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

Twice – I Can’t Stop Me

I guess if Twice are now doing 80s, that seals it – 80s is officially “in”.  I can handle this change which is frankly saving the latter half of 2020, and Twice’s effort is better than most.  Pity about the video concept that doesn’t suit the girls whatsoever, but everything else about this meets required standards.

Mamamoo – Dingga

So it’s just “Hip” again but with a wimpy weak disco beat like Suhyun’s “Alien“.  At least they look good, as per usual.

Asome.D – Funny Gotcha

Not a bad effort given the obvious nugu constraints, but it sure is generic and like every other song you’ve heard this year.

Kerrigan May – Don’t Call Me Papa

Kerrigan May’s video is a lot of fun but her charisma and those impressive titties (on the guys!) can’t save this extremely weak track.

AleXa – Revolution

Every time I hear an Alexa track I just think to myself “if someone locked her in a room and played her nothing but Front Line Assembly for a week straight, she would know what she needs to do to fix this”.

Loona – Voice

Okay, so who was responsible for the fuckheaded decision of making “Why Not?” the title track instead of this brilliance?  Once we know who it is, let’s start a GoFundMe to hire Way’s Girls to take care of the problem.  They’d better make a proper music video for this quickly or there’s going to be some redistribution in somebody’s future.

Minseyoung – Like A Boss

I just can’t get over how unhealthy she looks and it’s stopping me from even hearing the music, although I get the feeling the song has even less substance than she does.

Yezi – Mimew

Yezi always sounds good rapping but too much plinking plonking fucking crap ruins this one.  The tropical chorus is surprisingly acceptable but what would have been even more acceptable would be an actual rap track. 

Song Jieun – Bloom

My flowers on the windowsill wilted listening to this.

Stray Kids – All In

A reasonable try at the Zero For Conduct “big riff” style but it doesn’t quite come off because the song spends too much time in too many other areas.

D-Crunch – Across The Universe

Here’s D-Crunch’s attempt at the same thing and it also doesn’t quite hit the mark for similar reasons.

TXT – Blue Hour

I was going to have the biggest go at BigHit for being stingy cunts making TXT use the Nugu Park roundabout set, but then I realised it’s a slightly different roundabout to that one so that’s okay then.  It’s only the song that is cheap and recycled from every boy group ever.

DKB – Work Hard

I feel like it’s hard work listening to this.

MVP – Every Day

Just very generic and bland really.

Everglow – Untouchable

Thanks to “LaDiDa” Everglow now have a high bar to meet, and this doesn’t quite get there due to a pissweak chorus, but it’s still acceptable enough thanks to everything else about it.

Cravity – Ohh Ahh

Definitely the boy group song of the week, I’m not wild about this type of disco style but their version is about as good as it gets.

Joohoney – Psyche

Is it wrong that I just straight-up started laughing as soon as he started singing?  I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the desired effect.

Kim Chang Wan – Old Man’s Bench

The Korean version of Leonard Cohen makes me want to self-harm just as much.

Kassy – Are You Fine

I’m alright.  Real bored though, thanks for asking.

Park Hye Jin – Can You

No I can’t.

Orange Fang Fang Boys – Me The Duck

It’s not really their fault, but the musical bar for this type of instrumental has never been higher.  If you’re not up to Paul Gilbert songwriting standard you might as well just hire a singer and make normal music.

Sky – Mtwtfss

So here’s a song that would have sounded a million times better without hard Autotune, that you can file in the big round filing cabinet along with all the other songs that would have sounded a million times better without hard Autotune that you’ve already heard in your lifetime.

Motte – Rocket

I guess she’s wearing protective eye goggles pre-emptively so she’s safe from all the things people are going to throw at her on stage to get her to stop singing.

So!YoON!, Phum Viphurit – Wings

Lounge music, a TR-808 doing a bossanova rhythm, and furries.  Three strikes, you’re out!

Koh Na Young – Unlock The Key

I can just picture the video director: “We’re shooting the key, honest – we need lots of shots of the key.  The song’s about the key, you know.  Now hold still”.  This sad, sad industry.

Sik-K, Woodie Gochild, Haon, pH-1 – Back From 0

The shit R&B collabs don’t have Jay Park in them this week, glad he took a week off to fap to Girl’s Day, he earned it.

Kirin ft. Plastic Kid – Sachi

Everybody hates new jack swing style.  The only good thing that came out of it was that Living Colour song where they just took it in a completely different musical direction because fuck your pop bullshit.

Gwangil Jo – Dark Adaptation

This is a pretty good try, I suppose in the absence of a beat I’ll take a mood.

Wooks – Take It Off

Certainly it’s better than this crap.

