It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s check out some new releases!
Queen Lana annoying “woke” k-pop stan Twitter racists sure is funny, but Chad Future oppar paved the way.
G-Idle – Uh Oh
Well it’s got a great beat, better than most Korean hip-hop… but what’s going on over the top isn’t all that much. They should have either written better melodies, or got rid of the melodies altogether and made it a pure rap song with zero singing, either would have been fine. This song falls between the two stools and isn’t very exciting as a result.
Lana – Take The Wheel
It’s actually… pretty good. They could have probably layered and squared up the chorus vocals a bit more in the studio to make her less reedy and more “like a k-pop” so k-pop fans used to ten tons of electronically sugar-coated vocal lines wouldn’t be thrown so far into the uncanny valley, but I’m still fine with it how it is – when it comes to k-pop and vocals, too little is always better than too much.
Sulli – Goblin
The cutesy nursery-rhyme sonic treatments take some of the edge off what should have been a great lighter-waving rock song. Oh well. It’ll probably work better live if Sulli ever steps on a stage again. At least she still MRS.
Chungha – Snapping
I’ll be snapping this one off into the toilet bowl.
Punch – Love Me
I was going to say that this wasn’t that great but then I caught myself tapping my foot, so I guess I’m a hypocrite and Punch wins this round.
Purplebeck – Crystal Ball
Nauesatingly over-present vocals and general shrillness kill this debut stone dead.
Cici – CC
Boy groups debuting with slow trap-influenced stuff instead of the kick-ass upbeat stompers they need to make an impression. This is nobody’s favourite song.
GMost – Attraction
See, this is more like it. I can actually see why somebody out there would like this, even if I don’t.
Itzy – Want It
Itzy’s “Dalla Dalla” B-side is nothing much. You may as well forget you heard it.
NO:EL ft. Jhnovr & Benzamin – Summer 19
Awful R&B/rap hybrid from Korea #6872635.
Yellow Bee – DVD
I can only get crappy quality fancams for this song right now, but just know that it’s out and if a proper video never comes out for this we’re probably not missing a whole lot.
Nida – Bye My Love
This song is so empty and unmoving that I actually thought the video was lagging when it wasn’t.
Besweet – Equal
More ballads that you can safely ignore.
Lusty – Thirst
Nothing all that special musically, but full marks for presentation and group/song title. It’s hard not to acknowledge effort like this.
Postino – Our Cloud
This is a good track that just needed Aseul or UZA doing something fairly minimal vocally over the top to complete the picture.
Joy O’Clock – Fall In Love
Something looks wrong with these guys but I just can’t place it. Terrible song anyway.
Yoon Hyun Sang – Dancing Universe
Not much dancing going on here I’m afraid.
Yongyong – Se-kai-no
I don’t even know about this bullshit but at least it’s short.
Vincent Blue – Stupid
Accurate song title of the week.
Red Velvet – Sunny Side Up
While it won’t induce the sheer cringe of “Zimzalabim“, maybe being just simply boring is worse, in a way.
Minhyuk ft. Joohoney – Ongshim
Some trot thing that doesn’t quite work due to a general lack of melody.
Penten – Hay
A reasonable chorus but the whole thing is just too plodding and light.
London Fuzz – Anybody Feels Like You
Boring UK 1990s guitar-strumming indie crap carbon-copied right down to the low resolution and awful colour filters.
BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Blackpink – Kill This Love – Metal Cover by Krashkarma
It’s actually really good, and the song makes quite a lot of musical sense with this kind of treatment, it actually makes me appreciate the original more. Also like the original, the ending is by far the best section. Thanks to the person on my livestream who linked me this!
That’s all for Kpopalypse roundup for this week – roundup will return next week!
KPOPALYPSE 
Thank you stan twitter for bringing Lana’s song to my attention.
Yeah about Uh Oh… the teasers sounded good but the release was underwhelming like you said. Expected the song to go harder. Like maybe Soyeon had an idea but then had to rush it. Though theres something satisfying about seeing her go from a high schooler interested in rap to a kpop idol doubling as a producer. Looking forward to when she has more experience producing songs
It turns out that Metal covers are a great way to make Blackpink songs very listenable, thank you (and your livestream listener) for alerting me to this.
I think you missed the opportunity to comment on two things about the Uh Oh video: 1) microphone usage 2) the dancer in the purple pants who gets a surprisingly large amount of screen time.