It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
We’re going to have so many nominees for 2026’s cross-cultural sensitivity awards that we might need two posts to fit them all in! RIIZE’s Eunseok is the latest person to offend people in neighbouring countries.
ITZY – Motto
Lily from NMIXX put her foot down and said “no more AI” so JYP has to give Itzy all the crappy AI-gen-slop-infused videos now. No wonder Itzy are stuck in the trailer park while NMIXX are making bank.
FIFTY FIFTY – Starstruck
Fifty Fifty try for something more “modern” but this type of sound is actually pretty old-hat in 2026. It doesn’t quite fit together for them either, the vocals are far too “nice” for the backings. Oh well, if you don’t like it you could go and listen to “Starry Night” instead if you wanted, that’s an alright song.
Taeyong – Wyld
Taeyong will ship that mascara express direct to your house if you buy it from his Ebay page, only for you to open the box and find out he shipped you a photograph of a mascara stick.
Taeyang – Live Fast Die Slow
Yea we are dying pretty slowly here with this boring shit. People would probably expect me to like this but while the general feel is good the songwriting is the problem. Nothing to see here.
ZEROBASEONE – TOP 5
And here’s a song that you’d probably expect me to not like but I actually think it kind of works. The beat and the second-gen style melodic focus saves it.
Wanna One – We Wanna Go
I wanna go away from this song.
WOOAH – WXW (Wish With W)
When Wooah dumped the exclamation mark from their group name, the excitement in their music swiftly followed. This new song has serious “for the fans nostalgia” vibes, the agency are definitely prepping fans in advance for their upcoming disbandment.
Jay Park & LNGSHOT – Yeah Yeah
Go buy my girlfriend some soju, yeah yeah. She likes yoghurt flavour thanks Jay, yeah yeah.
Billlie – Off-Air
“All instruments and vocals performed and recorded live on location.” And then touched up later but we’ll ignore that part. Anyway this is boring and it’s no Billlie fan’s favourite song.
Kana Nishino feat. NiziU – Love Beat
It isn’t terrible like most Niziu crap but absolutely nothing here can hide how the girls just don’t give a damn. Although it’s considerate that the agency gave them a chorus dance they can do while deadpanning straight to camera. These girls are so over it.
VVS – Dash
Apparently there’s an Australian in this group that I’m supposed to support but nobody yells out “oi, cunt” in this song so I have no idea who it is. Pity as that might have woken me up from this R&B snoozeathon.
YOUNITE – Pose!
Disco bollocks that sensible listeners won’t care about.
ChaDongHyeop – Doogeundae
Hey this is good and has the kind of songwriting that k-pop could use a little more of. Or maybe it just feels like a shot in the arm because so much of everything else is boring this week.
FLARE U – Way 2 U
FNC debut a new boy group because they have no idea what the people want evidently. However at least this isn’t some hip-hop bullshit, my god I sound like Eunice hahaha…
AMPERS&ONE – What You Talking About
This however IS some hip-hop bullshit. It’s not bad bullshit by k-pop standards as it happens but you’re not exactly going to burn your Wu-Tang records.
MONSTA X – Burning Up
The cheapest, shittiest type of “for the fans” video is the one where they’re not even singing the song that you’re hearing and they make no effort at all to even make it look like they are by trying to sync mouth gestures or whatever.
82MAJOR – Circles
I’ve been rambling a lot and not saying much about the songs this week but it’s not my fault that your bias makes boring music that’s not worth writing about.
NOWZ – Us
What in the AI asscrack is this.
CATCH THE YOUNG – Sail
Some soft-rock nonsense that nobody under retirement age should be listening to. They should change their name to Catch The Pension.
CrazAngel – Picasso
It seems okay but it sounds weirder the more you listen. There’s definitely a few places where the melodies and the harmonies don’t quite line up and you’ll notice something’s “off” after a while. I’m fairly sure that’s not some meta-concept to do with the song title but just a fuck-up here and there that nobody could be bothered fixing.
COMMA – Radical
This song has a “visual film” to go with it, as opposed to all those “non-visual films” that you’ve all been enjoying lately.
