It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Here’s Yechan from ChoCo 1 x ChoCo 2, giving us a look at his pretty painted nails. I guess this is how he shows them off to his neighbours.
BLACKPINK – Go
Some elements here really work, like the semi-dubstepian chorus and that slow strings breakdown two thirds of the way through, and the rest of it really fucking doesn’t. It’s as messy musically as the AI slop video is visually.
NMIXX feat. Pabllo Vittar – Tic Tic
K-pop has come pretty far in terms of LGBT acceptance over this past year which is great, but there’s not much here musically of interest to talk about in this song except that the “tic tic” chorus is kind of annoying actually so instead I’ll just let you know that in case you missed it, my new book Girls909 is now available for pre-order, click here for more info and there’s no particular reason why I’m using this review to mention it. It’s a lovely book about a nice Christian girl called Eunice who auditions for a Korean elimination variety show group recruitment thing, and the wonderful adventures she goes on. Full of lovely warm heartfelt moments. I’m not fooling any of you, am I. This book is not appropriate for children. It’s not appropriate for most adults either. You probably shouldn’t read it if you’re easily triggered by anything at all. Perhaps forget I even mentioned it. Nice day isn’t it. Hey doesn’t that NMIXX and Pabllo stage look great, yes it does. La de da, nothing to see here.
WJSN – Bloom Hour
After a pathetic start, this song suddenly gets good at the first chorus and then remains good for the rest of the running length. Not sure who thought making the first minute or so of music suck balls was a good marketing strategy, but you can just skip that part I guess.
Gaeul – Odd
It’s not too bad I suppose as a quick distraction before the next IVE song, but I don’t think I’ll be listening to it in a week.
AtHeart – Shut Up
Not amazing but definitely the best song from AtHeart since “Good Girl“, the harmony and melodic choice reminded me of Alizee of all things.
RESCENE – Busy Boy
The problem with this office fashion is that although it does look good, the lanyards don’t have breakpoints in the middle of the strap, which means that if you’re very careless you can get caught by a closing lift door and strangled to death. Let’s keep our k-pop fashion OH&S compliant, folks.
Sysnake – Arena
This sounds pretty much like every other Synsnake song, so pretty good in other words, even if it’s not exactly my favourite genre of metal.
Lee Youngji – Robot
It’s NewJeansification for everyone. And you thought Ailee sounded awkward doing this style. Definitely not playing to Youngji’s strengths here.
ONEPACT – Sane
Ugly AI slop sadly distracts from a song that actually has some cool ideas and change-ups that actually work well in context. It sounds okay, just try not to look.
QQQ – Uncool
OnlyOneOf members still at it with the subtle BGP. It’s good to know that in this crazy ever-changing world we can still rely on some things to always be there for us.
DAILY:DIRECTION – Roombadoomba
Oh my god what is this musical poop and why did they feel the need to cram in a Blackpinkian amount of AI slop. That’s going to sadly be Blackpink’s new legacy in the late 2020s, not music.
ASC2NT – Still Rose
Hey this is great! Just really simple and good. Sure it’s not exactly innovative but I’ll take a solid good song that doesn’t change music as we know it over some weird-ass bullshit that doesn’t work.
CHASER – Invincible
Calling your group “Chaser” is a good way to market yourselves to second-gen boy group k-pop fans I guess, but the song lacks something to really seal the deal on that promise.
BAE173 – Always, Stood Still
Pocketdol’s Temu-NCT group are still at it, and this isn’t going to win them any new fans, or even keep many of the fans they’ve got.
ChoCo 1 x ChoCo 2 – Gimme
All my neighbours want to know what I think of the rapping in this song, but it’s actually that annoying pitch-bendy “gimmegimmegimmegimme” chorus hook that I find to be problematic.
Wendy, Alec Benjamin – Emotions
They used some disastrous looking AI slop video for this instead of Wendy probably because they were worried that she might start doing impressions of her neighbours.
SAVVVY – Skidding
I don’t mind the song because the rhythms are actually good and different for k-pop but I’m not sure what’s going on with the vocals because there’s 67 people in the group but it’s all obviously sung by one or two people.
SIKKOO – Bappy
That trash music nobody likes.
Parc Jae Jung, Sullyoon – Always
A duet ballad song that sounds exactly the same as every other duet ballad song ever created by anyone ever.
Love x Stereo – Bite You
I know Love X Stereo reads this site sometimes so I just want to say in the hope that they’re reading: can you please tell all of your friends in the Korean music scene that AI videos are universally despised with the passion of a thousand suns by pretty much all music fans everywhere outside of Korea of new-music-appreciating age (boomers who listen to classic rock are easily fooled by the tech and don’t care so much, anyone younger than that is not impressed). We need the word to spread within Korea. Nobody wants AI in their music videos. Nobody is looking forward to the new video by their favourite group and thinking “Gosh, I hope they used AI!” Yeah, I absolutely understand why it’s being used by indie bands, it’s because you’re all making fuck-all money from this shit and AI is cheap (so this is more forgivable than say, Blackpink doing it), but three and a half minutes of your dog would have been a much better video choice, would have probably cost even less, and definitely would have saved a few carbons. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Gongwon – All of me
Gongwon in ballad mode isn’t too bad I guess but I don’t think this would be the highlight of the live set, I’d probably take a piss during this song if I saw them live.
Shaun – Diary
Shaun had a reputation for being the chart-fixing king back in the 2010s but he also had pretty consistently okay tunes. This isn’t his best but it’s more tolerable than a lot of this week’s boring crap.
Yunsae – Forevermore
Too unpopular to write about in roundup, too boring to feature in Nugu Alert. Come on nugus, step it up.
MUU – Hello, Wonderland
I’m all for the Browse In & Save version of IU’s “Modern Times”. Definitely a fashion boost for nugus. This girl is from Lunarsolar apparently. Remember them? Neither do I, and I wrote about them. Sad times.
CAMO – JYP
JYP surely wouldn’t allow such mumbling nonsense on his own label. Even his own boy groups opened thir mouths a bit more than this.
Effie – Red Horse
As usual Effie sounds nuts. Definitely the right attitude, she’s great. I’m getting serious RSI from typing variations of “this song sucks” on everyone else’s songs this week so I’m going to leave roundup here.
Yuki Chiba & Lil Moshpit – Annyeounghaseyo
This can be the non-Korean music pick of the week even though it’s Korean-ish but not really but kind of. Kpopalypse out here doing my bit to end Korean/Japanese tensions you’re welcome. When world peace breaks out, remember I did it first, they’re plagiarising me.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Charlene Kaye – Kpop is crazy for this
It’s good to see stuff like this being acknowledged in the comedy space. I’m glad that she isn’t getting the hate that I got a decade ago for humourously pointing out the same thing. I walked so these comedians could run. Care for some “Love Cherry Motion”? Or would you like a “Cookie”?
You know that friend of yours who has to always be talking and can’t just shut the fuck up and enjoy silence for two seconds, but has to compulsively open their mouth even if they don’t have anything to say? Well SM has a whole new girl group who are just like that.
Dbo – Horse
“Horse” never made it into roundup back in the day because I can’t, and never have, and never will, be able to cover everything that comes out each week, but it deserves a spot somewhere on this site just for existing. And this is definitely a song that exists. There are many songs out there, and this is one of them. It is one of the songs of all time. Enjoy. (Even though it’s about horses, Eunice wouldn’t like this song, she doesn’t like rap music, she’s a good girl.)
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
