It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s take a look at some new releases!

Cignature – Arisong

This shouty random electronic rubbish sucked when Red Velvet did it and it also sucks when everyone else copies it.

Precious – Bebe

Someone hitting one note on a synth over and over while wiggling the pitch bend arm a bit is apparently what constitutes a pop song chorus these days.

XUM – Ddalala

Okay the song names are just getting silly now.  Ddu-Du Ddu-Du, Dumhdurum, Dalla Dalla, Ddalala, maybe what we need to do is just ban the letter D.

Yooa – Abracadabra

This sounds like any Taemin solo song and is just as average, but Yooa has a look that suits her again so that’s something.  Also note that this is a “black performance video”, she just can’t help herself, right?

Primary ft. Choa – Cloud

A “lyric visualier” – really?  For fuck’s sake, Primary.  We don’t care what the lyrics are.  All you had to do was point a camera at Choa for a minute and put it in here somewhere, any old shaky-ass handicam footage would have sufficed.  You had one job.

Chungha, Christopher – Bad Boy

Not horrible and better than most of Chungha’s output but definitely still far too light and fluffy for me to care.

SuperM – One (Monster & Infinity)

A really cool synth riff completely wasted by being paired with a too-soft chorus.

Stray Kids – Any

Easily the most consistent boy group in 2020, Stray Kids even manage to make this Autotuned fucking shit sound semi-okay.

Up10tion – Light

Nothing special but at least it grooves a bit, at least until they slam on the brakes in the chorus for no reason and ruin everything.

Ghost9 – Think Of Dawn

Here once again we have a chorus that sounds like it belongs in a completely different song, but at least the chorus is actually good this time.

BDC – Shoot The Moon

The usual nauseating boy vocals over absolutely everything detract from some actually quite cool synth work.

Onewe – Parting

Fairly inoffensive and mild.  It cool to watch the drummer unenthusiastically mime to obviously electronically generated drum parts though, he must be feeling really cheated.

UNVS – Sand Castle

I don’t really like the melodies but this one’s at least fairly straight-ahead and not too shit.

Snuper – Oxygen

The days of Snuper having decent songs are long gone, aren’t they.

H&D – Umbrella

I’ve invented a new word to describe music like this – elevatorial.

Bae Jinyoung & Kim Yohan – I Believe

As far a ridiculous attempts at selling horrible soft drinks go, this attempt isn’t any worse than Madonna’s.

Super Junior D&E – No Love

I actually kind of like how the guys are stalking the girl and then they just sort of go “fuck it” and get distracted by doing some dance moves instead and leave her alone.  This is the solution to k-pop street harassment.

Rainbow Note – Morning

Rainbow Note keep almost getting it right but they’re just slightly too far on the wrong side of “keyboard demo mode music” to ever really make an impact.

Aisyah Aziz – Loving Room

Apparently the producer of all those good early Lovelyz tracks was responsible for this one, and it shows in the production being excellent, if nothing else.

Coremagazine – Hymn

Don’t let the fact that they were named after a failed Adelaide street publication put you off, the song’s actually pretty good and definitely the best they’ve had yet.

Hey Men – Gatsby

Nice and fast but there’s not much of a song here.

Halim Yi – Idea

Notice how they credit all the individual instrumentalists at the end, that’s because jazz musicians have massive egos and will throw a tanty if they don’t get their name on something.

Platform Stereo – Flash

This is repetitive and does the same thing all the time, but not in a good way.  They’ve done better.

Juyeon Oh – Under The Willow

Twinkly and dull.

Ha Yeji – Primrose Hill

Walking through fields is always a warning sign of some godawful shit.

Luamel – Covet

Could that chorus be any more annoying with him hitting that one fucking note all the time.

Onthedal ft. Kanghunsim – Small Ship

Just now when this came on my gf put dinner in front of me and it’s this awesome steak and mushroom with asparagus thing, and it just made me think that I’d rather eat the cows in this video than listen to the song again.

Oah! – Our Island

The AC/DC poster in the background just made me wish I was listening to AC/DC instead of this soft crap, and I don’t even like AC/DC that much.

Lazy Child – Summer Night

Imagine going to the beach to shoot a music video when it’s like three degrees outside.  I bet she’s regretting she had this idea as much as we are.

Minit ft. Avokid – What You Did

Having someone sing one inch away from your face must feel weird.  Imagine the spit flying into your mouth and all the carbon dioxide you have to inhale, yuck.  I don’t care how hot the other person is, it would get gross quicksmart.

Meaningful Stone – A Call From My Dream

Way to fuck up all that electronic gear by immersing it in water.  I guess it beats taking it to the hock shop if you don’t want it anymore.

Mrshll, Sokodomo – Never Too Late

Here’s that other gay Korean besides Holland doing a pretty ordinary song.  Isn’t it sad that you can count all the openly gay men in k-pop on one hand and still have enough fingers left to go ten-pin bowling.

Yongyong ft. Ash Island – Don’t Think About It

Don’t do duets with men who wear spiky mullets, it’ll always end in some Autotuned disaster.

Zelo – Fault

That singing of the word “fault” over and over again actually does sound like a fault, as if the sample playback machine got stuck like Milli Vanilli or something, except that this is actually deliberate.

Woshi – IDGAS

Clearly.

Corbyn – All Mine

Drinking and smoking oh my god how badass.  You’d better listen to this or he might roll up on you and ask for a lighter.

Lee Jinah – Dreamy Alarm

I assume this is supposed to look cute or something but it is genuinely terrifying.  I’d rather watch The Human Centipede again.

10cm – Tight

If you ever find yourself reading Korean Indie and admiring it, just remember that Chris the editor owns at least three 10cm albums but has to be dragged kicking and screaming to admit that he faps to Gfriend’s Yerin.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Rockit Girl – Take On Me (rock cover)

Are you sick of Rockit Girl yet?  If so, I guess it sucks to be you, because I’m not.  Their cover of a-ha’s “Take On Me” really works, the metal treatment is neither here nor there but the arrangement is a little brisker than the original with a lot less fucking around (which is why Snuper and IU/Fiestar‘s versions were also superior), and it’s great song anyway in any format.  Of course they can’t do the super high notes because nobody can do those, they just drop it all down an octave which is smart and doesn’t sound too bad in context, now to convince my own band that covering this song is actually viable.