It’s time for another Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at this week’s new releases!
Scan-dol of the week – K.A.R.D.
Lovelyz – Now, We
I’m not sure what’s more irritating, the verse melodies that sound like they were written by a drunk person or the hideous orange spray-tan applied to the girls’ faces.
VAV – Flower (You)
This song’s not too bad as far as reggae comebacks go but it lacks the “authentic” production tricks of Primary. I really wish VAV would do another song with the Autotune off just for laughs. What a missed opportunity to be the “Autotune off” concept group.
Romeo – Stay With Me
A lot of people don’t like Romeo because they’re basically Infinite on a budget, but for my money these guys would do well to copy Infinite a little more than they already do.
Day6 – Dance Dance
JYP surely knows that nobody will buy this because it’s reasonably uptempo so he must be doing it for love. Everyone thought he was banging Sohee back in Wonder Girls days but I reckon he’s been fooling us all and he’s really fucking the mum of one of these Day6 boys.
Alice Vicious – Golden-Blood
The song’s alright but the visual design is much better than before, she’s finally getting better at that “junkyard toy store” thing or whatever the fuck you call it.
Exy & Euna Kim ft. ZIA – Love Therapy
The Roots have a lot to answer for, I was a fan of theirs until I realised what they did to Korea’s music scene.
Kwon Jina – Fly Away
They call it scat vocal for a reason.
Danpyunsun & The Sailors – Love Song
Okay this is quite good, what’s a good song doing in roundup, nobody likes it when I like a song from a group nobody has heard of, kindly fuck off you good-songs-having untrendy folks so I can get back to abusing shitty music everyone loves thanks.
BONUS SONGS
Taeyeon ft. Dean – Starlight
Taeyeon looks like the Asian Kim Gordon a bit here. Equally bad choice of collaborators, too.
EDIT – okay this being in here is a mistake, but then everything with Dean in it is a mistake so I figure it fits and it can stay here.
SE O – That’s The Way It Is
When you live in a country with four seasons that actually make sense, maybe ballads like this do too. However where I live there’s only two seasons, “fuck off” and “fuck you”.
Dash – Up Down
Another weirdly top-billed producer for a song that sounds exactly like every other.
EXO-CBX – Ka-Ching!
Songs about how money is great and stuff are weird.
NiiHwa – Can’t Stop
Mitigates the painfulness of Rhodes by making sure the Rhodes doesn’t do too much.
O.When – No One Else
Why is he standing in a garden, I want to know. Watch out for those cacti you boring douche.
Sojung – Better Than Me
Why is she so fucking maudlin in this, anybody would think someone fucking died, jesus christ cheer up woman.
JinWon ft. Tymee – Are You Still Up?
Tymee still being boring, I see. I expect more from a Nami main.
Onew & Rocoberry – Lullaby
SM Station used to have the odd good track but has just become “shit ballad clearing house” this year.
The Night Of Seokyo – Something Between Us
Watching non-Korean people act as corny as Korean people in music videos really brings it home how much I’ve been desensitised to this cringeworthy shit.
SPECIAL BONUS RETRO SONG
TVXQ – Keep Your Head Down
Many people whined about why I didn’t include TVXQ on any of my Golden Age best/worst lists because “how can you ignore them, they’re so popular man” but the reason why I ignored them is because apart from a couple truly awful pre-Golden Age songs and a couple actually-quite-good later songs they’re mostly just boring. “Keep Your Head Down” starts off with a great intro which gradually segues into an extremely ordinary song. Any discussion of “Keep Your Head Down” anywhere purely focuses on the group’s success, or failing that, the clothes, the backdrops and the dancing, because there’s simply nothing to say about this musically. The two TVXQ members gyrating around somehow managing to look as awkward as that guy from Laibach is by far the most interesting thing about any of this.
That’s all for Kpopalypse roundup – more next week!
KPOPALYPSE 
It’s off to The Hatred of Jazz and Rhodes Detox Clinic for you young man.
I would like the Lovelyz song if it was transposed half an octave down. Still kinda like it, but it is a bit grating.
I think their cheeks are that color because of the film filter and a normal peach blush–The black-haired members’ hair is blue in the video, but the yellow shoes are a pure yellow, which makes me think it’s blue/yellow or super strong amber/teal color grading. Don’t blame the stylist, blame post-production for not seeing that they were laying the filter on too thick.
“he’s really fucking the mum of one of these Day6 boys”
why can’t JYP be banging one of those Day6 boys? he looks like he swings both ways
Lovelyz should stop letting their boss write their songs, i love Ah-Choo but their songs after that just seems to get more and more boring,
their songs are so boringly similar that they can’t even tell their own songs apart during the Weekly Idol random dance segment