It’s Christmas time once again, and what Christmas would be complete without your Christmas present from Kpopalypse?

Sit back with a Christmas pudding and read on for Kpopalypse’s review of 2017’s horrible worthless Christmas k-pop songs!

Christmas is fantastic – big roast dinners, meeting family and friends, getting lots of presents, laughing at Christians who complain about how “the real Christmas spirit is forgotten”, laughing at non-Christians who complain about “that fucking Christ bullshit”, what’s not to like.  Oh that’s right – the Korean pop industry releases a huge mega fuck-ton of anal-felching “Christmas songs” every year that nobody wants to hear, we could justifiably complain about that I guess.  Let’s take a look at them and shadily review them in the hope that k-pop agencies one day learn their lesson and stop releasing this trash!  Yay!

Rules for inclusion on the Kpopalypse 2017 Christmas list:

• Released in 2017
• Christmas k-pop concepts only, “winter” k-pop concepts with no specific Christmas content don’t cut the mustard
• Songs must have some form of official MV even if it’s just a bunch of k-pop boys dry-humping red stockings in time to the beat
• Original songs only, or covers that I’m dumb enough to think are originals because I listen to Christmas songs pretty much never outside of this list

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November 14th – Lovelyz – Twinkle

There’s always that one moderate-to-high profile k-pop artist who kicks off the Christmas bullshit way before everybody else, and in this case it’s Lovelyz, winners of the 2015 best k-pop song from Kpopalypse and all around attractive women in always-matching outfits doing k-pop things.  If there was any group out there that I thought would mesh favourably with a Christmas theme, I thought Lovelyz might be it – elf costumes and Christmas present ribbons seem tailor-made for a Lovelyz costume department once-over, and their usual bright, treble-friendly sound should fit right into the typical Christmas musical pageantry of bells, chimes and other things that make you go “twinkle”.  However it was not to be as Lovelyz’ Christmas song is a steaming pile of horse manure, lacking the melodic restraint that makes most of their other songs work and replacing it with a wayward-ass chorus melody backed by an entire $2 shop worth of chimes, bells and anal beads.  Even the costumes surprisingly don’t work that well, most of them looking like they were made hastily in a high-school home economics class using generic shapeless “Christmas fabric” offcuts and a Bedazzler.  At least the girls look moderately happy to be in this poop except for in the knitting and clothes-folding scenes where they look like they want to murder each other, which makes me think that “Lovelyz Battle Royale” should be the next concept they try once they get over Christmas disease.

November 30th – The Barberettes ft. Gilgu Bongu – White Blanket

The girl who songs at 0:41 is legit fucking hot, I would give her a white blanket.  How come I never really noticed that this group had such a hottie in them before.  Oh wait, I know why – it’s because every piece of music The Barberettes do is completely fucking boring and I’m usually already in a comatose slumber by the time any girls actually show up on the screen.  Or maybe I did notice all along and then I forgot that I noticed because I tried to erase this group out of my memory.  The Barberettes are always brought up as one of those groups carrying the flag of “real Korean pop music, not that idol shit”, but if they’re going to do exactly the same boring Christmas crap as everybody else then I fail to see any practical difference in real terms.  Sure they harmonise a bit more but that’s really the only thing separating them from everything else out there which sounds exactly like this.

December 3rd – Pungdeng-E – Winter Song: Cold Wind

Another year passes and Pungdeng-E still sound like the bastard child of Orange Caramel and Patsy Biscoe.  This “Christmas song” (I guess it is because they’re wearing antlers), is toddler music designed for children under five and grown-up people with diaper fetishes just as much as anything else they’ve ever put out.  Of course the song is completely bereft of any semblance of interesting harmony, it’s pure I, IV and V all the way, because when you can’t write songs worth a shit those three chords will fucking do.  Throw in some juvenile melodies over the top and you’ve got the perfect song for waving lollies from your tinted van to attract children, but the smart ones are smart enough to say “no” to candy from creepy k-pop groups, and they’ve also already heard Orange Caramel and know how music like this is supposed to sound.

December 6th – Sohee & Kim Sang Gyun – Childlike

Unfirtunately it’s not the Sohee, but some other Sohee nobody cares about, so don’t get too excited there.  No fear of any excitement developing in this song anyway, which is the usual cruisy Christmas crap.  Interesting that whoever was responsible for this nonsense let someone from BTOB produce it, I guess songs like this are as good a training ground as any for how to use a mixing desk and pull faders correctly given that nobody is actually going to be listening anyway.  Also, who the fuck puts Christmas lights on their bedposts?  Way to get yourself electrocuted or burn down your house mid-BDSM session, it’s hard to reach for a fire-extinguisher when you’re handcuffed to a wooden frame with a dildo in your ass, not that I or anyone depicted in this video would know anything about that ahem.

