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

Twice – Doughnut

Skating around the edges of being a Christmas song, it’s just as worthless and forgettable as the deluge of yuletide slop I’ll be presenting you within its own special post in a few weeks.  Look forward to that – or don’t.  As with all my Christmas posts, skipping it is probably the smarter move actually.

Everglow – Pirate

Looking fantastic and having tons of style, they get everything right except the music.  Someone should have pirated a fucking clue.

IVE – Eleven

This debut from some ex-IZ*ONE members is probably better than anything that IZ*ONE ever did, but did I ever mention how much IZ*ONE sucked?  Also there’s enough needless fucking around with tempos in k-pop songs these days, we don’t need songs that fuck around with the tempo while on the way to fucking around even more with the tempo.

Kai – Peaches

Gosh whatever could he be referring to.  The song is pleasant enough I suppose, but not in a way that you’d really listen to properly, because that would just reveal how little is going on.  It’s the kind of thing you’d put on if you had some chores to do, but as soon as they were done you’d switch it off again.

Jin – Super Tuna

Too tiny and insignificant to really be considered for any list inclusion, but it says a lot that this obviously phoned-in advert song impresses more in its short running length than the last three years worth of BTS tracks.

Seventeen – Ainochikara

A slightly (but not much) better version of the crap that Twice shat out this week.

NCT Dream – Dreaming

The marimba (or whatever) driving the tune is definitely the highlight and the song’s mistake is that they throw it away when the big chorus comes in, where they should be doing a “Shine” and letting it drive the entire piece mantra-style.  It’s still a reasonably good package overall.

ONF – Goosebumps

Much like Everglow this week, ONF’s new track is all sound, all style, and no song.

ATEEZ – Turbulence

Less turbulent than I had hoped for.

Xrdinary Heroes – Happy Death Day

The usual fashionable rhythmic chopping and changing for no reason doesn’t work any better when it’s squeezed into some sort of kinder-goth template.

WayV – Miracle

I always hate it when they throw the high, whiny p-funk synths into pop tunes.  That trend was played out in the 90s when it first appeared and it doesn’t need to come back.

Cignature – Boyfriend

Watching Cignature trying to dance to such a sparse song in a typical k-pop way is just uncanny valley material.  However the weird emptiness works – it’s by far their best track.

Cignature – Sirius

Nothing good ever comes from these types of groups sitting down while singing.  Sirius.

Amber Liu – Don’t Dance

It’s the melodies that make Amber’s songs not that good.  She’s fine in f(x) or on collabs where someone else is obviously doing the melody writing.  Waiting for her ultra-woke audience to point out that her necklace has been co-opted by far-right nordic assholes or whatever and cancel her yet again.

UZA – Finder

UZA interacts with my Twitter following quite a bit and she knows that some of you really like horses.  Look at her, looking back at the camera, all like “do you see the horse?  Isn’t it a nice horse?”  This is top-tier horseservice.

Changmin – Human

We dropped him out in the desert hoping he’d die but unfortunately he found his way into a recording studio.

NiziU – Beyond the Rainbow

Another shouty and dull song from a group which I probably would be better off not covering at all.

T1419 – Red Light, Green Light

Starts off with potential but then they completely change the beat up into something that’s weak as piss before anyone starts actually singing.  Oh and look at how the look and colours in the thumbnail are almost identical to that of the video above it.  K-pop really isn’t the place for innovation and risk-taking, is it.

W.O.W – To My Ex

Not W.O.W from A.C.E but some other W.O.W.  I think.  Anyway it just sounds like everything else.  I like the guitarist pretending he’s actually doing something, that’s cute actually.

NU’EST – Different

Essentially ineligible for roundup because the audio quality is so poor, but I’m just including it here to point that out.  When the audio is some room-PA mix, it’s a real handicap to the group even if it sounds fine on the studio mix (not that it does here, just an example).  This is one reason why I remove a lot of “live” submissions, they’re playing at a disadvantage, it’s generally fairer on everybody if I wait for a video before shitting on it.

The Wild Idol – Answer

Whereas here we have a performance video, but it doesn’t have actual live audio, so it sounds better.  I guess the budget only went as far as those white shirts and leather pants.  Have fun watching for nipslips.

The Wild Idol – No Thanks

Here’s a green screen special, with the boys all dressed in red in a sign of ultra colour-wheel caution.  Talk about a conservative country.

Youngjae – Eternal

“Sketch film”?  Whatever happened to calling it a music video.  Calling these things anything other than MV should be punishable but something more than just a bad review here.  I guess jail is a little harsh, maybe just a fine and some community service.

