It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Haru from Nature gave up k-pop to work at a host club in Japan, and she’s probably going to make more money there in thirty minutes than Nature as a group made during their entire careers. Let’s wish her well!
NewJeans – Bubble Gum
All that controversy… just for this? It really doesn’t seem worth it. I give NewJeans a 2/10 on the Kpopalypse secret satan-worshipping illuminati cult member scale.
IVE – Heya
It was almost great but it suffers a bit from the producers trying to get too fancy with it. It ends up suffering from the same problem as f(x)’s “Dracula” and Loona’s “Why Not“, where the harmony that actually makes the chorus work in context is held back until the last repetition right at the very end of the song. In IVE’s case that’s 2:46, only 23 seconds before the finish line – it’s not enough. I’ll probably still end up liking it anyway because the whole thing is visually stunning and very watchable and that’ll inevitably make me Stockholm Syndrome my way into it.
Seventeen – Maestro
Seventeen’s video on the other hand looks like absolute ass because it has generic AI stink all over it, what a shame. The song is also weird in a bad way, kind of hamstrung by the odd choice of having a bass drop that sounds like it hits all the ‘wrong’ notes in the chorus, I don’t know what they were thinking there. At least it makes an impression, even if it’s a bad one, it’s still better than being boring.
Zico feat. Jennie – SPOT!
Interesting how Jennie both sounds and looks a lot different when not on YG, right? But let’s focus on LOOKS because we all know that’s what you want to read about, not the song, fuck that. Just as well Kpopalypse has you covered. Poor Jennie has been at that company since 2010 so this probably feels like finishing the final year of school for her, no wonder she looks more relaxed and carefree than she ever has. Look at her scrolling through Zico’s golden phone at 1:25, gosh that contacts list sure is interesting.
RIIZE – 9 Days
I feel like this could have actually been a really good song without the chorus “9 more days” chant. Everything else around that chant is decent, but the chant itself makes it seems like baby’s first k-pop.
RIIZE – One Kiss
Bass player doing their best to hard-carry this fucking slop and they almost pull it off. Seriously that is some good bass playing.
&TEAM – Maybe
This song’s main mistake is that it shouldn’t be a ballad, it’s practically begging for a fast beat to help it smash through the ceiling. I guess HYBE can’t do that sort of thing right now because they’re busy in their “jilted public please forgive us” phase and ballads are what work best for that, just ask SM.
Yuqi – Freak
I’m digging the spot-the-horror-movie video but it somehow doesn’t fit with that stolen-from-WAP opening lyric line, does it. I guess they had to go with a horror definition of “freak” because the alternative would be Yuqi twerking like Megan Thee Stallion and that might just a little bit more fun than k-pop fans can handle.
ZEROBASEONE (ZB1) – Sweat
More like ZeroSweatOne, there’s no sweat dripping from these boys, which is a great oversight given the song’s theme. I guess they were worried it would mess up the makeup or something, but I’m not sure if the ice-cream is a good enough substitute, I’ll let the (quite large) twink-loving contingent of Kpopalypse readership throw down on this important issue in the comments below.
Kep1er – Straight Line
All sorts of weirdness is going on in Kep-one-er’s new song, starting off with that tired Latin bullshit before quickly diverging into Aphex-Twin-lite strangeness, a pretty good chorus, a pretty shit post-chorus brassy section and then Cypress Hill samples of all things. It doesn’t quite come together, but there’s enough good ideas here for about three separate songs on their own which we’ll probably never get.
Bibi & Jackson Wang – Feeling Lucky
Jackson is mining that LMLY territory again and it’s a good thing. Also watching him and Bibi edge the viewers is fun, although honestly all I can think of when watching this is how breathing each other’s carbon dioxide for all those hours during the video shoot must have been really unpleasant.
QWER – Ferris Wheel
Sorry girls but this bland rock isn’t enough to make me poke holes in my condom supply, you’re going to have to try a little harder than this to repopulate Korea.
ARTMS – Candy Crush
Cool sounds wasted on a really unexciting song that rolls along as cautiously as the ARTMS girls themselves in that roller rink.
lIlBOI – HIGH (Feat. pH-1)
A pretty good beat here helps the rapping over the line. Male rapping always needs a bit of help with the beats, it can’t really stand on its own, especially when the guy sounds kinda rusty-gate-squeaky like the Korean Eazy-E.
82MAJOR – Choke
82Major have honestly been consistently above average ever since they came out and “Choke” continues that trend of being not amazing but certainly decent. The cool bassline is what makes it work, it takes the repetitive edge off the chorus. Whoever is writing for these guys knows what’s up, they still don’t have a real banger yet but I feel like it’s a matter of time.
n.SSign – Love, Love, Love Love Love!
I’m digging the combination of the song title and the sheep thumbnail. I’m sure the beastiality vibes aren’t any more deliberate than SuperM’s ejaculation vibes but it doesn’t make it any less funny.
LA POEM – Mirror
La Poem try to do a SHINee type of thing and listen to these guys just cruising it in with no effort at all. This type of music isn’t hard for people who can actually sing, and don’t have to dance.
