It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup – let’s check out some new releases!

The systemic problems in k-pop keep on rolling on just as I told you all that they would, with ANS being one of the latest casualties. Of course nobody will ever do anything about it because everyone is distracted with the celebrity circus aspect, cancel culture and rating the morality of idols on some kind of sliding scale instead of actually looking at the big picture.

BTS – Dynamite

This painfully awkward and generically bland disco excursion sure ain’t no “Roly Poly“.  At least BigHit freely admit that this is actual disco and don’t try to pass it off as “acid jazz” or “city pop” like everybody else does when they do disco songs.  If you’re going to recycle a 45 year old genre you should at least own it, so props to them for that much I guess. 

Areal – Wake Me Up

The song certainly woke me up by being a bit of a car crash of sound, but not in a good way.

Tier 4 – Bang Bang

Apparently this was influenced by K/DA’s cheesy, ear-grating “Rock Stars” and it shows, with far cheaper production but actually a much better song because the backing track is excellent and is doing a lot more of the work than the vocals.

Floria – Chitty Chitty

Not much of a song but I love the set design, imagine how much fun it would have been trashing a school and throwing chairs up against a wall until you had enough for a k-pop backdrop.

Sunmi – Borderline

Okay the good run of Sunmi songs didn’t last, but for someone in her third decade of pop music she pulls off the “bathtub concept” better than most, that’s worth some extra credit.

Lee Sojung – Island

Yeah just another semi-tropical thing, avoid.

Jang Mi – My Everything

Fuck Americans and their “everybody obey our cultural rules and cater especially to us at all times even after we bombed you” self-importance, Jang Mi knows that the Vietnamese market is where it’s at.

Hyolyn – Say My Name

Limp reggae-lite, if you’re going to go reggae go all the way.  If it doesn’t both look and sound like a drugged-up sleepover at your friend’s house don’t even bother.

Jenyer ft. Kimmuseum – Bad

Great production and a nice disco beat but the actual song itself is a big letdown.

Capsai Shin – Spicy Love

I don’t know what any of this means but props to the singer for keeping a straight face through all of it.

DJ Soda – Shooting Star

People always say that the reason why DJ Soda doesn’t get taken seriously is the cleavage, but I think it’s actually the obviously fake knob-twiddling.  She’s clearly one of those people.

Sohyang – Stay

Pure cancer.  The sort of song everyone loves for the voice, never mind that the voice is doing the most generic thing ever.

Oneus – To Be Or Not To Be

There’s about three potentially really good songs here, but someone sort of shoved all the ideas for them into one song at different speeds and it just doesn’t fit together.

Dongkiz – Beautiful

Easily the best song ever from this group, but unfortunately still a bit of a failure – if they’d toned down the vocals and given the backings a bit more to do, this probably would have been alright.

Ateez – Thanxx

Some reasonable harmony means this is about as good as this slow, trappy, dull boy-group nonsense gets these days.  A good riff and some more pace could have made it great.

MCND – Nanana

MCND’s song doesn’t have  the same harmonic smarts but at least it picks up the pace a little.  No cigar here either, though.

Cravity – Flame

One of these bored kids fucked around with a thumb piano during rehearsals and it seems that the group’s producers overheard it and decided to make a comeback out of it.

D1ce – One Summer

The type of music you wish would just die.

Hoppipolla – Let’s!

Let’s not!

The Rose – Black Rose

I love how they’re combining the isolation style music video with studio shots of them all hanging out in the same room together breathing each other’s air.  I think they’re doing the social distancing thing incorrectly.

Pira – Simp

One of those silly gimmick punk/pop type songs with the quirky incel lyrics that you can listen to with your girlfriend only because she’s pretty sure they’re just “being ironic”.

Choi Suhwan – Starry Night

This guy looks like a cross between JYP and Ben Shapiro.  Where is this ballad crap coming from, why are you not in a metal band screaming about how god shortchanged you.

Kim Jaehwan – I’m Not Okay

Neither am I after listening to this trash.

Kang Daniel ft. Dvwn – Movie

More slow trap/R&B hybrid garbage.  People who produce k-pop must surely think their fans are idiots.  Of course they’re right, but it doesn’t make the music any better.

