Welcome to another Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s check out some new releases!

Seventeen – Not Alone

Not awful, but yet another example of why Seventeen at least as a full group have never really gotten anywhere in these roundups.

Twice – Kura Kura

The pace is nice but a weak chorus lets it down.  At least the girls finally actually look good again, the first time they’ve been allowed to since “Fancy” dragged them down into a black pit full of shadow and sparkly things that weren’t them.

Monsta X – Flavors of Love

It should be illegal to have a Marshall head and quad in a video for a song with no electric guitar.

Enhypen – Drunk Dazed

Hey, it’s okay, I guess.  The hook is a little annoying but at least it gets down to business, support it so fast paced music in k-pop comes back.

P1Harmony – Scared

Throwing an excellent beat over the usual boring boy group template doesn’t actually help as much as you might think it should.

B1A4 – 10 Times

A lot of groups are doing B1A4 tributes this week and I’m not going to cover any of them because they’re boring.  This song isn’t as intolerable as most of the others but it takes far too long to get going.

AB6IX – Close

This just is another one of those songs that isn’t terrible but just sounds like everything.  Change the bassline by about two notes and it’s a SHINee solo song or whatever.

Penomeco – JAJA

That girl looks far too young to be hanging out on a bed with some dickhead in an R&B video.  For all I know she’s older than I am, but it just looks wrong.  Isn’t anyone quality-controlling this stuff?  Okay, that was a silly question.

Yesung – Phantom Pain

I think the pain is very much real.

LambC ft. Stella Jang – Fortune Teller

It’s almost not completely boring because of the slightly odd way they’ve done the bass.

Wheein ft. pH-1 – Trash

Wheein looks far better here than in that other video from last week.  So that’s something good.  Of course the song sucks but nobody expected anything else, Mamamoo members looking good is enough.

Lim Seo Won – Shoulder Dance

This song would actually be alright if it wasn’t sung but a kid with a cheese-grater voice.  Can’t kids just be kids, why does everyone want to be a k-pop.  If you’re a parent and your child wants to do this shit just tell them it’s an activity for when they get older, like drinking coffee or dealing drugs.

Park Jiwoo – Happiness Or Sadness

The song has the terminal mumbles but that’s a sweet acoustic guitar tone.

IZ – Missing You

Actually a pretty decent rock tune, and okay it doesn’t go as hard as it could but the melody is correct and present as it should be, so it’s already in the top tier for this week.

Crystal Tea – Romanticist A.I

Wow this is a nice looking video, with sexy guitars and attractive people.  Something’s missing though, ah yes, the music sucks ass.  Gosh what a shame.

WAO – OnTheFire

These boys are putting way more effort into this than actually seem justified given the general lameness of it.

Soyeon – Interview

Hands up everyone who loves T-ara.  Now everyone with your hands up, list your five favourite T-ara songs.  I bet none of them on anybody’s list sound anything like this.  Soyeon really has no fucking clue which side of her bread the butter is on, and the weird choice to highlight some fat dude’s guts hanging out of his undersized shirt instead of Soyeon underlines the general strangeness of everything.

EXN – Reverse

You can really tell when the singer-songwriter is also the bass player, because this song is just an excuse for a bassline really.

Drippin – Fate

“For the fans” content here to bore you again.

ONF – The Realist

This is my weekly reminder to you that if you send an album track, even if it looks like something I’d like on paper, there’s about a 99% chance I’m going to shit on it anyway so you might as well save your energy.  ONF’s latest B-track sounds great at first, until the vocal melody comes in and it becomes very clear that nobody knew how to write one.

Kylie – Confused

I’m not sure about Kylie Minogue’s new musical direction, but the surgery definitely worked, I’ll give her that much.

Heesu – Honey Eyes

Unusual, but very, very bland – pretty much just a beat.

Zamgolbers – All Is Well

There was a bit less of this type of cacophonous bullshit released this week than last, but know that this type of music is why South Korea is struggling to progress as a society.  I’m not even joking, do you think the conservatives doing so well in the recent elections there is a coincidence?  The conservatism starts in music before it creeps over into politics. 

Han Dong Geum – Thank You For Letting Me Leave

It’s okay, you can go, we totally don’t mind.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK

The smartest member = Umji Gfriend

When I wrote my Gfriend retrospective to celebrate Korean Indie’s 10th anniversary, some cynics thought I was picking on Gfriend’s Umji.  Not at all!  Regular readers will know that I have long recognised Umji as the best member of Gfriend, and this video confirms many of her positive qualities.  Not only is she highly attractive, but Umji’s life skills are sky-high by idol standards, and let’s be honest, there’s definitely times in your life when you’re going to want someone with you who knows exactly how much 25 grams is.

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