It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s check out some new releases!
Lovelyz’ Seo Jisoo is one of the latest round of k-pop stars to get COVID. It’s easy to say that kpop stars are young so they’ll be okay, but a lot of these people are pushed to the brink of their health in any case so I wouldn’t rule out the pandemic being a bridge too far for some of them. So maybe just to be on the safe side hold off on the “Ah-choo!” jokes until we know she’s out of the woods so you don’t feel like the world’s biggest asshole in a month (that’s my job).
Loona – PTT (Paint The Town)
In my latest computer game “Try Not To Have Gay Sex With Yves 3 – in 3D” which you should all play if you haven’t yet, there’s a monument in the Blockberry foyer, which is a “memorial to Loona’s pre-debut song consistency”, and I wasn’t kidding. Loona are about as reliable at releasing decent songs as Microsoft are at rolling out Windows updates – sometimes you get exactly what you need, but just as frequently you scratch your head and wonder why they bothered changing things up for no reason.
A.C.E – Higher
There’s a good song in here somewhere but a million out-of-tune brass synth pads crashing down around the mix don’t give it a chance to shine.
Stray Kids – Oh
Another weak song by a group that has been consistently pretty good. 2021 is backwards year.
2PM – Make It
Yes this group still exist. Just reminding you, even though they’re long past the “our label prioritises only the best music for us” phase of their career.
Yezi – Secreto
Who killed Yezi the ex-Fiestar rapper and replaced her with this generic-looking k-pop chick doing the same “Latin” nonsense everyone else is doing.
Apoki – Coming Back
The biggest tragedy about the virtual idol craze is that it’s not the high-budget A-list versions getting all the screentime, but their woeful sub-Pixar nugu cousins. We have about 10 seconds total of e-Aespa footage across all SM content everywhere, yet this fucking rabbit-o turns up nearly every week with some new bullshit song. At least with the predominant half-shirts, Asian Junkie coverage is guaranteed, as I’ve heard he’s into that.
Han Seungwoo – See You Again
Generic lighter-waving rubbish designed to make fans cry and nobody else give a shit – junk food for the soul.
Yugyeom feat. Jay Park, punchnello – Love The Way
I love the way Jay Park is in a song every week and it’s usually bad like this one but being highly prolific deserves a level of respect just on its own. Keep trying in life and you will get there eventually.
Queen Wa$abii feat. Changmo – Jay Park
Also he’s actually got Queen Wa$abii writing crappy R&B thirst songs about him. You know, the same kind of song that he usually writes about Girl’s Day. It’s hard to know who I admire more because of this, her or him.
Bling Bling – Milkshake
Definitely the worst one of the 2346589 k-pop songs that are called “milkshake”.
Big Mama – One Day More
You see, this is how Korean society is fucked, and what I tried to point out recently. If you’re like one half of a gram overweight you’re not even allowed to be a k-pop at all unless you debut with some humiliating “look I’m fat” project name. Let’s just stop the military draft and let Kim Jong Un invade, fuck it. He wouldn’t treat chubby people this way.
Baek Z Young – Because You’re Shining Like a Star
Not as bad as it could have been but honestly listening To Baek Z Young (who I’ll refer to hereafter only as “Z” because it sounds cool) pedal over those same few notes over and over in the chorus does get a tad wearying, like when you get a massage but the masseuse overstays their welcome in that one spot and they end up doing more harm than good.
Woosung feat. Reddy – Lady
This Woosung guy used to be in short-lived k-pop group The Rose, I only know this because the label who released this actually emailed me about it. You and your Twitter buddies might think I’m “problematic” or whatever dumb bullshit, but the labels are eagerly lining up for their two sentences in roundup where I shit on their super-average song.
Jeongmin – Africa
Studying for your exams and being in a k-pop music video at the same time, now that’s next-level multi-tasking.
Luamel – War
Doesn’t start how I’d expect a song called “War” to start, and doesn’t develop in the same way either. This is a bad thing.
