It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
i-dle – Gimme Dat Love
At 1:23 some guy who is presumably supposed to represent me yells from the window to shut the bullshit latin crap music off and I don’t think I’ve ever cheered harder in a music video. The i-dle girls just brush him off but he’ll have the last laugh when I tell him how to report Soyeon to Logic Pro’s anti-piracy team.
BABYMONSTER – I Like It
There’s a beat sample in this buried way at the back of the mix that’s so old and played out that I remember using it myself in a track in the 1990s. And that’s the only notable thing I have to say about this one.
LE SSERAFIM feat. Guru Randhawa – Boompala
Making the beat slightly bass-heavier and palming off some of the vocals to some rando doesn’t make a whole lot of difference one way or another to this track, as it happens.
Taeyeon – Bansanka
Supposedly a cover of some shit j-ballad nobody cares about, this song is not eligible for roundup but I’m just including it here so Annie can enjoy the Rescene girls doing a bit of BGP with Taeyeon as the backing track.
UAU – Gene
Dreamcatcher’s spinoff Vivizification group continues to be a musical train wreck. The beach set resembling the one used in “Love Shake” just rubs salt in the wound, driving home how far this company have lost their way.
Chuu feat. Heize – Rule
I love it how Heize just walks in casually like she was about to tell Chuu where she found the lost garbage bag roll that was last seen in the kitchen but that was over a week ago. A true window into lesbian domestic life.
Kahi – King of Glory
Kahi really wants you to know that she’s found god, she should read Girls909 which is specifically designed to enhance the lives of people like her. Hey Kahi you’ll love it, it’s a story about a good Christian girl who loves god and horses and singing and auditions to be a k-pop star and she makes new friends and learns a lot of important life lessons and has heartwarming feel-good moments and maybe some other things happen I don’t know. Anyway this song is even more shit than the ones I imagined the main character Eunice singing in church on weekends.
Choi Yoojung – Perfect Target
If by “perfect target” she means her face, in that you’ll want to punch her in it to get her to stop singing, then I think this is our Accurate Song Title Of The Week.
Izna – R.I.P
A fantastic chorus but so pointlessly dragging and boring whenever that chorus isn’t playing. What were they thinking with all the dull slow sections.
Keyveatz – Oxy
Some reasonable musical ideas here but it’s turned into a total joke by whoever was given the topline work. This ain’t no OnlyFriends.
ONEUS – Under
Another well-named song as it’s certainly under required standards.
ENHYPEN – We’ll Be Fine
“Oh, I’d like to hear the new Enhyen song, that’d be good” said one of my livestream-watchers this weekend. Oh how they regretted their optimism. We will indeed not be fine, not any of us.
DXMON – Cheese
Did you know that in Korea they don’t say “cheese” when they take photos, they say “go fuck yourself this song is fucking shit?”
Vayoon – Muah
Hey it’s a new boy group doing the kind of song we’d all wish new girl groups would get these days. The labels have no clue, do they.
AEN – Clockwise
Starts off pretty mid but actually gets better due to having the typical boy-slop backing track do actual chord progressions. Amazing, who would have thought that was possible.
AHOF – Never Lose You
You can’t always judge a book by its cover (ahem) but sometimes you actually fucking can. In this case, you know what this sounds like before you press play so just skip it and save a few minutes of your life, like I should have.
OMEGA X – Life Detox
I think I’ll need a roundup detox after this week’s songs.
Dear Alice feat. SWEET REVENGE & Enola – Body On
Hey who even remembers Dear Alice? SM have sure buried this group, can’t wait for HYBE to do the same with Los Santos or whatever that stupid latin boy group of theirs is called but anyway… how many times and I going to hear that “six seven ate” thing in rap songs?
Ascender – We Belong Together
A song that sounds like it’s constantly going somewhere and never arrives, thanks to the odd beat choice. Maybe it’s a deliberate strategy by the songwriter to prepare these boys for their careers.
B.YOUR SIDE – B.YOUR SIDE
For some reason I thought that when making a boy group you weren’t supposed to recruit singers with annoying voices like fingernails across a blackboard, but I guess I was mistaken.
B:DAWN – Weather in June
Koreans and their fascination with the weather, goddamn. You can tell it’s an entire nation that never touches grass.
432Hz – 4th Period: 32 Min
Oh my god there’s a Korean boy pop group named after that 432Hz frequency bullshit. It’s not just the weather that they love, Koreans also love bullshit. Whether it’s 432Hz, MBTI, AI, NFTs, crypto, Labubu, luxury brands, fashion labels, ridiculous beauty standards, overwork until exhaustion, if there’s something superficial, lame and basically a soul-eating lie that is destroying all that is good in this world you can guarantee that Koreans are all over it and love it with every fibre of their being. I bet if you’re Korean and reading this right now you’re nodding along. You can’t even deny it. At least the cuisine is pretty good, and also Orange Caramel.
Lay – Call My Name
Sorry Lay, I wasn’t calling your name I was just talking about how if some of these music producers got laid a little more maybe it’d help their songwriting out a bit. Sorry to bother.
Hong Hyeju – Spinning Coin
There’s something wrong with this one but I can’t quite place it. Maybe it’s just that the words sound awkward, I think there’s a reason why “spinning coin” has never been used as a chorus hook in the entire history of music.
The Fix – Die In The Moshpit
Just like Korean idol groups, the cartoon pig doesn’t know which way around to hold the Shure Super 55 microphone.
Silica Gel – Molecular Gastronomy
Actually quite good and a nice ear cleanse after this week’s shit. This is probably a good place to end roundup for the week.
KOIAI – Starting Over
The new Koiai song is pretty good and certainly better than most of the k-pop stuff this week so it can be this week’s non-Korean feature to remind people that no I don’t hate Japanese music, only their godawful commercial pop stuff, their metal is actually good. Also Hazuki is wasted in Nemophila which have worse songs and pretty basic chug-chug riffs that don’t need a virtuoso of her level to perform, she should probably just do this group which suits her better. The thing that annoys me about Koiai though (and Lovebites as well actually), is the reliance on backing tracks for the keyboards. Given that keys are a pretty core part of their sound I wish they’d stop being stingy and hire a fucking permanent keyboard player. Please get the memo, Asian metal bands – if I hear keys I also want to see them. This is very important because I said so, so it must be true, thank you.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
pursoz – How to be happy
All Kpopalypse content, literally all of it, is about artist advocacy. Somtimes directly, sometimes less obviously, but all of it on some level. Even the stuff that you might be thinking definitely isn’t and couldn’t possibly be, definitely is. That’s why I like pursoz’s channel, they seem to have basically the same mission. Different delivery system, same message.
Papiens – What K-pop Is Really Selling
Another good video. Nothing here will be new to most of my readers and it’s all stuff I’ve said before but if your friends can’t handle the bizarre way I express myself perhaps they’ll be able to handle this video.
Fin.K.L – Eternal Love
One of the better Fin.K.L songs, from back in the days when they shot videos a little out of focus deliberately because they saw it on an R.E.M video once or something. After School Blue’s “Wonder Boy” was basically just a (very) upgraded version of “Eternal Love”.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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