SM Entertainment’s video director, I’d like a word…
MIDDLING JAPANESE LANGUAGE COMEBACK DUMPING GROUND SECTION
NCT DREAM – Best Friend Ever
Many years ago it used to be the Japanese market where k-pop groups would experiment a bit. Not anymore – these days Korean boy groups sound like someone trying to do Morse code with an air raid siren, but when it comes to the Japanese market they all play it pretty safe and melodic. The results aren’t bad but they’re also not going to set the world on fire.
Stray Kids – The Sound
Same situation here. There’s nothing terribly wrong with this song but there’s nothing all that great about it either.
CLASS:y – Target
Girl groups aren’t exempt from the “play the Japanese comeback safe because we can’t risk the bucks” trend.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Chujung – Korea bounce style mix
There’s definitely lots of bounce in this mix, thanks to the caonima who sent this in. Only the best DJs wear headphones about 5% of the time while dancing 100% of the time. People who criticise those who look good for not having talent only do it because looking good is a talent that they don’t have.
Yoyomi’s incredible guitar skills
If you thought that DJing was good, check out this guitar playing as Yoyomi shreds it up with her incredible fretboard skills. Seriously though I’m available for guitar lessons if she’d like to at least know how to form chords properly for the next one of these that she does.
Apink – Hush
I didn’t mind this song when it came out and it’s stood the test of time fairly well, even if the descending “hush hush hush hush” vocal line is the worst thing about it and I can barely figure out who half of these girls even are. It’s pretty amazing that Apink have been around for a decade now given how quickly most k-pop girl groups get thrown to the curb thanks to Korea’s creepy youth obsession, and it’s probably just as well Apink have stuck around too because everyone’s favourite yearly video list needs a consistent winner.
