It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s check out some more new releases!

April – The Blue Bird

A frenetic aural assault with layered everything everywhere, this is “Take My Hand” part 2, no complaints here.

GOT7 – Look

It’s that bullshit sound again.  I don’t even need to say it.

Heize – Mianhae

Disembodied Heize here is a great metaphor for k-pop itself, dismembered but still occasionally twitching and showing vague signs of life.  Unfortunately this song is mostly death rattles.

BigBang – Flower Road

It finally took the military to stop BigBang from going yoloyoloswegsweg everywhere.  I guess they gotta tone down the fake-ass hip-hop image or the military won’t train them and just instead say to them “so you think you’re badass, fine – here’s a gun, there’s the DMZ, unite Korea for us, move it cunts”.

NCT 127 – Touch

There’s something just seriously wrong with this one.  It’s to do with the way the slight swing in the beat doesn’t quite line up with the rhythm of the voices, the effect is like the whole song is lurching forward awkwardly like your first time driving a manual car.

Yeseo – Privacy

It’s heartwarming that independent artists can use SM Station to release music and not be forced to compromise the boredom levels of their material one bit.  Bravo SM for letting these artists be themselves.

Up10tion – Candyland

Now that female groups have finally stopped with the crappy “Crazy In Love” clones, the boy groups have started up.

Jung In & Yezi – Love Me

Since Yezi worked out that after Unpretty Rapstar she doesn’t have to smile anymore she’s really enjoying being the one k-pop idol who gets out of emotional labour scot-free, even on fluffy songs like this where if girls don’t smile they usually get sent to the Bad Thoughts Room.

Tweety – Bad Boy

That bass-playing at 2:17 made my afternoon.  Look at those fingers working overtime.  I can’t argue with this ultra-nugu posey hair-swishing faux-rock fun.

Golden Child – Lady

I’m sure nobody misses Infinite and Woollim’s replacement group are now loved by everyone.  Which is good because Infinite haven’t released anything this good for a few years now anyway.

Bubble X – Follow

Cool song, plus pretending that your intro errored out is a good way to save money on making one.  Nugu agencies take note!

BONUS SONGS

Kinie.K – Stalking

Those disembodied lips will haunt your dreams, and not in a good way.

Jang Moonbok – Real Fact

He looks like he’s having a good time, pity nobody else is.

Hoya – Angel

A boring song made interesting in visual form only by the absurdly comical dancing which looks like it belongs in a completely different song going at four times the speed.

MoonMoon – Eden

This song manages the impressive feat of being genuinely different yet exceptionally boring at the same time.

24 Flakko ft. 21 Savage, Notorious Bino – Bad Guy

He’s bad alright – bad meaning bad.

Badroom – Reflection

Isn’t it funny how the same fucking nerds who have a big old cry whenever they get less than 100 FPS in any given computer game for over 0.5 of a second also watch bullshit anime that is animated incredibly poorly at about 3 FPS most of the time with every conceivable corner cut and they never complain about that.  In all of anime only Studio Ghiblidibidibi or whatever has good animation quality and even their stuff isn’t anything special compared to Disney and Warner Bros cartoons from the fucking 1950s.

Hini – Body Ache

More like ear ache.

Younha – No Answer

It seems impossible to believe that Younha had reasonably okay-ish songs once.

Ohoo Band – Moonlight

This song starts like any other dull Korean crap until halfway through it builds into some post-rock instrumental that is actually pretty good.  Pity there isn’t more of this and less of the singing.  Proof that yes I do listen to songs all the way through.

Ja Mezz ft. Dok2, Mino – Alchemy

Alchemy is the medieval pseudo-science of turning lead into gold and was kind of the pre-Internet version of flat-earthers (although people thought the earth was flat then too so I dunno, whatever).  Nobody ever cracked the secret back then, but at 1:46 the leaden trap beat here turns into a golden-age-of-rap beat for a brief moment so I wonder if that’s deliberate.  It begs the question however why they made the whole song useless trap garbage except that one tiny cool bit.  It’s like the opposite of Twice’s “Likey“.

Cheeath ft. Minos – Bumpkins

I finally pissed off Cheetah enough by telling her that all her tracks were soft as shite, to the point where she finally did this just to show me that she could.

What the FUCK is this

Come on guys.  There’s North Korea for this kind of music.

Kid Milli – Why Do Fuckbois Hang Out On The Net

I don’t know.  I’ve thought about why I do it for a while now but I have no answer.

Skull ft. MadClown, Huh Gak – Your Record

Skull is just painful when he does this type of thing.  It reminds me of Tom Waits’ early albums where he tries to be some sort of Frank Sinatra style crooner and just ends up sounding like a drunk coked-up fuckhead.  Some people just don’t have the equipment.

Singil Station Romance – Train Trip

I’m convinced that this band wanted to call themselves “Signal Station Romance” but the leader of the band spelled it wrong and now they’re running with it because he still doesn’t know that he fucked up and nobody wants to be the person to have to tell him.

Bae In Hyuk – DM x

Grown men don’t sleep with teddy bears you fucking faggot.

Most Badass Asian – Want

Is this a parody?  I’m pretty sure it isn’t.

Zitten – Life Is Good

Well I’m glad he’s enjoying life, that makes one of us after listening to this.

Muzie ft. Space Cowboy – I Can’t Let You Go

It would be great one day if a bleak moody intro for a k-pop song actually turned into a bleak, moody song that matched the mood instead of just transforming into the same old boring R&B crap.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Tiffany Hwang Throws Worst First Pitch Ever

Tiffany sucks at baseball.  I like Tiffany.

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That’s all for this week – more Kpopalypse roundup next week!