Roundup is over for 2017 but there’s still a few new songs trickling through, plus plenty of songs from earlier in the year that I forgot about.  Let’s take a quick look at some of what I’ve missed in this semi-roundup post that isn’t!

But first, some NEW SONGS:

Taemin – Day & Night

Some horrible vaguely jazz-lite nonsense.  Also there’s a point where designer rips in denim clothing just look silly and Taemin is way past that point here.

Heechul, Shindong, Eunhyuk, Solar – Charm Of Life

Shindong rocking dreadlocks.  All objections to Koreans dreadlocks on the grounds of cultural appropriation are now officially cancelled.  You’ve lost the battle, just accept it.

Hyuna – Lip & Hip

Blah blah blah symbolism, blah blah blah Hyuna’s tits.  Song is boring.  Next.

KARD – Trust Me

They still have that little squirt in there.  They just can’t bring themselves to completely dump the security blanket of tropical shithouse, can they.

Yang-Pang… okay, what the fuck is this, really

No I’m not joking.  Can anyone shed any light on this one.

Hyunjin (Loona) – Around You

Not all the Loona stuff is good.  This is boring poop, for example.

Sophiya – For The Record

The production and cool sounds are there but the song is not.

Fanxy – Twenty

This song also has some good sounds but it doesn’t come together at all, there’s just too much going on at once for me to be able to get into any one thing.

Kris Wu – B.M.

We all like to criticise SM Entertainment and rightly so, but when artists leave SM and make new songs with someone else you really start to realise how much they were propped up by the label’s infrastructure.

CLEARING HOUSE REQUESTS – SONGS KPOPALYPSE MISSED in 2017 part 1

Note that if it’s already been reviewed and you just missed the review when it first appeared, or if there’s some other reason why it’s ineligible, it probably won’t be here.  A couple tips for you, if you’re searching for that review that you’re wondering if I actually did:

1.  My website’s search bar is actually more powerful than you think, typing in a song name often brings up the roundup that it was reviewed in as the first or second hit.

2.  Clicking the dates for each playlist in the playlist post will take you to the relevant roundup, and the first week where that song appears in the list is usually (but not always) when it also appears in roundup.

Taemin – Thristy

The person who requested this talked about the homosexual subtext but I’m really not seeing it and I think that’s just the asker’s wishful thinking.

MFBTY – Clap Clap Clap

Crappy “non-videos” like this usually aren’t eligible just as non-feature tracks generally aren’t, but I’ll make an exception here to tell you that this is dull and that I don’t care if MFBTY are legends or whatever because they still have about a 10% hit rate on decent material.

Cosmic Girl – I’m Okay

Same goes for “lyric videos”.  Sorry, doesn’t count.  Lazy ass record companies – a fan could have made this.

Dumbfoundead – Protect At All Cost

This bullshit doesn’t count either.  Also Dumbfoundead is always so consistently a waste of time, it’s not like you need me to tell you that he doesn’t know what a decent beat is.

Keith Ape & Ski Mash The Slump God – Achoo!

Of course Keith Ape and the whole 88Rising crew are the masters of making rap music that is just jabbering shit with a complete absence of anything interesting about it.  Half the shit that they bring out I don’t even bother to write about, the effort I put into this sentence is more than they deserve.

Higher Brothers ft. Keith Ape – WeChat

Chinese rappers Higher Brothers are actually better than Keith Ape, so this song actually has a vague semblance of catchiness to it.  I only know this because someone from 88Rising actually emailed me about Higher Brothers a while back, asking me to cover a song.  (This happens all the time for some weird reason – they clearly don’t actually read this blog carefully before emailing, or they would know the risk of a shitty review is really high and not bother).

Higher Brother ft. Jay Park – Franklin

This was the song they wanted me to promo.  I told them that I don’t make articles out of press releases, but that I like doing interviews, and would they be interested in that.  They never got back to me, oh well.  I guess they weren’t serious about “Franklin” taking the k-pop world by storm, mind you the song is pretty bleh so maybe they realised they were flogging a dead horse, who knows.

Yaeji – Feel It Out

Wow, after listening to all that 88Rising shit, this really ordinary song is actually tolerable.

Yaeji – Raingirl

This is pretty dull too but yeah at least it’s not Keith Ape.

Yaeji – Noonside

Actually all of these Yaeji songs, while not that exciting or interesting, are better than “Drink I’m Sippin On” which a lot of readers thought I’d like for some weird reason.

Yuseol – Ocean View

The black outfits were much more entertaining than the song itself.

Masland – Make Some Noise (Masland version)

This is uninteresting but it has a keytar.  Keytars are cool and should never have gone out of fashion.

Yu Seungwoo – Anymore

Trash.  Really.  Why even ask me to review this, you already know what I’m going to write.

MASC – Do It

This isn’t all that great but it probably in the top 10% of songs in this clearing house list.

MASC – Run To You

And this song is actually reasonably good.  Yeah I don’t know how this group got by my radar.

Saay ft. Tish Hyman – Circle

Hideous R&B junk, I skipped this one originally because I really figured nobody would care.

Overwatch & Flowsik – Go Hard

That settles it – I’m sticking to League Of Legends.

SoDaBomb – Why Shake?

This is two of the girls from Sixbomb and the song is cruisy and pleasant but nothing that really grabs me.  The boob presentation on the other hand…

Rabbits Project – Think About You

Driving montage videos in Korea are legitimately the most terrifying thing in the world.  They think it’s relaxing but it’s anything but.  The rest of the world nearly has a heart attack every time you guys get behind the wheel, just take the bus or something.

Melomance – Gift

Nope.

Sam Lim & Loco – Think About Chu

For the listener who wondered if Sam Kim was worth listening to – no he isn’t.  Hopefully I saved you some time that you could use more productively.

Cheeze – Love You (Bye)

I might’ve skipped over this one because the video made it look like it was from a OST.  Listening to it now, I clearly made the right decision.

JAPANESE KPOP SPECIAL CLEARING HOUSE SECTION

Blackpink – Playing With Fire (Japanese)

If the ONLY difference between the Korean version I’ve already covered ages ago and a Japanese version of the same song is the language it’s sung in, then I’ll just fucking skip it.  Different language has zero effect on my enjoyment of the song in 99.9% of cases.

Infinite – DNA

However even if it’s now, many Japanese songs miss out on Roundup because their asshole record companies just make it impossible to find the videos.  Happy to tell you that I thought this song was boring though.

EXO – Electric Kiss

Or, you get these crappy “short versions” because the Japanese record companies are still labouring under the delusion that they can put the technology genie back in the bottle and make people buy music again in 2048 AD.  This song isn’t too bad but who knows really, maybe the full version has secret tropical shithouse sections?

FTIsland – Shadows

FTIsland’s company have the right idea with video length and the song’s not great but at least it’s a little bit heavy, which is a step in the right direction.

D-Lite (Daesung) – Ah!

Daesung always gets trot wrong for me.  All the high-powered brassy cheesiness is good but the song is never quite there.

SPECIAL BONUS RETRO SONG

Supreme Team – Supermagic

Even a few short years ago, Korean rap music was way better than it is now.

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This isn’t all the “clearing house ” requests I received, even though many were invalid (songs from previous years, not feature tracks, already covered etc) there will be at least one more of these posts before the end of 2017!  Kpopalypse will return!