Wave to Earth – Heaven and Hell
Some better than usual instrumentation helps this song out, but I’d just as soon not listen to it.
Seeya – Stay
The best song from the Seeya revival yet, thanks to having a bit of a pulse.
Taeyong – Storm
Taeyong will sell you one of these rocks from his video set on his Ebay page but when you open the package it’s not a rock from his video set it’s a piece of packing styrofoam painted dark grey.
Mingi – Dinero
I think I’ll take my dineros and spend them elsewhere.
Park Jinyoung – Everlove
No it’s not THAT Park Jinyoung. A pity because some plastic pants would have maybe livened this up, or at least forced me to remember it into next week.
Yaochen – Check Yaoself
Now that is one horrible dad-pun of a song title. Let’s not review this as punishment.
Yaochen – Hold On
His other song can get fucked too.
Yeeun – Scent of Memories
Got quite a shock when I loaded this up on my livestream and expected some dogshit ballad but turns out it’s actually a semi-acceptable piece of music from the ex-CLC member. Maybe it’ll motivate Sorn to stop messing around on socials and put another song out one day.
Balming Tiger – Gojingamrae
I’m not really into this but it does somewhat resemble an actual song and that’s something a bit different for Balming Tiger who usually just bang on a tin can and yelp a bit and call it a day.
HYNN – Title Role
I don’t like this much but it’s probably one of the better Hynn songs just because she doesn’t both look and sound like she wants to kill herself.
Sohyang feat. Vincent Blue – I Pray For Your Eternity
This is the kind of song that Eunice hoped she would get to do but instead she had to do [redacted for spoilers] and when she finally did get a song like this it was [redacted for more spoilers]. By the way if you get annoyed by all my book references because you just think I’m trying to sell books, this isn’t true, I actually refer to my books to annoy you, selling more of them is just an unintended by-product. If missing out really bothers you and you don’t want to give me money because I’m problematic, you can read the books I write for free at your local library if it has Libby ordering system, you know. So no need to give a cunt like me your $5 for an ebook, just ask them to order it in, they’ll do it if they know what’s good for them because if not I’ll send Shian over. Sorry for rambling but anything’s better than talking about another Sohyang song.
Simon Dominic – Simon Says
They warned me at the start of the song that the beat was about to drop and I listened to the whole thing and I’m still waiting for it.
Simon Dominic feat. Masta Wu – Neukkyuh
This other song is even more boring. Let’s stop doing roundup before I fall asleep and end up releasing it 8 hours behind schedule.
Ban Ga-Hee – Me, Having Lost Love
But wait, this trot ballad is actually awesome. It’s so deep into its own melodrama that it kind of wraps around and becomes hardcore again. She sings so hard I was afraid she was going to burst a neck artery. If she was filling in for Iron Madien (and she could) that might be the motivation I need to buy a ticket for their overpriced concert later this year.
IF YOU WANNA KPOP, EVERY WANNA KPOP SECTION
Anna Cheng – I H8 U
I don’t know if Anna Cheng is a k-pop, but she clearly wants to be, so in the spirit of Chad Future she can go in here. Song’s quite nice actually.
Olivia Marsh – Roll
Is Olivia Marsh a k-pop? The debate rages on but k-pop fans like TC Candler consider her relevant enough to drool all over her comments section, so that tips me towards yes. He clearly stans so I guess you’re seeing Olivia on his next list.
Trisha Paytas – Saranghae (I Love You)
This Trisha girl is a k-pop now, apparently. I don’t really know who she is, but apparently she’s well known or something. I will calmly accept. Also, best body in k-pop hands down.
Cateek – Never Gonna Give You Up
This week’s actual non-Korean video is Cateek, or as a reader put it, “Temu Eunha”. Hey in the absence of actual Eunha doing jack shit, I’ll take it.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
aespa 에스파 ‘WDA (Whole Different Animal) (Feat. G-DRAGON)’ but the beat is actually good
Longtime Kpopalypse reader, aespa stan and BADING musical genius Annie decided to take on board my commentary from last week and fix the main problem with aespa’s “WDA”, so I synced it up to the video for her. And you. It’s actually a pretty good song now, enjoy.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
