It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
IVE feat. Saweetie – All Night
The original Icona Pop song wasn’t bad at all, and this new one is barely different other than some slightly better backing choices. It’s no “I Am“-beater, but it’s good enough to not bring down IVE’s batting average too much.
(G)I-dle – Wife
I’m digging the old school early 80s rap vibe here, and especially enjoying Soyeon butchering her English for laughs once again, but other than that it feels a little empty. Just one extra instrument somewhere would have been enough to get this one over the line.
SISTAR19 – NO MORE (MA BOY)
The original “Ma Boy” is one of k-pop’s most steaming overrated turds (yeah I said it, deal with it), so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this new ‘remake’ or whatever is actually pretty good because they completely disregarded everything about the original except the name and the performers – smart. Also nice to see Sistar19 keeping up with their typical levels of line distribution, seeing Bora get only about four bars of music really brings me back.
YENA – Good Girls in the Dark
A consistently moody tone and no bullshit, Yena has been good lately and this keeps up the track record.
H1-KEY – Thinkin’ About You
H1-key have consistently great feature tracks and don’t need to augment their already-excellent catalog with videos for filler junk like this.
TWS – Plot Twist
This is okay waiting music for Orange Caramel 2.0 I guess.
ATEEZ Yunho, Mingi – Youth
This one just sort of plods along. Ironic for a song called “Youth”, that old-ass Blackpink dad would probably be into this.
THE BOYZ Sangyeon, Jacob, Kevin, New, Ju Haknyeon – Rat in the Trap
It has a pretty video with sexy black and white rectangles for no reason, and fans tend to listen with their eyes, so I think The Boyz fans will like this a lot. For anyone else it’s going to be a pass though.
Lee Hi – My Beloved
It’s always good to get confirmation that Lee Hi is still breathing and doing things, we’ve all been burned by YG forcing her into the dungeon right at the peak of her popularity. You can really hear the post-big-three trauma in her voice in this one. Pity the song is so dreary that you’d be forgiven for not even noticing.
SUPER JUNIOR L.S.S – Suit Up
Shindong’s going to do well in the objectification survey this year, isn’t he. I mean seriously who is going to compete with this. He’s making the most of his opportunity to impress now that Wonho is away.
EVNNE – Ugly
Some pretty hard stomping beats here allow me to just about forgive the lame “yeah we slay” lyrics.
AB6IX – Grab Me
AB6IX are just one of those generic groups that I can’t remember much of the output of, but this song is genuinely great. Oh except for the part at 1:31 that is just total crap, and is supposed to be the big payoff or something but just ends up shitting in our eardrums, lose that and we’re good.
DXMON – Spark
Crap CGI and crazy hair seems to be this group’s concept and I guess I can dig it, at least it’s different. If this really catches on and every group starts looking like The Casualties it might get a bit boring though.
HUI – Hmm BOP
Is it really the Hanson song? Thankfully no. Unfortunately it’s not anything that great either. In fact the Hanson song is catchier, now I have it in my head, fuck. Let’s hope I can get rid of it with these next few songs.
BOYNEXTDOOR – 400 Years
Nope, this song’s not doing it. Next.
Solar – Love Has Gone
Sorry, nope. Mind you doesn’t Solar look great. This is also a good video to test the luminosity of your computer monitor or phone screen.
Hyoeun – Snow
And here is why I advocate so strongly for performer rights. Deceptive k-pop agencies mess with the psychology of k-pop girls so much that fuzzy-jumper ballads where they won’t even give eye contact to the camera is about as much limelight as they can handle.
WE:A – Every time, every where
“Tean years of an idol”? Sorry but to be an idol I think you actually need to be.. you know, idolised.
Leellamarz, Meenoi – Talk Tomorrow
Oh my god now they’re calling them “visual videos”, can they please stop it. It’s like a new variation every week. Can we just have normal MVs back please.
10CM – Dear
Imagine listening to three albums of this. Every time I hear 10cm I light a candle for Chris P.
Gyubin – Really Like You
I don’t know who this girl is but she’s got the same IU-endorsed Crafter acoustic guitar model that I do, so she’s alright by me.
MRCH – It’s Me
MRCH’s song is poo but I kind of like her style and she’s too nice to be mean to, so let’s have our random Asian music feature here instead! This week it’s Makemake, a metal group from Taiwan who are probably better than your bias. They’re most notable for featuring Leevia who is a phenomenally good guitarist who like a lot of phenomenally good guitarists spends a lot time endorsing Ibanez, and it’s worth checking out her solo guitar playthrough of this song just so you can appreciate what’s involved if you’re guitar-inclined. She’s doing the work of about three guitarists at once, mind you the whole band are great and I especially like the sounds coming out of that vocalist. I also totally envy the keyboard player who pretty much just gets to stand around while everyone else does the work, career goals (mind you I don’t think she’s in the group anymore so I guess it got boring eventually, oh well).
ShyboiiTobii – Dillis
Is he really rapping sorry I mean Autotune-warbling about Hennessy? Does anyone even drink that overpriced shit outside of the USA? I’m sorry but if you drink cognac more than once a year you need to reconsider your life choices.
Woody – You and I Both
Oh dear. It’s not going to get any better, is it. Let’s just stop roundup here.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Leezy – Love Affair (Ennio Morricone)
Ennio Morricone was one of the truly great composers of the 20th century, so it’s great to see Leezy one of the truly great k-pop artists of the 21st century performing his songs. I’m sure you all know Leezy, but for those of you LIVING UNDER A FUCKING ROCK, Leezy was in the phenomenal, hugely successful k-pop group Gangkiz, who had two Morricone-inspired smash hits “Honey Honey” and “Mama“. Gangkiz was their agency’s stab at an “adult girl group” with all the girls being mid-20s minimum, and their incredible commercial success was proof of how much k-pop fans definitely desire and enjoy and are willing to financially support seeing older performers in k-pop. Gangkiz had to break up anyway because they were just too successful and had to be kind to other groups so they didn’t run afoul of “external forces”, but their legacy lives on through Leezy’s great solo piano playing, which we can at least enjoy respectfully. No looking at her body now, that’s not allowed, she definitely doesn’t want you to do that. Just appreciate the talent tysm.
Kookielit – What’s Really Happening With Blackpink’s Lisa!
Clickbait title as always with Kookielit, this video should have been called “We Don’t Know What’s Really Happening With Blackpink’s Lisa! (but here’s a bunch of theories with some random gushing about how talented Lisa is in between so Blackpink fans don’t hate me, we hope you’ll stay for eight minutes and watch it all!)”
AOA – Elvis
“Oh we miss AOA’s band concept” and this still doesn’t even have one million views. K-pop fans are so full of shit. Not that this is their best song or anything, but it was their fucking debut of their REVOLUTIONARY idol band concept, come on now, it should have some fucking attention. Every time a k-pop fan accuses me of anything at all my response is “I bought that fucking AOA debut EP thank you very much, where were you when Choa played a road worn Music Man and sung into a bedazzled Shure Super 55 the wrong way, huh? Hypocrite.” (I know that’s not completely logical but media literacy is so low these days that I kind of feel like the pressure is off me to make a coherent argument about anything at all because nobody will understand it anyway.)
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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