O.V – Challenge

He’s just lucky that his song is too short to annoy me that much.

Donghae – Lost

This song can get lost.

Onew, Punch – Way

Despite the names involved, not worth the click.  Just move on, it’s better that way.

Kiara – Pick Me Up

Not awful but really lacking some form of personality.

Badroom – Closet

Actually in the real Bad Thoughts Room they take away your mobile phone.

D-Hack x Lee Soojin of Weeekly – Maboroshi Phone Booth

Soojin looks perfect here and it’s annoying.  I hate the “perfect” beauty standard of Korea, what’s wrong with girls who have a lazy eye or a scar on their face or a chipped tooth or something, perfect people boo hiss.

Mongdoll – Uwaiya

The guy has clearly never used an SM58 in his life.  You’re not going to get much of a sound pointing it up your nostril.  Or maybe he was just told to back the thing away so it wouldn’t get in front of his pretty face, but somehow I doubt that.

2Z – Greetings

Are this band called 2Z because they’re boring enough to make you fall asleep twice?

Lee Seung Yoon – Open Your Textbook

I already read my textbook cover to cover and it says you could have written this song better.

Narin – Ash (0)

The problem with acapella groups is that they spend so much energy “blowing you away” with what they can do with their voices, and none on making the song any good.  It’s like listening to a guitar player who only does sweep picking.

Creator Worship feat. Ahn Han Na – Lord I Worship You

He sends floods, fires and a virus to murder you all and you just go on and lick his scrotal sack even harder.  Not only that but I’ve heard Little PSY is still making songs.  What more does he have to do to you to prove he doesn’t give a shit.

Moskva Surfing Club – Anna O

Such a boring song, but such a great guitar and drum sound.  Someone in the engineering booth really tried their hardest to make this not suck, and they didn’t succeed but you have to empathise with the struggle.

Dohu – Hangover

Just the usual thing Korea does, so basically Vulfpeck if they played everything at 25% speed.

Gaho – Part Time Lover

It’s really sad when over and over again you hear great ideas without a great song.

Viral Affair – Align (Jeonghyeon remix)

It’s boring, and don’t waste your time with the original because that sucks too.

Yeseo – Free Up

Yeseo still hasn’t used the cat footage I sent her yet.  I thought she was going to make a video from that.  Hurry up girl, Stiglitz’s k-pop debut can’t wait too much longer, don’t make me approach the Girls Planet 999 team.

Login – Nanibami

Gosh I think someone left themselves logged on, I’ll just log them out now.

verycoybunny – I don’t care

Eh, it’s okay I guess.  Wow, that just put this song in the top 5% for this week.

Truedy feat. Kim Boa – Love Yourself

Who remembers Truedy?  I guess it makes sense that some girl who used to be in Spica is the only one who does, she knows how much it hurts to be forgotten.

Truedy – Okay

And here’s the “moody” track they all do when they want to be taken seriously as rappers, she’s doing her best to make you forget about all that stuff that you’d already forgotten about until I reminded you just now.

Mirani feat. Illboi – Tikita

It would have been cool if she got shot halfway through the song and it just stopped.

GSoul – Natural

There’s about 63 artists across the world all called “G Soul” and they all suck just as much as this.  In fact, this might even be one of the better complete pieces of shit music from someone called “G Soul”.

Misskiss – Deliver Us From Evil

Writing a trap song called “deliver us from evil” is like calling a casino “I hate money”.  Nobody is being fooled.  Anyway I’ll deliver you all from evil and stop writing roundup right now.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Dahyun elbowing Jihyo in the boob

This week’s important Jihyo boob OH&S update.  Be careful, Dahyun!

Lost Crusade – Space Marine – cover by Ayeon

A lot of the Ayeon videos don’t have very technical drumming so it’s good to see one where she works around the kit a little more than usual. 

AleXa – first metaverse concert – best moments

What the actual fuck is going on here.  Doesn’t seem much like a concert to me as there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of actual music involved.  It doesn’t seem much like a computer game either, because nobody is doing anything except hanging out on a virtual disc satisfying their AleXa femdom giant fetish as their tiny avatars walk under her and she crushes them with her big cyber boots.  Oh well, they seem to be having fun and the non-CGI headset-clad AleXa kind of mrs tbh especially in this sort of de-glam casual form.  Hopefully she made enough nerdcoins out of this nonsense to pay for the pretty moving CGI floors and stuff.

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That’s all for this week!  The final Kpopalypse roundup for 2021 will be next week!  After that there’ll clearing house posts and some other stuff to tide you over until the end of year best and worst lists!  In the meantime roundup returns next week!