It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Looks like everyone’s bailing out on BPM Entertainment. Of course here we’re mainly concerned about what will happen to Viviz. Kpopalypse bias list could be due for a shake up?
BTS – Swim
Do you know how hard it was for me to write a review of the “Wings” album the other day and actually stay awake? Eighteeen songs and 95% of them are either slightly above average or slightly below average, with virtually nothing notable about any of them other than that they exist, what an ordeal. Anyway true to form their new song isn’t as great as their circle-jerking “speak yourself, love yourself, but bully everyone else” fandom are pretending it is, nor is it as shitty as the average k-pop fan reeling from a full decade of ARMYs online sexual/racial abuse wishes it was. It’s just the same old mid brand BTS have well and truly established over the last decade. They paved the way – and all the pavers are the same shade of grey.
Yuna – Ice Cream
Definitely one of the best songs to ever be paired with a horrible AI slop video. Imagine how good this video could have looked with actual effort put in, like k-pop video makers were doing only two short years ago. The golden age of k-pop videos is dead and isn’t coming back.
NMIXX ft. Pabblo Vittar – Tic Tic
And this is why I wish people wouldn’t ask me to review every live stage video ever as if it’s a proper release. If the song is any good, it will eventually get an actual MV anyway if the label have any sense. And if it sounds like “Tic Tic”, it probably still will. Anyway since I’ve already thrown down on this song on an inferior video version (which isn’t really fair on NMIXX tbh but that’s your fault not mine for begging that I cover a non-MV) I don’t have much to add, so I’ll just use this space to let you know that you can do the latest Kpopalypse survey if you want, it’s out now and still has some time left to run. If you love what I do you should do it, and if you hate what I do you should definitely do it because it’s a much more effective way of telling me to go fuck myself than yelling at clouds on social media. You even get to be anonymous, I don’t even get your IP address or geo-location or anything I promise. Oh and my new book Girls909 is available for ebook pre-order now and is out in about a week and a half and you should definitely not buy it. Don’t come crying to me with your emotional trauma later if you fail to heed this advice.
Latency – Latency
I really want to support Latency but they do not have a great song as of yet. This is no more or less interesting than what BTS churned out this week.
P1Harmony – L.O.Y.L
This entire song sounds like a fart.
CRAVITY – Blast Out
Not Cravity having a better song than BTS this week. I mean it’s not amazing but just imagine how nuts people would have gone for BTS if their new song had this much fast rhythm in it. People would be like “omg the kings are back, song of the century” but since Cravity has this song instead nobody will care.
ChoCo1 x ChoCo2 – Frenzy
AI-SloPo 1 x AI-SloPo2 are back and their music is certainly nothing that’s going to work the neighbours into a frenzy.
Cosmosy – Chance
People keep weirdly begging me to put Cosmosy in roundups even though nobody cares about them and they’re consistently hot garbage and barely even k-pop so here we go. Wow, they really suck. What a shit group. No songs at all. Get them out of here. Next. There, I hope that made the 1% of my readers who give a fuck happy, I’ll now go back to ignoring them for another year.
SANTOS BRAVOS – Mhm
And this is the other reason why I don’t want to put Cosmosy in roundups – because if I have to include them, then for fairness I also have to include HYBE’s shit “latin boy group” and damn does nobody on earth want that, not even HYBE stans.
BTOB – We Together
Definitely old folks home music, surely BTOB’s fanbase can’t be this decrepit.
N.TOP – Shining Star
I’m not sure what’s worse, the AI slop balloons because somehow depriving a small town of drinking water was easier than going to the local two-dollar store to get some real balloons, or the bullshit part at about 1:50 or so where they break the mood to go all mysterious on us or whatever. Either way, this is ass.
AmbiO – Showtime
Eh.
AFuture – Spring Shower
Definite “Future Idol” label vibes in this song, which somehow isn’t from Future Idol. They should have called the song “Spring Foyer” though to match the video.
Hyunjin – Lover
Hyunjin from Stray Kids has a better boy solo than every single boy solo in my “Wings” review. Not that that’s hard mind you as all those tracks are pretty mid, but the melodic choice here is actually reasonably good.
WOODZ – Stray
What the hell is going on with Woodz lately, he’s somehow not sucking. I’m not wildly into this particular form of Seotaiji-ish nu-metal but hey it’s still something better than what he’s usually known for.
H1GHR MUSIC – Superstar
A pretty cool beat, pity nobody here really knew what to do with it. That lazy-ass chorus hook definitely isn’t cutting it.
DinDin, Cho Hyun Young – Always You
Just an FYI that a Rainbow member exists and is doing stuff. Don’t press play on this horrible ballad though, you have been warned.
Xion feat. Woozi – Blooming
Nothing much happening here. I do like it how he asks a ton of people for directions and still gets lost. Perhaps he was trying to find a better song.
Kevin Woo – No Escape
Some poop for some computer game but honestly it’s not too bad, probably one of the better songs this week.
Ellie – Sugar Rush
No, not that Ellie. You’ll see if you click. Think carefully.
Gabby Onme – Heart’s Racing
Actually really good. The only real problem here is the vocal lines are too crowded, more space would have been better. Still nice, and really nice when the singer shuts up.
Itzel – Whoo!
Cool imagery, not so sure about the music. It’s okay I guess.
Parameter – Surfer
Hey this is alright too. The small bands are making some decent stuff this week, which is great because almost nobody else is.
ChiU – Youth sometimes
Although the voice gets a bit annoying in the chorus, I’m really digging this one as well.
Layyi – I Just Cut My Hair
Here’s this week’s non-Korean random music pick. Layyi is from Singapore and this song is alright actually. Also, more people should play the Yamaha Revstar instead of stupid Gibsons. That is all.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
ChocoChipz – Idols who learned new skills for music videos
Given to me as “an actually interesting short” and it is. Learn about four things you didn’t know.
IVEy daeng – IVE WONYOUNG reacted when a fan video called her in the school toilet and was caught by his teacher
Pity about the needless edits here, this video would have been way funnier without them. Gosh I can’t imagine why the fan picked the school toilet to call her. If it was Yerin she would have called him out.
s.e.s – U
The weirdest thing about s.e.s isn’t that they fucking suck, although they obviously do and anyone who thinks otherwise probably didn’t actually spend one second of time other the last month listening to s.e.s but is just pretending to like them because they’re a veteran group and woe betide the k-pop fan who dares to have a non-positive opinion on veteran k-pop regardless of how crap it is because how dare we have opinions on things or any individuality or any challenging of the status quo, this is k-pop which is a hugely right-wing style and and we are conformists damnit. No, the weirdest thing about s.e.s is that the production of their songs was often better than their sibling group H.O.T, as it is here. Waste of time for the rubbish song of course, but it does make me wonder how SM consistently fucked up H.O.T so badly. Five albums in they were still sounding like absolute ass, whereas s.e.s had shit songs too but at least worked out where the knob was for the aux send to the compression unit.
That’s all for this week! Oh and do the latest Kpopalypse survey if you want. Or don’t, see if I care. Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