Lee Seungyoon – Unspoken
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a good transistor amplifier in a k-pop video. Transistor amplifiers are great, because they turn on straight away and you don’t need to spend ages warming up unreliable vaccum tubes. Guitarists believe in a lot of pseudoscience. The same people who will mock dumb flat-earthers will then turn around and say stuff like “I can really hear how the tubes warm the sound” when they’re playing through the clean channel and “the guitar sustain comes from the wood body” when it clearly doesn’t.
Mona – Pizza
Actual money has been spent on this. Why does it have like three views? I don’t get it. You should click on this one a bit just so they get some return on investment from what is definitely a legitimately impressive music video for a nobody.
Seasoning – Escape
When I first saw those headphones in her hand, I mistook them for a gun for a split second. I guess I’ve got the skills required to be an American police officer.
Rainbow Note – Surface
Why are Rainbow Note always bad. On paper they have everything I should like, but they just never get the songs anywhere even close to right.
Monday Feeling – Dope
Don’t be fooled by the Flying V, this sounds like crappy Australian rock.
Vidan – The Castle of a Hero
It’s all looking very traditional until some guy with an electric guitar turns up and says “hey girls, mind if I crash this party?” – mind you his tinny distorted noodlings don’t add anything all that good.
Huh Chanmi – Haeundae Beach
How come every trot singer ever looks like Yuu Shinoda. I’m not complaining.
Jung Minhyuk, Jang Mi – The Two of Us
It’s a rental. Don’t be fooled, girl.
Holocity – The Night That I Can’t Sleep
Sort of a super lo-fi version of the tropical thing and actually reasonably okay.
Padi – HAHAHOHO
K-pop music videos are full of people being really happy or sad for no discernable reason.
Tain – Long D
Seriously – why are they so happy? I mean, good on them I guess but it just feels a little fake. Don’t you have a job that you hate or something?
Kim Ahyun – The Promise of Summer
Then there’s the other end of the spectrum where singers just stare around at nothing in particular like they’re struggling to process the effects of their new medication. It would be great to have a video with normal people just feeling normal occasionally.
Doncan feat. Welldon, X – I Don’t Know You
Don’t tell the person called X that there’s about 57 different solo artists, groups and projects all called X and that they’ve all had to change their name or fade into obscurity just because of the confusion.
MC Minzy feat. Sound Kim – I Say Woo!
No, it’s not Minzy from 2NE1. Although I don’t like this song, at all, it’s actually too high quality to be a legit Minzy post-2NE1 song.
Xydo – Paradigm
I’d rather watch trees grow than listen to Xydo, and the video director seemingly feels the same way.
Woody, Lim Haram – The sketch you sketched
Woody’s crappy R&B music can even make Lim Haram sound boring.
KittiB – Let’s Get Lost
Can Black Nut drop some more raps about titty-fucking KittiB so she responds with a diss rap about how he’s ugly and has a 2cm micropenis, because that would probably go a lot harder and be way more interesting than yet another boring R&B thing.
Bobae – Baby I Miss
Is that a Mac with the Windows wallpaper or am I on drugs?
Sam Kim – The Juice
Not sure what juice he’s talking about but I could use a little more of it.
Sole feat. Gaeko – Why
Why indeed. (This is now my default review for any song called “Why”.)
B-free feat. EK – Asshxle
I like B-Free because BTS fans hate him because he said something naughty about their favourite group in 1963, but he still only produces one good song every five years and this isn’t one of them.
Doyi Lee – STFU
no u
Lee Seon – Glowing Night
It’s not “noir”, you’re just shit at lighting a TV studio.
KyoungSeo – My Everything
It’s our favourite nugu set again! We love it. This girl looks awkward as shit I must say. Send her lots of love because I feel like she really stuck her neck out to even be filmed for this.
Choi Ban Jang – Abrasion
Less abrasive than I expected.
Narae Lee – Dancing
Less danceable that I expected.
