It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
ROSÉ & Bruno Mars – ATP.
By far the best post-Blackpink solo song ever, and certainly a hell of a lot better than Rose’s awful solo songs from YG days, she gets it right here with a simple, catchy pop song that doesn’t disintegrate into trendy bullshit or try to do too much.
Aespa – Whiplash
It’s a banger! It works for the same kind of reasons that Viviz’ “Untie” also works, they’re very similar kinds of songs, driven by similar angular basslines. Aespa lacks a little for Viviz’ catchiness but makes up for it with slightly better sound design, who knows which song is better but Aespa are definitely in their “thank fuck Blackpink aren’t trendy anymore so we don’t have to keep copying them, we can finally make some actual music people might want to listen to” era.
ILLIT – Cherish (My Love)
Definitely the most addictive chorus from Illit so far, it reminds me of some of the better stuff from Fifty Fifty actually, remember them? Gosh aren’t they a good group, aren’t they, yes they are, you could go and listen to them right now if you wanted. Anyway just enjoy the Illit song here and don’t think too hard about the concept and why it exists (trust me, Chinese vloggers are warming their video editing fingers up right now)…
ITZY – Gold
Watch at 1:35 as someone plays a bass guitar part on an electric guitar. That awkward moment sums up everything about this asspaper of a song.
KISS OF LIFE – Get Loud
I notice that the AI dog in the intro really doesn’t want to be there and quickly fucks off before the music starts. I criticise AI a lot but I guess it’s true what they say – AI really is getting smarter, AI animals can now tell when shit music is about to begin.
Sorn – Nobody
Not a bad song from Sorn but nothing that special either, kind of an IVE-lite I guess. Cool outfits though. Hey I also noticed something – if you look really carefully into the shadows you might be able to catch a glimpse of Sorn in the music video.
Billlie – Remembrance Candy
I remember when Billlie were better than this.
SAY MY NAME – WaveWay
According to my song submitter “this girl group is produced by ex TVXQ Jaejoong and one of the members is an ex IZ*ONE member” but you probably wouldn’t know it if you weren’t told because this just sounds like anything else that’s come out lately.
ODD YOUTH – Best Friendz
More AI slop. I don’t mind the song, what a pity about the horrible confused-looking AI shit in the background. Do video directors really think “we have a perfectly reasonable video let’s use a small countries’ allowance of electricity and water to shit it up with tons of floating AI crap”, yes I guess they do. I blame IU for this, she should have taken a firm stand against having the floaty AI crap in her video, but because she included that ugly garbage and she’s influential now everyone else thinks it’s okay.
82MAJOR – Stuck
This is reasonable I guess. (The review for just this one song took me an hour to write because I kept getting distracted by other shit. I hope you appreciate it.)
ONE PACT – Deserved
I’ve got nothing to say about these middling boy songs so this is just a reminder that the Kpopalypse 2024 survey of caonima action is in its LAST WEEK! That’s right, I want to close this fucking shit off so I can give you the results and change the “no reason” sidebar girl finally, so CLICK HERE IF YOU DARE and have your say about important* issues concerning k-pop today! (*importance not guaranteed)
DXMON – Zip Zip Zip
It’s already pedestrian and stupid to begin with, and then in the pre-chorus they slam the brakes on it even more… it’s like a hardcore drop except without the heavy guitars, the slamming beat, or anything else that makes hardcore drops worth kicking people in the face to.
POW – Boyfriend
You know what Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” really didn’t need? A male gender-swap version. It also didn’t need a trap section, or the guitars shunted way to the back of the mix. What a mistake.
ILY:1 – Shining Star
It’s sad times in k-pop when the song’s kinda bad, the video looks kinda trash too, but I’m still happy to see it just because I’m grateful they didn’t use AI in the video.
CRAVITY – Star
The usual “for the fans” skippable waste of time… but wait, Cravity have enough fans to fill a stadium? Are we sure they weren’t just the support act for someone else’s show in this footage?
ALL(H)OURS – ALL OURS
Not exactly stretching the creativity with the song titles there, are they. Anyway, I love how all the faces of the bystanders are blurred. That girl at 0:34 is like “eww, k-pop boys, get the fuck away from me” and given the statistics on young men in Korea, I can’t really blame her for that. If you think Kpopalypse is a creep, just wait until you meet your k-pop boy group faves and find out their gender politics, you’ll be running back here begging me to write more of those insightful boob analysis posts that my female readers love because they find them genuinely helpful.
