It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Nobody really knows yet why someone attacked the front door of the YG building with a golf club the other day. Some people say it has something to do with Blackpink’s 10th anniversary and the lack of promotions for it, but I just think golfers are a menace and this is normal behaviour for them. Sportball – not even once.
Aespa feat. Ty Dolla $ign – Switchblade
Actually a damn good song, harking back to the peak aespa of a couple years ago… that is, until Ty Dolla Sign appears and the entire music switches up to something way more boring and pedestrian to accommodate him. He would have probably fit in great if they just kept the beat the way it was at the start but I guess today’s weak rappers are too pussy-ass to rap over anything fast and gotta slow everything down to geriatric speed so they can remember the next line of lyrics in time before the beat catches up. So Solid Crew would never. I guess k-pop songs are so short these days that you can just turn it off at the two minute mark and pretend that’s the whole song and nobody would know any different.
KiiiKiii – Pop Off Pop Off
KiiiKiii are entering their “actually getting good reviews on Kpopalypse.com” era. Of course they couldn’t do it alone, their new album is a who’s-who of independent Korean producers who mostly don’t suck. Hey notice how the pace of this song stays consistent all the way through, hmmm, there’s a lesson there folks.
KISS OF LIFE – Sweat
Another new song ruined by a truly pointless slow-as-shit breakdown, except that this song wasn’t really ruined all that much because the faster bits didn’t sound any good anyway.
Stray Kids – This & That
Not a bad track but it’s sadly saddled with a concept that sounds like it’s straight off a Wiggles record. I guess there’s big money in children’s music and it’s tough times in this economy so I can’t be too harsh. Cover of “Big Red Car” soon?
Dayoung, Jay Park – Flirty
I’m not sure if any of us (except maybe Dayoung herself, who actually seems like she’s into this) really want to see Jay sleazing onto his latest crush in full view of the cameras. Hey I’m happy for you Jay but we really don’t want to watch you make your moves, your OnlyFans was enough information for us.
ARTMS – Blue Blood
An agreeably fast pace but sadly lacking the big melodic hook it deserves, this is still pretty good and it’s a grower. Also I think that ARTMS are this generation’s T-ara as in “that group with the utterly unwatchable music videos that will burn your retinas right out and give you cataracts after three minutes of exposure”.
tripleS Moon – Dream Dress
A modelling shoot disguised as a music video, for an album filler track disguised as a feature.
TUIDE – GRLS
Given that NewJeans can barely contain their rage long enough to get through a short promo video shoot let alone any actual music, Le Sserafim are getting harder to handle because Sakura is demanding that the label actually give the girls human rights from time to time, and Illit are… well, Illit, HYBE have decided that they’d better have another girl group ready to go. The result has been so rush-released that they didn’t even have time to fill in the textures on the CGI walls, decide on colours for the girls’ shirts or replace the lame NewJeansified beat with a sound that’s actually relevant.
WAYF BOYS – WAYF BOYS DO
Basically Cortis but maybe 10% less shit.
NOWZ – Achille
Hey this is pretty good. The falsetto voice that cuts in and out is a bit of a mistake (decide on a pitch range, guys) but other than that we’re in reasonably decent disco bollocks territory.
NEXZ – Can’t Hide
This strings ballad is ass though.
NEXZ – Hands up, Yo!
And this is balls.
AEN – X to Z
Boring ass song until it hits the chorus and it gets better then, there’s actually something at that point which is worth listening to. I also like the leather jackets, although I don’t know these boys’ ages so you might want to check that on some lame clickbait profile site before you go voting for them in the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey which is open right now, CLICK HERE to vote for your favourite men and women of k-pop!
WHIB – Cherry Pie
It’s about cherry pies! And nothing else! You know, just like that song by Warrant, and that other song by Teen Top, and that other one by Insane Clown Posse, and every other song called “Cherry Pie” that is definitely only about food.
WayV – Vision Wings
SM’s mid Chinese boy group (or whatever WayV are) gives me nostalgia vibes here because it harks back to a long tradition of mid Chinese SM projects from way back.
8TURN – 8PM
The p-funk synth sound creeping into k-pop gives me weird vibes because that sound ruined a lot of early 90s hip-hop, or so we thought, because 30 years later hip-hop is so shit that even the “soft” stuff from the 90s sounds hard as a rock. So I’m not sure whether to be happy or terrified by this.
TRENDZ – Which Way Is Love?
Actually a pretty good Christian horse boy song, now where’s Gfriend to do this properly.
CIUU – Closer
This band’s group name is a fail because when I glance at it without reading it properly I always think it says “Chuu” for a split second and then I wonder what I’m even fucking doing writing these roundups when I could just be listening to Chuu songs.
