It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
ROSÉ – Number One Girl
I guess Rose needs a torch-waving nostalgic ballad to pad out the solo concerts she’s one day going to do so they aren’t too filled with excitement, so now we all have to deal with it. There’s nothing here you haven’t heard done better elsewhere but it’s not that bad a job for what it is, at least she doesn’t overdo it vocally and it’s a fair shade more listenable than her solo stuff from YG days, so she still gets kudos for improvement.
WONHO – What Would You Do
Wonho also felt the need to bore us with a ballad this week but I don’t know why because he’s already got “Losing You” right there which is an absolutely great song. Not only that but he’s wearing about ten layers of clothing here. This is not what we patiently waited for his enlistment period to end to see.
Lovelyz – Dear
Whenever a song is marked somehow as ‘special’ that’s basically just a way of avoiding criticism by saying “we want to bore you with it just like we would with any other feature track, but you can’t call us out on it being boring as fuck, because it’s a ‘special’ release, not a real release”. Sadly, there’s nothing here that has the spark of Lovelyz’ early material.
triple S ∞! – Untitled
Almost great but the meandering verses where they just throw every melody in there just because they can kind of wreck it. With a beat this fast you need to keep the melody simple. The chorus gets it right, the rest of the song does not.
QWER – Halftime
This appears to have something to do with the sportball so it’s really not eligible for inclusion but I’m putting it in anyway because QWER have had a rough week with dumb people hating on them for no reason so this group are the official Kpopalypse feminist mascots until further notice.
IZNA – Izna
Teddy’s new girl group is out and the good news it is definitely doesn’t sound how you might think it would, given that it’s from Teddy, which makes me think that the typical “YG template” songwriting isn’t even his fault but just something that he’s always been directed to do. The bad news is that it doesn’t sound any good, either.
MEOVV – Body
The usual dated slow chanty nonsense we all were sick of by about 2020, coupled with a hideous video where a bunch of people pretend to be very excited by a song and dance routine they’ve probably all experienced 217 times in rehearsal. Even by k-pop standards, this is lame fake shit.
H1-KEY & Josh Cullen – Re: Thinking About You
According to my song submitter this is “a remix of a song released at the beginning of the year, this time in collaboration with Filipino singer and SB19 member Josh Cullen”. It’s not really any different to the original, which was a pretty dreary doo-wop style number that I’m glad H1-Key were smart enough to not trot our for their live show when I saw them. Thanks girls, I appreciate it.
BADVILLAIN – Zoom
If only they spent all that effort on pumping their YouTube viewcount numbers into the actual music.
TWS – Last Festival
A pretty unexciting song which definitely isn’t enough to make you forget how HYBE are kinda shitty.
A.C.E – Pinata
Hey everyone it’s this generation’s “Gang” by Rain, except that I think “Gang” was actually a bit catchier, even if A.C.E are definitely winning visually.
ALL(H)OURS – Psycho Mantra
All the other shouty boy group nonsense this week just feels like a letdown.
WayV – Frequency
The old-school beat and generally average raps give this some first-gen k-pop vibes, this reminds me of what some of the H.O.T stuff could have potentially sounded like if the production standards back then weren’t complete asspaper.
WayV – High Five
Who says all k-pop concepts are the same? We haven’t had a good “mining excavation” concept since Girls’ Generation’s “Catch Me If You Can”. It looks like SM Entertainment have dug the open-cut mine a little deeper since then, which isn’t too shocking given that SM are quite good at digging holes for themselves generally speaking.
EPEX – Closer
This song comes off a bit like a ultra-polished and k-poppified version of Radiohead’s “Creep“. Ultra-polishing it really wasn’t called for though, this track could have done with a rawer approach, even though the bones of a good song are there.
NOWADAYS – Let’s get it
I don’t mind the instrumental here, it really rocks in places, but it’s kind of undone by the usual chant chorus nonsense that’s trendy at the moment, but rapidly falling out of favour (we hope, I’m gonna do a Goebbels and hope that if I say it enough times it’ll magically become true).
ICHILLIN’ – Official
This song works for the same kind of reasons that aespa’s “Whiplash” also works, it’s fast, rhythmically punchy and doesn’t clog things up with too much detail. If only there was more interesting harmony choices here, this could have been a song of the year contender.
LOVEONE – Funny Honey
Hey it’s Fifty Fifty but without the problematic agency! Yay, it’s safe to stan! Oh, who am I kidding, I’m sure these girls are being tortured too and we’re just not hearing about it yet (you heard it here first ahem cough)…
B-OURS – Live a Life
This is a bit silly really but for the budget it’s still better than most of the other “in your area” slop that’s come out lately.
Davichi – Stitching
I think the Gangnam fairy has visited Davichi and made them turn twenty again, such a shame. Why do people who already look just fine feel like they have to do this, didn’t Sungbong Choi pave the way?
Libelante – Journey of love
I mean, look at these guys, they couldn’t even be bothered getting changed out of their scooter jackets but they can sing. It shouldn’t matter, but for a lot of people it does, which sucks.