INI – WMDA (Where My Drums At)
Where are the drums at? Certainly not here, all we get is pissweak drum machines and limp mid-tempo boy-pop, sucks to be us.
JO1 – Icy
Now boy groups are literally croaking their choruses out like my granddad in his rocking chair talking through his throat surgery hole. What the fuck is this.
ShE’s – End Of World
Hey this is cool and rocking, and it seems like perhaps Yamaha are on a mission to sponsor every underappreciated girl rock group in Korea and I support this, I do not regret buying all those Yamaha bass guitars. Also, it mrcs
Angel Noise – Toy Toy
Comes off like a budget version of Mamamoo’s “Hip” made with the D.O.D “death metal” pedal and with some random keyboard solos thrown in. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not but it’s certainly more interesting that most of this week’s generic slop.
DORIDORI – Lucky Doki
This generic anime music isn’t even that good by generic anime music standards.
Rapport feat. Ripley – Universe
I don’t have much to say about this song so instead let’s put our Asian non-Korean non-pop non-world music feature here instead, yay! This week it’s Choke Cocoi, a punk band from the Philippines and goddamn they are great. No proper music video because I don’t really think they even do that shit (a lot of punk bands just cbf) so have this random live show instead, turn it up loud and listen to these girls fucking destroy your ears, you’re welcome.
Younha – Life Review
Younha put out a bunch of songs this week and they all sound like pretty similar lighter-waving church rock music or whatever but I thought this was the best one, it has a bit more of a pulse than the others.
EPIK HIGH – Michelin Cypher
Pretty good, at least for the first half, not sure why they change the beat up just after the halfway point to something pissweak but then, who understands those rap guys.
Moon Jong Up – Love Bomber
Not much love, but it certainly bombs.
Taeho – I Like You
Apparently a former Imfact member. I dodn’t know Imfact had existed long enough to have former members, but anyway this song actually isn’t bad even though I have no idea what’s going on in the long-ass drama video.
Nam Dong Hyun with Ha Jiwon – Will! (Nam Dong Hyun is the original composer of Seo_eve’s Malatanghulu)
I’m reliably informed by my song submitter that “Nam Dong Hyun is the original composer of Seo Eve’s Malatanghulu” and yes it sure sounds like it, because this song is very much in that vein. Unfortunately this new song wastes a fair percentage of its very short running length doing some trap garbage instead of bopping, so it just made me want to listen to Seo Eve again.
CAMO – K-PACK
Camo is one of those people who is afraid to switch the Autotune off for fear of god knows what, sounding like a normal human I guess. If you must keep it on at least try and make some decent melody with it (see: Jvcki Wai) instead of the same old, same old.
HYNN – Sunset Song
Okay we know you can sing, now stop that before you set fire to your fuzzy jumper.
Ron – Best Dog
mrds
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Clarence Angelo – Reading horrible k-pop fanfiction
Lots of dicking around in this video, they stop wasting time and start actually reading fanfiction at about 6:20, you’re welcome. It’s worth the wait though because goddamn these fanfics really are shit, although I felt like they spent about 70% of the video just laughing and they could have used that time to cram in a few more of the fanfics we came to look at. I think the final one (which I’ve actually been linked before) is just knowingly taking the piss though. Hey apologies if any of your own fanfiction is featured here, but I do have posts that will help you get better at writing it so once you’ve finished dying of shame maybe go and read those.
softwonho – kpop songs I HATE
Feel the hatred flow through you… give in to the power of the dark side… of course this person throws in a few songs I like too, but I actually agree with about 90% of these picks just on a musical level. Unfortunately whoever made this had a lot of trouble separating their hatred for the music from their hatred of the performers. There’s no reason to hate on some of these people for weird trendy racist reasons when the shitty music is literally right there and you could have just stuck to that.
Brown Eyed Girls – Kill Bill
Brown Eyed Girls took the visual and concept inspiration from Tarantino films, but sadly left behind the musical choices, leaving us with a song that is “Kill Bill” in all the aspects that don’t really matter for a pop group, and none of the ones which do. If they had gone all-in on the sonic aspect of Tarantino films instead, this could have been something absolutely amazing (think: a sassier/more dramatic T-ara “Day By Day” or Gangkiz “Mama“) but as it stands, while it’s not a terrible song in isolation, it’s probably also one of the biggest missed opportunities in the entire k-pop canon.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week! Also don’t forget that this is your last week to DO THE FUCKING SURVEY so don’t forget to have your say and leave your valuable feedback for Kpopalypse! Stay safe, caonimas!
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