December 8th – Starship Planet – Christmas Day

Starship Entertainment are always with the bullshit Christmas collaboration every year, and it’s hard to even work out what the function of a song like this is.  Is there really anyone alive (who doesn’t actually work for Starship) who says to themselves “I can’t wait until the annual Starship collaboration comes out so I can truly get into the Christmas spirit”?  This one is musically just the same as all their others, not that anybody can even remember what any of their other ones from past years even sounded like, such is the throwaway trash nature of this particular subgenre of sentimental k-pop bullshit.  You know the feeling when you’re dragged into the family, school or office Christmas party and you really just couldn’t be fucked with any of it, I reckon that half of these people here feel the same way, as Starship have roped in seemingly the whole crew for this one so it’s a fair bet that at least some of them are hating it.  You can see it in the wildly varying amounts of commitment that they display toward typical k-pop Christmas video activities like swaying in syncronisation and pretending to look fascinated while sticking non-biodegradeable acrylic baubles onto plastic trees.  Whoever that bell-ringer is at 3:32 needs to get some sort of award for effort however, maybe he should give up on k-pop and become a train conductor for a living, that guy is really trying.

December 9th – Kim Yong Chul & JeA – An Ordinary Christmas

Out of all the Brown Eyed Girls members, it always seems to be JeA going for the Christmas shit for some reason.  I guess she’s the “what about the Christmas spirit” member of the group who tsk tsks while all the other members do borderline JAV solo projects.  I don’t know who the guy is, but presumably he’s there so nobody thinks about boning JeA during this, not that it worked – the song is once again pure garbage so thinking about getting JeA out of that miniskirt was about the only thing that kept me awake during this poop.  Not only is this musically grotesque in all the usual ways, but the visuals are equally disturbing, with onesies galore and a computer-generated choir of that dude which must surely be what hell looks like.

December 11th – Misty Mellow – Today I’ll Tell You

Christmas isn’t just for k-pop veterans, here’s a shit Christmas song by some nugu you almost definitely have never heard of.  You might think that this song looks like a love song and the only connection to Christmas is the tree in the background at the start, but you have to remember that in Korea Christmas is more of a “couples holiday” than a “family get together and give presents” kind of thing.  That’s why Koreans are so miserable, all the single people want to kill themselves at around this time of year, foolishly not realising they’d be happier single anyway and that going out with some clingy, Christmas-loving ultra-possessive texts-you-50-times-a-day idiot partner just isn’t worth it.  I’m so glad my girlfriend is cool and not anything like the dumb bitches in k-pop videos.

December 12th – Taeyeon – This Christmas

Taeyeon and Christmas.  You know exactly what you’re in for, there’s no need to play the video or even to read this.  But for those in any doubt:

• Slow boring shit ballad – CHECK
• Taeyeon mouthing “Christmas” a lot before heading off into vocal semi-improv land – CHECK
• “Dynamic” rim-tapped drumming straight out of 80s glam metal, but without the metal – CHECK
• A bukkake load of snow in every camera shot – CHECK
• Lots of wistful dull stares into space because nobody is having a good time – CHECK
• That typical ballad ending where they delay that very last chord and play it ultra-smooth like you’re going to sleep (which you probably are) – CHECK

Hopefully the planet’s climate is as fucked as scientists think it is, some global warming might just be the ticket to get rid of this type of shit once and for all.  Oh wait, this is SM Entertainment, who am I kidding, they’ll just simulate an “Earth before we fucked everything” in a box or whatever.

December 12th – Vivi, Choerry, Yves (Loona) – The Carol 2.0

Everyone got all pissy at me for including Choerry in my latest boobs post when she’s three weeks old or whatever, but I only put her in there because you all overwhelmingly requested her so maybe you should be mad at yourselves.  On the other hand, I’m sure none of you requested the three latest Loona girls to come out with this horrid Christmas bullshit, so you have every right to be mad about Choerry being in this post right here.  Don’t be fooled by the “2.0” title, there’s nothing remotely forward-thinking about this bollocks which jingles along insipidly just like every other Christmas track anywhere ever.

December 15th – NCT Dream – Joy

Just to make it all even, here’s the equivalent underage boy thing, which I’m sure no readers will complain about, but hey it’s not my fault that your favourite corrupt k-pop labels release this shit where they put young boys and girls in adult clothes and make them do adult bullshit for money, I’m just raising awareness.  Possibly one of the worst Christmas songs ever created (if you can imagine that), “Joy” splices bits of “Jingle Bells”, “Joy To The World” and various random bits of rap over the top of a pointless busy backing track and the result is a horrible sleigh-crash of a tune that has no right to exist let alone be pushed by the world’s supposedly biggest k-pop label.  The video just makes it even worse, with the video director seemingly unable to make up his mind whether he wants the NCT Dream boys to do “cute playful Christmas fun” or “sexy/creepy simmering glare”.  I would say that this is the sort of song that people will look back on in twenty years and shake their heads in disdain, but the truth is nobody will remember this in twenty years and we’ll probably struggle to remember any of this bullshit by later this week.

December 17th – Sha Sha – White Story

Who the fuck these nugus are I don’t know but they’ve got the best Christmas song this year by a mile.  Their video looks like poop and the awkwardness of the girls is so thick that you could suck it out of the air and bake it into a solid object, but the song is cruisy and cool like SoReal’s “My Heart Says“, and apart from the “silent night holy night” in the chorus it could almost not be a Christmas song at all.  Gosh maybe that has something to do with the extreme quality here.