It’s feat. Sowoon – Childhood of the Sea
Yes it’s featuring Sowoon, but who’s the actual artist? Does anyone know? Sorry I know this is a lame joke but I have to occupy myself somehow while this shit music plays. Try reviewing 50 songs per week that all suck and see how you go for entertainment.
Siha – The Day I Love You
Hey maybe he’d come back if you had better skills at home decorating. He probably died from all the beige blandness.
Cotoba – Goodnight Lilith
Just imagine Yvette Young’s music if it wasn’t any good.
La Poem – Waltz in Storm
Music like this makes zero sense outside of some kind of theatrical operatic context, but I one day hope for a collab with King Diamond or similar.
BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Ailee – Wannabe (Itzy) – band live version
People talk a lot of fucking nonsense about “vocal damage” in k-pop girl groups but the fact is that k-pop would be damaging on a lot of singers’ voices if those singers actually got to sing more than 30 seconds worth in their own songs, because the songs are often pitched right at the top of their vocal ranges for maximum “cute girlishness”, something that solo artists do get to find out (just ask Shannon Williams how much she liked singing “Why Why” ahem). So it actually takes someone like Ailee to actually sing an entire k-pop group song on her own, and she’s doing it in the original key here and including all the backing vocals too so that’s pretty cool. I hate the visual format of this show though with the band stuck against the back wall in the shadows, it would be great if they made it feel more warm and inviting, but I guess they gotta leave all that room for when they have the 12-member groups on so everyone can see their short skirts properly or whatever.
That’s all for this week, Kpopalypse roundup returns next week! Also don’t forget that the KPOPALYPSE OBJECTIFICATION SURVEY closes at the end of June, so get onto it if you haven’t yet and have your say in important visual k-pop criteria! Stay safe, caonimas!
KPOPALYPSE 
Loona after GoWon’s solo only chooses the worst songs as title, and i can’t judge when i see *insert generic shit music from a large company group* being adored and music like star don’t
But if i can´t judge the decision, i can judge the song, who is awful
How does the band hear each other? When I did chamber music, we all had to be able to see each other to even stay together. Do they all have in-ears? Is that enough? I’m not sure how onstage bands do it.
I wish there wasn’t the pressure for idols to dance in these “band versions” and the focus could be fully on doing something musical together.
Kpop songs are actually kinda hard to sing well a lot of the time because there are very few spots for one person to take breaths. I think Ailee did a great job! Her rapping/performing was surprisingly charismatic. I wish she made slightly more total musical choices just to make the performance more her own, but she had a lot to focus on as is.
Either foldback wedges, or in-ears.
Audibly let out a “noooo” hearing the PTT chorus. The lore is great, everybody looks great, their voices sound good, but the song is just another crappy Blackpink ripoff. I say this as an Orbit since Kim Lip’s debut- please benevolent Blockberry CEO, hire some more daring producers. Just because it’s a popular sound doesn’t mean it’s good, but then again money is likely the company’s main concern anyways.
nct dream is not even worth two sentences huh
The submission I got for them was too short to qualify. I’ll look at their full MV next week.
Loona’s music has suffered since Jeong left after X X, his direction is what made the project so excellent.
Digipedi still manage the visuals so the storytelling and videos continue to be outstanding. I’m listening to & as I’m typing this and it’s just so lacklustre…:(
I really think that Star/Voice was a fluke. The only other b-side I’ve enjoyed since Jeong left is Universe. A pop music tragedy.
It is bitterly ironic that so many Orbits despise him because his direction was so essential to the artistic success of the work.
Eh, I thought they hated him for abandoning LOONA, precisely because he was so crucial to their lore and sound and I guess, supposedly (?) dropped them like a hot potato and moved on to OnlyOneOf?
Loona’s good songs kind of make everything else they do forgivable. It’s still kind of sad that they fucking suck most of the time now.
There’s no “Star” on this album to redeem the Loonaverse this year. The song I peg most for a second MV release sounds like a Mamamoo clone, and it ain’t “Piano Man.”