PICKUS – Little Prince
It must suck to be made to do a video at the Paradise Diner when it’s closed and isn’t serving food. This is k-pop group purgatory, you gotta get to at least C-list before they’ll serve you fries and a shake.
A.C.E – Facetime
The person who thought up the idea of combining bossanova and trap beats needs to do a to-the-death cage fight with the person who have made the A.C.E boys cover their legs for almost their entire careers. Whoever loses, we all win.
Jay Park – Your/My
If there’s one thing that can finally convince deluded AI techbros that AI is a botched gimmicky mess that is falling into a hole it can’t get out of, a synthetic tattooless baby-faced balladeering Jay Park might just be it.
BE’O – Overnight
It’s not too bad I guess but can I swap it for a Viviz comeback?
Lee Jinhyuk – Relax
Before this song starts he instructs you on correct relaxation techniques and you’re probably going to need them to tolerate the rest of this song wasting your time.
Samuel – YEH! YEH!
Yeh nah.
Kino – Solo
Dollar store NewJeans infuenced song #4369.
Leo feat. B.I – Pretty Plzzz
Now that’s such a small bathroom they had to put the camera over his head because there wasn’t any room for the equipment to go elsewhere. Ladies, hit up Leo if you’re feeling unsafe because you saw Yoochun lurking about, he’s got you covered.
Chunji – A Book of Memories
Not a lot of teen, or a lot of top in this.
I.M – Nbdy
I.M’s been doing a lot of boring stuff lately and I’ve been mainly removing it from roundups because it’s boring. So let’s continue that trend and instead we’ll put our weekly Asian-but-not-Korean not-pop not-world-music feature here! Why not have this great performance by Masonna, one of the legends of Japanese noise music. I promise you it’s more listenable than what your bias put out this week.
015B feat. Lee Seohyun – Secret of the Deep Ocean
015B suck 19 times out of 20, but it’s always worth checking them out because sometimes the D20 comes up the way you want and you get a song like this.
YongYong feat. Lee Sung Woo of No Brain – Seoul Girl
It pretty much sounds like a punked-up version of Twice’s “What Is Love” and musically that’s not a bad place to be.
Stella Jang – I Can Do This Every Day
I kind of get the feeling she’s trying really hard here to convince us of something that may not be true. It’s okay Stella, you’re allowed to let the dishes pile up like a normal person sometimes. We won’t judge you.
Kim Yuna – Tales of Sensuality
The vocalist from popular Korean rock band Jaurim does a solo thing and this is the opposite of what Stella Jang did this week. I feel like Jaurim and Stella Jang should spend a bit of time at each other’s houses, it might help stabilise both their moods.
BLOO – Girl in New York
This is one Autotune knob-turn away from sounding good.
Streetguns – Rockabilly Time
It’s not often that I hear an authentic rockabilly band in these roundups but these guys have got the sound nailed down. You can tell they’re legit because they know how to use a microphone, heaven forbid.
Sigarddy Low feat. Takuwa – Keep my faith
This guy looks like he should be playing riffs in a stoner rock band, not doing this trap shit. I think that’s a sign to end roundup here.
SURPISINGLY NOT AWFUL XG RAP MIXTAPE SECTION
Maya – Million Cash
I don’t hate the beat choice but the flow doesn’t really fit over it that well. The lyrics read okay just on their own and the track is okay on its own too, but in practice when they’re together it’s just awkward-sounding, it’s definitely the weakest track of the four even though it’s actually not bad.
Jurin – Still Hot
Jurin’s track is a lot better, there’s definitely a smoother match here between the vocal and the music, and the beat is just good. I feel like Jurin is someone who claps on the 2 and the 4.
Harvey – Big Mad
Harvey has the most musically varied track to rap over even though it’s not really my taste in hip-hop, and she’s also got the smoothest lyrics by far. I could be biased because she’s Australian, but probably not given how much I think Lily is great but it didn’t stop me giving NMIXX tons of shitty reviews.
Cocona – Dirt Off Your Shoulder
The track is cool here but I feel like it needs to be present in the mix a little more. I just wanted this to really slam and it didn’t quite get there. Cocona does alright anyway, sounding pretty fluid over it, I can dig it.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
MAXIM KOREA – May Family Month Special: ‘Office Wife’ Identification Guide_KPOP Girl Idols Featured in Maxim
I told you Maxim news was a real thing. Anyway Min Hee Jin actually makes the cut of this one, because her fashion styles took over the k-popverse so much that Maxim decided to push their own videos back a day so they weren’t competing with the web traffic! Also there’s a neat feature in this video on k-pop girls who had posed for Maxim, although they snub Rockit Girl’s Leeseul for some reason, tsk tsk.
Kpop Idols Who Went Viral For Their Muscular Body
Just putting this here for your reference, the objectification survey won’t be ready for a few months yet, we’re going to wait for Summer Soak sorry I mean Waterbomb first before that, but we wouldn’t want to leave anybody important out now would we.
Infinite – Request
Infinite’s thinly-veiled phone ad sounds pretty good and time has served it well, more groups these days could learn from the back-to-basics approach. Of course it’s a Sweetune production and you can tell from the pinch harmonic at 2:21, only they would put something like that in a song like this. Definitely revealing their closet metalhead tendencies, we love to see it.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