December 18th – The Night Of Seokyo ft. Dawon, Lazier – Fallin’ Snow

This video looks like a really low-budget idea but also seems like it would have been a pain in the ass to actually make, so I’m not sure if they actually saved themselves some money here or not.  The song itself however is one of the better ones here, not because it’s actually any good, but because it’s bland as dirty dishwater, which is still a step up from “godawful gobsmacking shite” that categorises most of what else is on this list.  I don’t really have much else to say about this one because there’s just nothing here to talk about, except that Christmas lights are stupid.

December 18th – Kyungri & Jinwoon – White Christmas

Okay, this is more like it.  Sure, the song is atrocious fucking crap as is almost everything on this list but it’s good to see Kyungri with different styling to usual and for more than the ten seconds we tend to get her in each Nine Muses video.  Watching her with Jinwoon is kind of fun too because you can watch how close they get to each other without actually touching.  Rest assured that there’s some fangirls with their beady eyes glued to the screen sending invisible hate-rays in Kyungri’s direction to try and keep her skin away from oppa.  The roller-coaster tension should be enough to keep you going throughout the horrible music, or at least might enable you to briefly ignore it.

December 19th – Abry – Lonely Christmas

When Crayon Pop did a song called “Lonely Christmas” a few years back, it was a cool, upbeat tune, probably because Crayon Pop were singing about you having a lonely Christmas instead of them because they just murdered your family.   Unfortunately Abry’s song with the same name isn’t related to this one and definitely doesn’t have the same vibe about it, instead it’s the usual boring Christmas snoozer, as if the girls all lined up sitting down in cardigans and antlers wasn’t a giveaway.  Like, what is the fucking point of even wearing antlers if you’re not going to be all happy and shit, she might as well just take them off and use them to absorb her tears.  These girls are like that annoying person who cries all the way through the wedding ceremony when their friends get married, you’re supposed to be happy you dumbass.  I know it’s a sad song but there’s a limit, geez.  Also this type of song inspires the absolute worst of vocalfaggotry:

“Support/power” get the fuck out of here.  Just admit you like the voice and you’re one of those weirdos who only cares about how something is sung rather than what fucking rot is being sung, no need to try and justify your taste with bullshit terminology.  People don’t get addicted to glue because they like the shape of the glue bottle.  Anyway, song is shit and these girls need to cheer the fuck up.

December 21st – Twice – Merry & Happy

Having said all that, k-pop’s queens of not being able to sing all that well didn’t do much better this year in the Christmas stakes.  There’s basically two types of Christmas bollocks – slow snoozeville ballads, and mid-paced bell-shaking fucking nonsense.  Twice’s song falls firmly into the second category and while it’s definitely one of the better Christmas song this year, this only means that it’s about 10% as good as the aforementioned Crayon Pop song, so in other words it’s worthless.  The video isn’t even any good, being some kind of nightmare on 1970s knitwear street that seems deliberately designed to confuse the colour blind and hide the curves of every member in the group.  If you can fuck up Twice in cardigans and jumpers you can fuck up anything.

December 21st – Soyou ft. Geeks – The Night

Soyou gets the award for curve-hiding this Christmas season however, wearing the most unflattering clothes ever and trying to pretend that she doesn’t have boobs but nobody is fooled.  Meanwhile Primary cements his irrelevance by producing more snoozy crap because one good song per two years is seemingly all his contract allows.

December 22nd – Seungwoo Chon & Paul Kim – Hello Christmas

Being a professional classical or jazz session musician really sucks because you have to grind your way through other people’s bullshit pieces all the time and it’s always crap like this every December.  I’m glad these two singers look like they’re having a good time, because it’s quite obvious that nobody else here is.  I hope they got paid well to churn out this soulless, empty, depressing jazz-lite Christmas nonsense backing track for these two vocalists to wank all over the top of.

December 22nd – Lay – Goodbye Christmas

Not content with being a “China sheep“, Lay has now released a Christmas song, and somehow he’s also managed to make this song all about his dancing, even though it’s a piano ballad.  I would say that it’s bad, and it is, but actually “Sheep” is worse so I’ll just be nice to Lay on this one for not doing the yolo thing again because I don’t think I could handle that type of shit twice in one year from Lay.

December 23rd – AppleB – Heart Signal

I’ll leave you with this song by AppleB.  It’s not their own song but a cover of Yuju and Jihoo’s duet track that is actually a reasonably good song in its original incarnation, mainly because it wasn’t a Christmas song.  AppleB have of course given it a Christmas makeover but it’s the same song really and isn’t too terrible.  I wonder if they fought over who has to sing the male parts of the original.  Merry Christmas!

 

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That’s all for the Christmas reviews this year!  I’ve probably missed a few, but if I did, please don’t link them because I’m sure they suck just as much as these songs here and nobody cares!  Kpopalypse will return soon with more posts!