Dayday ft. Verbal Jint – NME’s

Verbal Jint will just go on anyone’s track for a few dollars, won’t he.  EDIT: fuck, this one got removed about as soon as it went up.  I guess they didn’t like it either.

Del.Mo – Off

When it starts off with a Fender Rhodes doing those dull 7th chords you know you can basically just skip it.  These type of songs save me a lot of time doing roundup each week.

Park Won – Burden

The thumbnail accurately describes how the song will make you feel.

Fred. – Daydream

Fact – no good music ever came out of someone with a fullstop at the end of their stage name.

Charari Danchu – Walk

Kurzweil keyboards suck, never buy one, but if you do anyway just to spite me, don’t make music like this with it.

Hoohaa – Dance Dance Dance

Somehow I don’t feel like dancing.

Hynn – Just Do This One Time

If someone in your life tells you to “just do this one time”, you would be wise to think very carefully before proceeding.  Maybe that’s what this boring ballad is about.  From the way she’s awkwardly sitting-but-not on that railing I’m pretty sure I know what she did.

Yebit – Being Someone’s Mind

Fun fact – while I was listening to this, my girlfriend in the next room overheard it and said “whatever you’re listening to, it sounds pretty terrible”.  I said back to her “that’s pretty much what I’m writing”.  Her response: “I love you!”

iLLA – Me Before I Knew You

It’s cool how they shot this on the rooftop set of The Room.

Boramiyu – I Tried

I tried to listen to this crap but didn’t get very far in.

Ha Minwoo – Now And On

If you ever wondered why I don’t like marriage, maybe it’s because of songs like this.

Monday Kiz – Others Love Easily, But I Can’t

Imagine naming your group after the worst day of the week and then expecting people to like your music.  Consider it a warning.

Im Chang Jung – Love Should Not Be Harsh On You

Sometimes I really wish all the “noise pollution” hype about wind farms was actually true, because at least whatever noise they’re supposed to make so damn loudly might drown out the terrible ballads that Koreans always sing next to wind farms for some reason.

Klau – Misty

I’m pretty sure only registered sex offenders like this type of smooth jazz.  Music to spike drinks to.

Daybreak – Go On!

It’s a bit sad that the nugu CF actually has better music than most of this week’s songs, I guess that’s because when you’re trying to sell a product of some description, you’re actually required to capture people’s attention.

Surl – Shine

This one isn’t too awful either.  Faker, dry those tears and rock out.

DUETS WITH HORRIBLE FASHION SENSE SECTION

A-Flow ft. Choerry – You

Obviously the blandly-dressed girl in the video isn’t Choerry, but is the equally blandly-dressed guy A-Flow?  I’ve never seen A-Flow so I don’t know, but I’d like to know so I can direct my disdain appropriately.

Crush ft. Taeyeon – Let Me Go

Crush gets a decent look here, but I don’t know why Taeyeon is dressed as a fortune cookie, I highly recommend this “live” version (ahem) instead where the fuzzy cardigan for her mrs.

Crush ft. Lee Hi – Tip Toe

What is this exposed-shoulder nonsense on Lee Hi, I feel that this is more exploitative than 100 Stellar comebacks.  Crush on the other hand looks like a 75 year old guy pottering around his lounge room, he just needs a tobacco pipe to complete the look.

Moon ft. Zion.T – Walk In The Night

Zion.T couldn’t even be bothered turning up to this shitshow so we can only assess Moon here, who looks like any young k-pop starlet awkwardly thrust into random off-the-shoulder beach fashion. 

BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK

What Do Native Americans REALLY Think About Cultural Appropriation in Kpop?

Spoiler alert: the smart ones don’t give any fucks.  Most of the people who complain on the Internet about these issues are not part of the actually-affected cultural group, even though a lot of them pretend that they are just to give their whining a little bit more “weight” so they can win whatever argument they’re pushing.  Which makes sense when you think about it.  After all, if I was a racist, the very last thing I’d want is people of different colours and races experiencing each other’s culture through participation, so I’d pretend to be part of the affected group and then complain as loudly as I could.  People who complain about “cultural appropriation” are a racist’s dream, because the taboo on cultural appropriation is exactly what enables so much racism to flourish.  There’s nothing racists would love more than for all the white people to only be allowed to do white things, and all the black people be allowed to only do black things, and for there to be no mixing of anything.  Of course the k-pop examples in the video are far too non-tribally-specific to even possibly offend anyone with a brain anyway, so the fact that people are complaining about some girl in a k-pop group wearing a feather or face paint or whatever just shows how much today’s young people love racism – they’ll find it anywhere they can, and if it’s not there, they’ll invent it just so they can criticise it while secretly fetishising it and reveling in it (“another glorious mess” etc).

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