It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Yuqi – I Like You
She might be half singing this in Chinese, but don’t worry, the language of musical boredom is universal.
Yuju – What Comes After
Actually I jest, Yuqi’s song this week isn’t that boring, or at least not as boring as it could be. This one is actually boring. It’s always nice to see Yuju doing a thing though, my readers are eternally worried about her employment and financial stability, perhaps this will give them some solace. (By the way the three Viviz girls just signed with a new agency, just putting that here while I think of it.)
Yena feat. Nowimyoung – Dime Girl
A pretty drab song but then Autotune boy turns up halfway through and it makes the first part of the song actually sound good by comparison.
Keyveatz – A1
More Autotune warble that will be enough to fool the average garden variety k-pop fan into thinking that everything about this is genius, but actual music fans with ears know better.
TUIDE – Flip-Flop Girl
I’m pretty sure nobody here knows what an “open mic” even is, but it would actually kind of cool if someone else barged in halfway through and took the microphones off them and suddenly the song changed to something better.
ARTMS – Blue Blood (Demo ver.)
From the song submitter: “for context: MODHAUS, ARTMS agency, likely released “Blue Blood (DEMO Ver.)” because orbits, who had first heard that fuller version in the Gravity previews, preferred it to the album version”. Fandom whining actually achieves something positive for once, amazing. Personally I don’t think the differences between the two versions are enough to be all that meaningful, but it was a good song then and it’s a good song now so I don’t mind either way.
tripleS Neptune – Welcome to Heaven
When you see the words “special visual clip” in a music video title, just do yourself a favour and keep scrolling.
WOOAH – Voodoo Doll
Today’s AI slop is brought to you by Wooah and it’s pretty ugly but it’s still better than the song, maybe they should have got the robots to help them with that instead.
CRAVITY – Louder
BREAKING: k-pop idol boy group release somewhat above-average song. World is in shock at this unprecedented event. Global markets in turmoil. World leaders yet to release a statement. Stay tuned to kpopalypse.com, we’ll bring you more about this story as it develops.
CLOSE YOUR EYES – Drop That!
An awesome backing track which reminds me of early Massive Attack, wasted with some pretty terrible topline writing from someone who clearly had no idea what a gem they’d been handed.
WAYF BOYS – A4M
This release definitely wasn’t timed right, coming in way too late to collect votes in the ass portion of the Kpopalypse Objectification Survey. What a pity. Anyway I hope that Ass 4 Mouth have a great 2027, they deserve it for this concept alone.
N.Flying – Our Ending
N.Flying probably should have ended it after their debut song but somehow a decade later here we still are. Actually this is one of their better efforts, but it’s definitely not “awesome”, literally or figuratively.
TIOT – Five Hours in Pieces
Very second-gen vibes coming from this group, i.e the song stays at the same speed and has lots of singing in it. Those were the days.
n.SSign – Dance On The Earth
Someone’s been listening to Polyphia with that weird intro, but once the song kicks in it’s pretty much just the usual.
PROJECT: MAPXY – NEO (Never Ever Over)
Okay so this glorified university thesis project group has a debut song that’s better than at least 95% of debut songs of every k-pop group ever. If Twice did this it would be hailed as a welcome return to form, but since it’s some nobodies it has 10k views and only me gushing about it.
V01D – Ending Credit
Another solidly good song from a group nobody gives a crap about. Okay so it’s caught millennial whooping cough but it suits the material and it works.
NCHIVE (NCV) – Explode
So are they Nchive or NCV? I’m not sure. I like the chorus here quite a bit and I don’t hate the rap verses but I’m not completely sure if together it’s the right combination. Oh well, I’ll take it.
Chanyeol – Song For You
I did a double take because I thought Chanyeol’s love interest here was played by Kanna Seto, but no. A pity, this thing could have actually been relevant.
XngHan&Xoul – High Beam
SM promote the shit out of this generic crap while Min Jiwoon gets dust and DearAlice can’t even get SM branding.
Woody, Bora – Period
Dull song but it might be worth a look for Sistar fans just because Bora gets about eight lines to sing here which is at least four more than pretty much any Sistar or Sistar19 song in existence.
Jinsik, Hyunwoo, Junghoon, Seeun – Runners High
This Xikers subunit is so uninteresting that their agency couldn’t even be bothered thinking up a name for it.
Niel – Fearless
I’ve been taking my partner to hot pot restaurants a bit lately because the shit is healthy and picking your own ingredients is nice. We were at her favourite hot pot restaurant today and it has a massive TV on one wall that constantly plays Chinese pop videos, and they’re pretty awful. This song reminded me of one of the crappy songs that came on that TV, to the point where I had to actually check to make sure it wasn’t the same one. There’s a reason why Chinese soft power has been lagging behind Korea all this time.
Mark Tuan feat. Milli – Nightlight
Terrible song and Milli is completely wasted thanks to lame hard Autotune R&B nonsense that literally any old loser can do instead of the rap that she’s actually good at.
Zior Park – ADHD
In a win for truth in advertising, this song sounds exactly how the video thumbnail looks.
Shannon Bae – Focus on Me
Shannon was apparently in Pristin but fucked if I can even remember her in that group. I guess her request to focus on her now is reasonable given that nobody else from that group is doing jack shit really, but this generic song makes it difficult.
A I W E O – Tender
A I W E O is like QWER for boring people.
lIlBOI, BIG Naughty, pH-1, Woodie Gochild – Ghost
This thing had potential but they should have considered hiring some singers instead of trying to Autotune it themselves. There’s plenty of unemployed vocalists in Korea panhandling for coin and sleeping under bridges that they could have used.
Rockit Girl – The Exciting Sea
Kant’s thing-in-itself (Ding an sich) is reality as it exists independently of our perception. We never encounter it directly. Everything we experience is filtered through space, time, and twelve categories of understanding—so we only know phenomena, appearances shaped by our minds. The thing-in-itself is therefore forever inaccessible, yet necessary: it must exist to cause our sensations, otherwise experience would have no source. Reason inevitably tries to grasp it (God, soul, freedom) but oversteps, producing illusion. This limit is humbling—knowledge is confined to appearances, while the unconditioned Real remains unknowable.
Robin Gan – rather do my MATH
Here’s this week’s non-Korean feature. Study hard, kids. (Eunice really should have dated Robin Gan instead, she would have got sincere computer science and algebra help without any strings attached.)
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Hyokey – being a professional baby as a k-pop idol
What Hyokey is describing is the norm with idol pop agencies but also isn’t as unique to Asia as it might seem. Western pop labels generally don’t expect performative aegyo, but do still expect female singers to have high voices. I’ve met several professional singers with outrageous talent who can’t get record label interest because they’re women with a lower voice so they’re not deemed market-friendly or whatever.
Klassy Korea – Why Korean Churches Are Auditing JYP’s Religious Group
If you’ve ever wondered what JYP’s “First Fruits” religious group is really about, how it differs from other Christian denominations, or why it’s bothering people in Korea, this excellent video is quite lengthy but breaks it down into probably more detail than you could ever want. You might want to watch this one at 1.5x speed if you’re interested just because the narration takes a while. (“Let every person be quick to hear” – James 1:19)
Ladies Code – So Wonderful
A pretty obvious attempt to capture some of the vibe of Wonder Girls “Nobody“, which mixes some of that sound with the brassiness of Ladies Code’s other early songs. “So Wonderful” wasn’t a complete failure but the combination didn’t quite hit the mark. This was even more true internally – the song was universally despised by the girls themselves, who were pretty close to throwing in the towel completely by this point.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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