Hi-Fi Un!corn – Telescope
Look, they rebuilt Stonehenge on a mountain just so some shit k-pop boy group could play a song inside it. No wonder the druids smashed up the stones in the first place, they were trying to warn us.
Yeojin – Two Halves
I’ve never seen anyone in k-pop so obviously ready to randomly murder as Yeojin. I dare not say anything bad about this rubbish sitting-on-chairs ballad or Yeojin will turn up at my house with a samurai sword and then I’ll find out what she means by “two halves” when she splits my torso right down the middle and my guts fall out with geometric precision like one of those Japanese horror-porn computer games. They’ve dressed her in a nice yellow dress here and she even smiles for 0.5 seconds right at the end but nobody is fooled.
Alice Syndrome – Play Girl
Not such a great song from Alice Syndrome this time, but that’s okay I’ll settle for just one life-changing banger from this group per year. Anyway this group makes me want a Guild Surfliner Deluxe guitar, even though they look like the most impractical things ever they also look cool as fuck.
VROWN – Itsy Bitsy (Fettucine)
A weak funk-style remix of Vrown’s song from the other week, which kills all the charm of the original stone dead.
Eric Nam – Someday
Eric Nam has actually been pretty good lately, but I think this is a bit pedestrian and old-farts-ville even for an old crusty cunt like me.
DPR IAN – No Mercy
OSTs generally are not eligible for roundup and neither is this one but just putting this here so you know that I noticed it and it kind of rocks actually, which most OSTs definitely don’t do.
Young K – Marionette
Not bad as far as solo songs go, although I was waiting for him to walk in front of one of those laser lights and find out they had the beam up too high and get his hand chopped off by accident or something.
Seo Eunkwang feat. Peniel – Feel Alive
This awful Christian crap is pretty funny just because the audience really aren’t sure how “into it” they’re supposed to be. What if they enjoy the music too much and it becomes sinful because of all the pleasure? Be careful, wouldn’t want to accidentally go to hell now!
CODA BRIDGE – Summer Music
I don’t know why there’s an awful “3d glasses” effect over half of this video, but what’s more notable about this is how little views it has for something so Waterbomb-friendly. Hey the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey is open right now, CLICK HERE to vote for your favourite men and women of k-pop!
Eric Reprid – No Friends In Heaven
He’s not really k-pop, is he, so Eric can be the non k-pop feature of the week. Just to teach you that sometimes a switch-up in a song two thirds of the way through IS good. Eric is stunningly self-aware in a way that actual k-pop sorely lacks. Bump this one for all the kids out there who need moral guidance.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Whoever made this slop video probably just watched a bunch of artists, read a few articles and did some guesstimation based on what the end result of the music videos looks like and the ‘vibes’ they got – or more likely, got an AI to do it for them. Throw a few easily-searchable facts into the mix about the different companies (JYP cares about you not blowing your image, YG is more “cool”, FNC might want you to pick up an instrument if you’re a boy ahem) and you have this bait video for young people to waste ten years of their life with. Here’s my own advice if you’re “11-15 & want to Choose K-pop Company for Online Auditions” – forget about it, practice your craft and then start your own group instead, or explore whatever other avenue of music you wish. Your chances of success are equally shit or maybe even worse, but at least you’ll have some control over what you do and you can achieve that important work-life balance. As Giselle says, “health is wealth”.
Another cute video although this one has evidence of humans actually being involved in it. A lot of this is actually pretty accurate, fairly nuanced and honestly just common sense (labels do take more financial risks than idols, for instance – I’ve often said myself on this site “if you think trainee debt is bad, wait until you see company debt”) but context is important: this video also skews the narrative by focusing on those big idols at the top of the tree to paint its picture and ignores that that’s only the 0.1% and that everyone else underneath them is just getting fucked. Even if you’re not the victim of severe misconduct, you’re still in a very bad situation just as the baseline. There is almost no “middle-class” of idols, you are either the 0.1% who are stanking rich or you are the 99.9% putting in the same amount of work and earning less than the delivery drivers sending your CEO all those toilet paper rolls.
Click-B – Dreaming
Click-B had some decent songs, remember that their main songwriter also penned some of the better Berry Good tracks just before he passed away, and this one isn’t too bad at all. The problem here is the production quality, everything sounds really indistinct, a common flaw of almost all k-pop from the first generation when they were still learning how to produce things. Part of that is just the video transfer being total ass but not completely – even a studio audio capture has weird artifacts like the vocals nearly vanishing in the verses. This is partly why we didn’t have a Hallyu Wave back then (the other reason is CSJH The Grace, just throwing that out there for that one person on TikTok who malds every time I mention them – I see you, you are acknowledged, ty for your support uwu).
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week! In the meantime don’t forget that the latest Kpopalypse Objectification survey is now live and accepting votes! Don’t forget to vote – do it for [insert your bias here]! Stay safe, caonimas!
