It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Viviz just got the bag. Maybe we’ll see some new songs from them after all?
MAMAMOO – 4 Flowers
It’s not a bad song once it gets going, like a less copy-pasted version of “Starry Night” (that’s Mamamoo’s “Starry Night“, not the well-known Fifty Fifty song that you could be listening to right now if you wanted), but there’s no denying that the real star here is the wardrobe and styling department, with the music coming in a very distant second.
BABYMONSTER – Sugar Honey Ice Tea
It’s blatantly obvious that YG were absolutely aware of the SHIT acronym as the whole lyrical structure of the song is built around them avoiding that word. Mind you the song doesn’t deserve the insult, it’s actually the best Babymonster song so far. It’s decent in the chorus but let down by the occasional boring slow-down sections… certainly it’s not up there with Blackpink at their best but it’s good enough to not be shameful.
Izna – Metronome
It’s actually been a really good week for k-pop and Izna have a banger here. Aside from just being catchy and good, there’s some pretty cool sonics here that I haven’t heard done this well in k-pop for a while, or maybe ever.
ILLIT – Love, older you
Truly boring as fuck, and the weird “swanning around in white frilly clothes like little girls” vibe is definitely copying the worst side of Min Hee Jin’s proclivities. I half expected an AI-generated 13 year old Brooke Shields to turn up and complete the look.
BOYNEXTDOOR – Viral
I happened upon the video link a few hours before it went live. YouTube preview chats sure are a lot of fun, I recommend that you get involved.
I think skipping school was the problem. Anyway the content of the song clearly isn’t important to these people, so I’m not going to care about it too much either.
Sorn – Good Luck!
Sorn clearly can’t be fucked making videos for her better songs so this time she outsourced the heavy lifting to a bunch of her always-online friends. A shame as the song deserved more than this.
VVS – Bottles
Only two members of VVS on this track, which is kind of entertaining in its decrepitude. I mean you wouldn’t listen to it if you had a choice, or a life, or any common sense, or any taste, but for people like me without any of those things it’s a fun recreation of the American version of the same thing.
HEART OF WOMAN – Told U So
It’s great. For the people who asked, no I wouldn’t put this into the Christian Horse Girl music category due to its harmonic simplicity and reliance on a very modern synth sound to propel it, but it’s still cool. Heart Of Woman are right up there with H1-key in terms of song quality and consistency so far, I hope they can maintain it.
N.Flying – In Between Seasons
Meanwhile N.Flying are doing the Christian Horse Boy band thing. As I said in my post, it’s much easier to find boy groups than girl groups doing this sound these days.
Wanna One – Spring Breeze, Again
Just like a real spring breeze, it makes annoying sounds in your ears and it’s quickly forgettable as soon as it goes away.
Xodiac – Phantom Fire
It definitely is a phantom fire because there’s no actual fire in this song that anyone can detect.
Dok2 & LeeHi – Bonnie n Clyde 26’
LeeHi looks like she’s very attracted to everything about Dok2 except his rapping. Whenever he starts spitting some bars she’s always got this faraway look like “I love you and all that, but can we just get this bit where you pretend you’re badass or whatever over with quickly, nobody cares you know”.
Yu Baek Hap – Hands Up
My main takeaway from this video is that the AI slopticon knows how to use the Shure Super 55 microphone correctly, yet somehow the multimillion dollar corporation responsible for your biases’ videos does not. The age where AI has overtaken human intelligence has finally arrived.
Eric Nam – Miss Me More
A really good song. A shame about some of the gimmicky visuals that honestly look like shit (whoever had the idea of Eric Nam floating in his own lounge room needs to float the fuck off out of here), but apart from that we’re good.
U-Know – Tù y yo
Fucking awful. Someone send the guy who is suing everyone using a reggaeton beat because he thinks you can “own a beat” for some bullshit reason and ask him if he wants to expand his lawsuit to this song too.
MELONii – Gasso
A girl from Secret Number does a solo thing, and I guess the secret number is still 2.
XIA – Gravity
Xia does some stuff and it’s pretty okay I guess.
Yoon Sanha – No Reason
It’s nice that Korea is discovering rock again finally but maybe every single boy group member doing a song like this isn’t the best fit. Idols, you can join or make an actual proper band anytime. Latency paved the way.
Donghae feat. Tablo – Goodbye
Boring as all hell. We should make up some rumours about Tablo so he stops getting involved with music like this, maybe we can say he faked his Uni degree or something, I bet that’s never been done before. (Just kidding Tablo we love you really but this shit is ass lbr)
Bang Yongguk – If tomorrow never comes
If tomorrow never comes, I’ll be okay with that if it’s filled with music that sounds like this.
Lee Nalchi – Bird
“Birdemic: Shock and Terror” if it were a shit song instead of a shit film.
EZ – My Oppa
I was all ready to file this one for my next trot-based Nugu Alert but then I realised it had 200k views in a week. Who is listening to this? Show yourselves!
Izykite – Ee
Can this woman fuck off out of the office, we’re trying to get some work done here.
Izzyful – Endless Rain guitar cover (X Japan)
Just putting this here as the non-Korean feature even though it is kind of Korean because this guitar cover is good. Korea should try to rip off X Japan more, they’re seriously doing a subpar job of it so far and it’s not like they don’t have the talent, as this video demonstrates.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
KiiiKiii – KiiiKiii FesTiiival
A memo for readers that videos labelled “VCR” which are designed purely as concert pre/inter-song filler material are not eligible for roundups or end of year lists. However I thought it was worth throwing this one into the bonus videos category as it’s notable that k-pop writers often put some of their best ideas into these filler things. In this case there’s a really good beat and the bones of some catchy hooks here but of course nobody does anything with them because this is just filler, but if this lazy fuck-around track was fleshed out and properly written into a full song it could have easily been KiiiKiii’s best song so far.
Giselle (aespa) livestream 6 June 2026 – selected highlights
Giselle from aespa recently did a livestream where she basically said that being an idol is kind of fucked and damaging to your health and that her idol persona is all fake bullshit really, which is exactly the same thing that I write about. Of course it’s one thing when I say it, it hits different when some AAA-tier star echoes it, and I know it’s all common knowledge for us really but let’s never forget that common knowledge isn’t always that common and there’s always new people who need to learn this stuff. Anyway I threw together a highlight video for you all, because I wanted one to exist on YouTube with just the raw footage, no clickbait title, no stupid graphic overlays or overdubbed sound, no patronising wank telling you how to think (although I actually dig the home-appliance-drone noises in some of these clips, it definitely adds a certain something). The Internet is already a dumb place that treats you like a moron because that’s what gets clicks, Kpopalypse.com is a somewhere you can go to not be treated like a fucking stupid bitch and actually be credited with some intelligence level (for a change) and that’s why my site will never do the huge numbers of the big k-pop sites, I’m not willing to pander to the brainrot. Anyway enjoy this video or don’t in whatever manner you choose.
Lady – Attention
Since it’s still Pride Month here’s Lady, the first trans group in k-pop. They were only around for a brief time in the mid 2000s before disappearing due to a combination of transphobic backlash and various scandals that pissed off the Korean public, but I think they would have maybe had at least somewhat of a shot at longevity regardless had their music been any good.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
