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

iKon – Why Why Why

Some dull aspects and of course we have to have a crappy trap breakdown, but the chorus is decent and this is easily the best iKon song ever.

G-reyish – Blood Night

A complete change of pace for G-reyish but they maintain the songwriting quality, with a stomping 6/8 reminiscent of Sunmi’s “24 Hours” except that the girls don’t constantly sound like they’re gasping for air.

MCND – Not Over

Nice riffs and a good bassline but everything over the top is pretty cheesy and horrible.

BDC – Moon Rider

Another generic boy group song that has all the same twists and turns that they all do.  You could listen to the first five seconds of this song, turn it off, write the entire rest of it in your head and you’ll probably be about 90% right.

Oh My Girl – Boggle Boggle

I can’t believe it, a Pororo song is actually kind of good.  The usual annoying blues-based harmony kiddy verse these things always have gives way to a chorus that doesn’t suck for once.

Verivery – Get Away

When they go only partway with the reggae sound it rarely works.  If you’re not going to dump the typical boy-group smoothness and get down and dirty like “Don’t Be Shy“, you might as well not bother.

Rain ft. Chungha – Why Don’t We

A waste of time.  I’d rather listen to “Gang“.  (“I’d rather listen to Gang” is now the default review I’ll be using for anything that Rain does from now on that is worse than “Gang”.)

Gemini & Jay Park – Trip

Jay Park’s song of the week and he’s wasted here as he doesn’t even get to do any half-assed raps.  He does get to ride around on an oversized skateboard though so that’s a thing.

Nucksal – Feel The Wave

A good beat, but still too soft – much like his hair.  What hair product does he use, I know ladies who would be jealous of that shine.  A real hip-hop song won’t happen overnight for Nucksal, but it will happen.

Tri.be – Loca

It is impossible to have a good song, by anybody, in any genre, with “Loca” in the title.

Lilboi & Wonstein – Friends

Cool video but it just makes me want to go Oldboy corridor-scene on the people who wrote this trash.

Azer – Elegante

That boring Latin sound with the clean guitars, it just sounds like everything from five years ago in the west, which is totally not what I came to k-pop for.

AboutU – Time To Shine

Not all k-pop rock songs are good.  This one’s kind of dull and the Rocktek-tier distortion sound that they’ve chosen sucks but is probably the best thing about it.

Blurrychords ft. TANGTHEAWESOME – Only Man

What is this mumble ballad.  If you’re going to have a name like TANGTHEAWESOME you can’t get away with being this dreary.  There are rules.

Leebada – Love Drug

I think this is the best thing Leebada has ever done, but only because I really can’t remember much of anything else she’s done even though her name is ultra-familiar to me, so this mediocre song kind of is the best by default.

Qodes – Better Than X

“Enemy left – 0”?  They need to search harder, I reckon there’s a k-pop producer hiding behind some explosive barrels who definitely needs a shot fired their way.

Hwang Puta – Interior

I dig the vibes of it and the general dry lo-fi style of it (instead of the usual drowning everything with mushy effects) if not the song itself.

MustB – Realize

Impressive visual style for a group so obviously impoverished.  They’ve even got their own little symbol for each member like the Led Zeppelin guys.  It’s almost heartbreaking to watch all this effort as it’s so obviously going to amount to fuck all.

Owler – ft. Austin – Mandarin

The mandarin of the title doesn’t even last until the vocals kick in, it gets crushed almost immediately, just like my interest in the music as soon as I heard those flaccid guitars in the backing track.

1300 – Brr

Why get them to move around in a circle all that time.  It’s nauseating enough to just watch, this must have been murder to actually shoot.  You can see how happy they are at the end of it.  Mind you if this was just some kind of attempt at discouragement by the video director I’m just sad that it didn’t work.

Minsung – Lovely

It should be illegal in Korea to play electric guitar with no effects.  It always ends badly.

Cacophony – Sea Of Love

Really cool vibes here and it’s a very different sound but I feel like it doesn’t really go anywhere.  I spent the whole track wanting something better to happen that never quite came.

Mellow Kitchen ft. Isaac Hong – Like A Star

I don’t even know why I bothered to click on something by a group called “Mellow Kitchen”.  Clearly I hate myself.

Nightoff – Because

Dull song but the visual design here is some kind of crazy post-Lynchian brutalist nightmare.  Do they know how incredibly ill-fitting to the song this is?  Stick something more ominous behind the visuals and this would work much better.

Tank – LGBT (We Are Not Crazy)

I usually keep lyric videos out of the roundups but I thought this one was worth putting in for obvious reasons.  LGBT in Korea is nothing all that new with about 26 different people all claiming to be “Korea’s first LGBT idol” but the lyrical directness here wipes the floor with all of them.  EDIT: turns out he’s not gay, he’s just gay for Oh My Girl’s Seunghee.  No wonder he’s trying so hard to impress here.  Ew. 

Han Sangdo – Slipped

Let’s finish up with this guy playing 6-string bass.  The song has zero interest and isn’t much other than a vehicle for his playing, but it’s okay because I could watch him all day.  I like it how he has the wireless unit with him everywhere, as if there’s always an amplifer just nearby him at all times, now that’s commitment to realism.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Dreamcatcher – Good Night – cover by Rolling Quartz

This very-posey, not-actually-live video still showcases a pretty good cover of the original song and also shows the potential for Dreamcatcher themselves to rock out a bit more, maybe, one day, if their company gives them permission.  Also is there any member of Rolling Quartz who doesn’t look amazing.  Just going to tell you right now in advance that if any of these girls did bully anyone in high school, I hope they got away with it.

The music video for NightOff – Because, but with music that actually matches the video’s atmosphere

Just to demonstrate what I was talking about with my review of this song.

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