Chaser – telescope
Mind you the dress here is really nice, and it’s the only thing that kept me watching this video, so maybe it does matter. If there was a black version of this dress my girlfriend would want it, I think.
ARTI – Pocket
With that beat I thought this was going to be a rap banger buit then the ‘indie voice’ came in. Some songs just shouldn’t have singing.
ROA – Wrap Up (former X:IN member)
The song isn’t bad I guess but my main takeaway from this is that the short black hair is the look that works for ROA, not the long blonde. This video reminded me of those scenes in the movies and music videos where they dress up some girl as a librarian or schoolteacher or general nerdy person and try to make her look as dorky and ugly as possible but they actually just accidentally make her look stunning instead, and then at some point later on she lets her hair loose, takes off her glasses and this is the moment when you the presumably boring straight male viewer are supposed to suddenly realise that she’s the hottest woman alive but it’s actually a visual downgrade.
GIA, HOOD GIRLS – Stick With It
I found it hard to stick with.
Jung Ilhoon – Lullaby
Ilhoon’s song sucks as so let’s have our Asian but not Korean not pop not world music feature here instead, yay! This week it’s Unlucky Morpheus, and there’s very little chance that you haven’t already heard of them (given that they’ve been in my bass covers channel – shoulders finally healing nicely so more bass covers in 2025 folks), but it’s worth making sure that you know they exist just in case. While their original songs are on average generally very good, I’ve chosen to put their covers of Van Halen’s “Eruption” and Dream Theater’s “The Dance Of Eternity” here, just because it shows off violinist Jill’s phenomenal playing. I won’t go into the technicalities of it but just know that what you’re seeing and hearing her do here is basically not possible (not that the other members of the band are slouches or anything). K-pop fans crap on about vocalists this, vocalists that, all fucking day (even though half of them don’t even know what they’re talking about and just make up a bunch of stuff while their bias constantly uses touched-up pre-records) but where’s the love for instrumentalists, this I ask you.
Rocky – On My Mind
Back to k-pop unfortunately and guess what it still mostly sucks.
Zhoumi – Ex Games
Some Super Junior subunit member that we mostly all forgot about, and it seems SM forgot about him too given the quality on offer here.
Cacophony – Snowman
Cacophony are doing well, these once-Nugu Alerters manage to exceed the 20k viewcount eligibility cutoff within a week these days. I’d like to take responsibility but given that only about six people read each Kpopalypse Nugu Alert when it appears, I think it’s pretty safe to say I had fuck all to do with it. For the few who care, expect at least one more Nugu Alert episode before the end of 2024.
KAVE – Stone
This comes off like a mix between Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams” and The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army“, and I’m really not sure how I feel about it.
Olivia Marsh – 42
Apparently this is the sister of Danielle Marsh from NewJeans, and since she’s Australian I of course have to stan. Even though I’m not that keen on the song, she does know how to use the Shure Super 55 correctly so let’s hope she teaches her sis how those things work and Danielle can spread the knowledge out from there among her k-pop buddies and perhaps then all of the kpoposphere can finally learn what I’ve been trying to tell people for over a decade.
Dbo feat. Dok2, Okasian – Pop It Up
They can’t be seriously into this music. This must be some kind of pisstake. It’s the only way I can rationalise this existing at all.
Tray B – Kim Tae-Hee
Red caps with random shit on them are now a fashion thing, thanks Trump. I guess it makes sense because anytime someone sees you wearing one, they’re definitely going to read whatever text is on there just to see if you’re really down with the MAGA or just are colour blind/into bad fashion. So it’s probably good for advertising I guess. I might make some red caps with kpopalypse.com on them, or maybe some Shin Hana quotes, put your favourites in the comments below!
Junoflo feat. Lyricks – 24 HRZ
Junoflo sucked last week and he still sucks this week.
Yang Ji Eun – You are a butterfly
Just putting this dull trot ballad here for the cinematography factor. If you know this video director, definitely get them to shoot your wedding video.
Jay Chang – LaSalle Ave
mrcs
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Davie504 – Can these k-pop stars actually play bass?
For Davie504’s information, Rose is a guitarist, not a bass player, but since bass is pretty much just guitar with some strings missing (isn’t that right Davie), she can probably play the bass a little. You’re welcome.
Davie504 – ABT
It’s a really great song, and like all truly great songs it works in pretty much any format (just not SM orchestra or Aeria remix, god help us). I’m glad it’s blowing up.
Girls’ Generation – Catch Me If You Can (JPN ver. – fully restored OT9 video)
There’s been leaks floating around of this Jessica-infused version of “Catch Me If You Can” for years now, but they’ve all had desynced audio and visuals, so I thought I’d do the k-pop world a favour and stitch them back together properly. I think I owe Jessica that much, in return for her inspiring me to write my books. The song still isn’t one of the group’s better ones, but the dance routines sure do look a lot better when they’re actually lined up to the music properly, who would’ve thought. Stan Rachel Kim.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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