It’s time for Kpopalypse Nugu Alert to make a comeback! Let’s take a look at some more nugus for 2024!
It’s getting close to the end of the year, which means it’s time to consider what songs might be on the Kpopalypse favourites list. So I thought it was a good time to bring back the Nugu Alert series and showcase some songs that I thought were really quite decent in 2024, by people you’ve probably not heard of. There’s no special theme tying these songs together other than that I thought they were definitely better than average and deserve some recognition. Let’s get into it!
Usual Kpopalypse Nugu Alert rules apply:
Less than 20,000 5,000 views across official channels, we are not in it for the clicks and engagement, fuck that – Kpopalypse Nugu Alert is for the hardcore nugu lovers (and aspiring hardcore nugu lovers) only
Unlikely to be invited to give a keynote speech to the Korean Labor Ministry
Relevant to Kpopalypse
Let’s take a look!
YUL2 – Starry Night
Why don’t we do the unthinkable and start off this episode of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert with a ballad? Yes that’s right, I found a good ballad, it’s romantic and cheesy, and has a great video, and high notes, and all that other shit that ballad-loving weirdos like, except that this one doesn’t suck, so maybe those people will randomly hate this one, who knows. As for the rest of us, know that Yul2 has been in roundup before but she’s never been this good, and the song kicks into high gear at around the two minute mark, dumping the usual slow ballad pace and double-timing the beat, a very welcome development. There’s also a reasonably impressive drama video to go along with it and I can’t quite catch onto the story but I think the girl has maybe gone crazy, or is having an affair, or maybe both. Enjoy the domestic friction fun, but if drama videos aren’t your thing here’s a “live” video for you:
Okay, it’s about as live as the fish I just had for dinner but hey, if ‘fake live’ is good enough for your faves it’s good enough for Kpopalypse Nugu Alert!
YouTube views at the time of writing: 249 (but another 4694 on the Bugs reupload)
Notable attribute: I had to do a double-take at 3:22 because the Roman numerals were fucked so I thought it was fucking AI again but no, they just hung the clock upside down for no reason
Nugu Alert Rating: high
Woona – Love Rider
Woona are a band that has an early Gfriend rock sound to rival QWER, with fast tempo, lots of melody, some cool instrumental playing and even some pretty hot soloing. The girl in the video isn’t in the group, and I’m not entirely sure what the drama video is supposed to entail with its random running around, I guess she’s supposed to be either cupid or an angel delivering a love letter nobody seems to want for some reason. Anyway whatever, you’ll get over the video’s drab shaky-cam and general cheapness when you hear the song, but if you’d really like a better video you could go with their “band clip” version:
Honestly I don’t know why they didn’t just stick with the very polished band clip as the official video and turf the other thing but hey, at least we know the girl in the video likes girls.
YouTube views at the time of writing: 1816
Notable attribute: at 2:58 the girl is using the same model of Microsoft SurfacePro that NewJeans have in their well-known ASMR video, maybe it’s not a love letter after all but HYBE corporate secrets
Nugu Alert Rating: high
Celestial Squad – Way out
Celestial Squad are similar in style to Woona musically but kick things up a notch higher with some very good production style and a song which rocks in a way that the J-rock it’s imitating definitely struggles with. The video is nothing much more than a dance video but the clothes and especially the Top Gun-inspired group logo is nice, now that’s something very few k-pop groups across the board gets right is a good logo that works on a T-shirt, the heavy metal world sure could teach the k-pop world a thing or two about that.
I also found a live stage version of this song, so feel free to have that also, and since we’re putting in bonus content where we can, why not have a fancam too:
Only two of them here, I guess one of on hiatus maybe. As you can see there’s not that many people in the audience, but there should be, because this rocks.
YouTube views at the time of writing: 1111
Notable attribute: the Kriss Vector shaped bubble gun in the intro should please American gun-nerd readers, enjoy Celestial Squad blowing 1200 bubbles per minute with no recoil due to the Kriss Vector bubble gun’s recoil mitigation system
Nugu Alert Rating: very high
Mayliz – Tonight
Onto a different style now, and here we have a song with a semi-trot disco type of sound that was in vogue more around the 1st/2nd generation k-pop era. The song is an absolute banger and the old school sound makes me wonder if it’s a cover. I have no idea who wrote this but I do know that Mayliz do fine at it, and whoever arranged those keys did pretty well for such an improverished production. The video is a bit of fun too with a typical aspirational “becoming a k-pop for real” type of theme that’s pretty common around nugu girl group parts even if the camera spends half the time focusing on the concrete for some reason. Oh and check out this teaser:
Not a filter was spared.
YouTube views at the time of writing: 35 (plus another 436 on their agency’s reupload)
Notable attribute: half of the “k-pop idol” posters in the intro are upside-down – why? Is it to negate the hype? K-pop “dark side” symbolism? A satanic rite? Maybe all three?
Nugu Alert Rating: extreme
That’s all for this episode of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert – the series will return!