Idiotape – Future That Never Comes

I don’t hate Idiotape’s musical excursions and I think they’d actually sound great in a soundtrack for a film or a computer game or something, or maybe with Trent Reznor’s vocals over the top, but I don’t think they work very well as standalone instrumentals.

Idiotape – Right Answer To The Wrong Question

Same with this one.  It’s a great backing track but there’s a certain personality that’s missing.

015B ft. Ldy – Seven Breeze

These guys make great music when they want to, but I guess that must not pay the bills.

Jambinai – Sun. Tears. Red.

Holy shit.  Why can’t more music from Korea be like this and less of it be like pretty much everything else that came out this week.  They should be playing stadiums around the world instead of your favourite crappy idol group.  Stop sleeping on Jambinai, people.

Dahyeon – Motivation

In one minute this kid out-rapped all of BTS’s solo songs just because he actually has some sort of beat in there.

Ahn Byeong Woong – Can Have Everything

And here’s someone else doing a far weaker version of the same thing.

Woo ft. Tiger JK & Qim Isle – Job

Pretty cool – mad points just for imaginative visuals, the creepy track is a bonus.

Leellamarz & Panda Gomm – High

And then there’s a wrong way to do it.

Jay Park, pH-1, Sik-K, Big Naughty, Trade L, Haon, Woodie Gochild – How We Rock

Not as rock as one would hope with a title like that.  Imagine having ROCK in bog capitals letters and not even having a fucking guitar in there.

Sik-K, pH-1, Woodie Gochild, Haon, Trade L, Jay Park – Cypher

I never heard the word “cypher” used to refer to raps until I started following Korean hip-hop a little, I guess it’s a word that seems to mean “let’s all get together and rap over a beat which is slightly better than the garbage we all use in our usual songs”.

Oceanfromtheblue ft. Yuzion – Ice Bucket Challenge

This just makes me think about how I’d rather be watching Sunny do the ice bucket challenge instead.

Peakboy ft. Wheein – Diet

I love it how he dozes off right when Wheein starts singing.  Seems appropriate somehow.

Amoonsen, D.clow, Nubes ft. Millo – Safari City

Oh fuck it’s the maribas and Autotune, send it away and burn it.

Zene The Zilla – PSDR

The terrible rap songs really came out this week didn’t they.

Zene The Zilla – Stainless

It’s only worth watching a Zene The Zilla video when he puts effort into his hair.  Watching him trying to resemble a stegosaurus is kind of funny, when he’s just yelling in the studio being generically shit it’s relatively boring.

OHDA5N – Anywhere

I like how the tint of his glasses matches his shirt, and I’m also digging the slightly gay vibe I get from this, he reminds me of if my gym’s personal trainer decided to become a k-pop.

Double GJ – Call

Mumble-mouthed shit with one of the worst hooks you’ve ever heard.

Thama – Wait

Ewww fuck off with this sound, 2020.

Nov ft. Crush – Missed Call

Is this really what the kids are into.  Their mothers must be so proud.

Hoochus – Slow Slow Quick Quick

This song is shit too but at least the people who made it seem to know it.

CHS – Bam Bada

All I thought about while watching this is that birds must get bored as fucking shit, no wonder the ones where I live are attacking humans all the time, it’s probably just for something to do.

M.O.N.T – Moonlight

This coffee shop jazz sure makes Korea look bad.  Don’t you care about Korea, M.O.N.T?

LETS DO SHIT COPIES OF HONG JIN YOUNG SONGS SECTION

Byulzzi – Bbibbo Bbibbo

A trot song very obviously lifting a bunch of stuff from “Love Battery” including most of the harmony and even some of the verse hooks, but sadly it all falls apart completely in the chorus.

Jo Jung Min – Be My Teresa

And here’s “Cheer Up” if it was super slowed-down and blandified to the point where nobody cared.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK

How rich is Han Seo Hee?

Spoiler alert: richer than your oppars.  No wonder she never debuted in k-pop – what could possibly be the motivation once that fashion label money started rolling in.  Did you know that several A-list k-pop girls are customers of Da She, including Sulli?  Now you do.  Han Seo Hee is everywhere and will continue to be everywhere.  Look forward to her changing your world again in the future, whether you like it or not.  Oh and she lives in the same apartments as Jungkook too.  Gosh, I’m sure that’s nothing to worry about folks.

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