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

ITZY – Sneakers

A beat and lots of shouting, and that’s about it.  This one review took me nearly an hour to write because I couldn’t think up anything to say about it, and even after that hour I still got nothing.  “Talk about the music” – how do you even discuss the contents of an empty box.

TWICE – Celebrate

Twice’s version of “a beat and shouting” at least has a bit more melody, so that’s a marginal positive, even if they keep trying to find as many ways to not show Jeongyeon on camera as possible because Korean beauty standards are the worst in the world.

J-Hope – Arson

Now that the pressure has been relaxed on them having to come up with a new generic global pop hit every three months, the BTS members have finally been given the breathing room they need to make the music they want to make, instead of the music their CEO wants them to make.  The outcome here is genuinely good and exactly the type of results I was hoping for in my BTS hiatus help post.  

Apink CHOBOM – Copycat

Really quite shit musically, it might look like Orange Caramel on acid but the sound is just that same boring mid-tempo bland lounge R&B thing that clutters up the second half of 99% of all k-pop albums released since 1997.

Apink CHOBOM – Feel Something

Their other song is better, nothing earth-shaking but it gets the job done.  I like the two microphones that are a subtly different shade of lurid sex-shop pink from each other, now that’s classy.  You know you’re a big wheel in the k-pop world when you get your own customised shade of pink just for your personal use.

Hyolyn – No Thanks

The feeling is mutual.

Billlie, Yong Jong Shin – Patbingsu

Such a weird song, starting off with a strange reggae-lite thing for the first minute and then changing gears into upbeat disco for the remainder, and overall it’s not too bad if you can handle the cheese overload of that big disco chorus, but I can’t shake the feeling that this should have been two completely separate songs.

BoA & Xin – Better

BoA can’t write a song called “I’m a proud lesbian and by the way fuck you” because Korean society is conservative and boring, so she has to dog-whistle it by doing a dance duet with Amber 2.0, which will make perfect sense to the audience it’s intended for.

SuA – No Dot

One super-cool distorted brassy riff keeps the song alive, pity that everything else surrounding it is just the same old same old.

Monsta X – If with U

Monsta X have way better songs than this and thus have no excuse to be this boring.

Seventeen – _World

I guess this is a story about how Seventeen go to the Underscore Planet to find their true Fromis_9 love matches.

Super Junior – Mango

A better song than anyone would probably expect from Super Junior at this point in their careers.  But hey – if Shindong can get screen time, why can’t Jeongyeon?  The sexism in the Korean pop industry is real.

SF9 – Scream

Bright and colourful, but so was my shit this morning. 

Heejin – Honestly

So awful that nobody could even stand to be in the same room as Heejin when she sung it, so they just recorded her on the CCTV and played her back for this lyric video.  Normally trash like this wouldn’t even make roundup at all but since it’s Loona I figure at least three people reading this might give a shit.  Also, making Loona fans mad is always funny because they never fail to twist themselves into ultra-bigoted gatekeeping “how dare you speak on Loona, they are only for the depressed trans bicurious midget paraplegics with shingles, you wouldn’t understand” paroxysms when confronted with any opinion that isn’t “I love Loona so much that I would suck the methane out of their farts”.

Chungha – California Dream

Eh, just another disco thing that isn’t great, plus we get stupid mobile phone screen format again which is always a good reason to hate absolutely anything.

NiziU – Clap Clap

Easily Niziu’s best song, but that’s not really much of a compliment given how consistently crap Niziu have been since release.  At least it has some fast rhythm, if nothing else.

tX4 (Oh My Girl Arin, Jeon Somi, Wonstein & Zion.T) – Present

Starts off cool but then nothing really happens, by the time Arin’s finished whispering at me I’ve lost interest, even Somi horticulturalising my train can’t make me give a shit.

Hi-L – Hi-Way

They lose points for realism with the sports car because there’s no way the girls are affording one of those anytime soon, but they gain the points back with the watermelon because that’s one of the few things idols are probably actually allowed to eat, at least in the morning before they’ve had time to burn off the kilojoules with 18 hours of dance practice.

Jay Park – Need to Know

Jay Park said he was retiring, but I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him.  Like your super-annoying friend who makes a big huge display of writing a massive “goodbye” post when quitting their favourite social networking site/blog/forum/whatever, you know they’ll be back a few weeks later like they never said shit.  Remember folks: never, ever stop doing what you love, but if you do decide to quit something for reasons, always quit forever with no looking back, because if you start up again, the reasons why you decided to quit the first time will always come back to bite you in the ass.  Jay’s about to find that out so you don’t have to.  Song fucking sucks ass by the way.

Me:us – Wind

Don’t hold soft drink cans if the company isn’t paying you.

1CHU – OASIS

I’m told this is a subunit of the group HeyGirls.  Remember them?  No?  You probably won’t remember this in two weeks either.

UiU – Starlit

Apparently the person behind these nugus used to write songs for WJSN, and it shows because WJSN’s early songs weren’t any good either.

Redbalm – Swipe

I’m all for cheesy no-budget nugu retro pop excursions, but someone should have really swiped left on that breakdown idea.

Woo Jin Young – Delicious

Yeah nah.

Jeong Yu Jin, Sujin – Summer Days

One of these girls is apparently from The Ark, that group that only had one terrible song.  I can’t even remember which one she is, but whatever, this is certainly better than The Ark was so I’ll take it.

COPY CHU feat. Jeon Won Ju – Spend all the money in my wallet

You know that your song is shit when Shindong stops the video shoot halfway through just to tell you that you suck.

PSY BURGER – To Psy

Why do we need another PSY, really.  I can’t even tell if this is supposed to be funny or if the guy is literally just trying to be PSY because he likes him or something.  If “nugu PSY” can still afford to hire a fucking boat to do his shitty dance on, I’m not sure where the parody is, or even if there is one at all.

The Volunteers – NewPlant

I didn’t start following Korean pop just so I could be subjected to all the same horrid 90s indie post-shoegaze blando-rock that my lame friends listen to.

RAWRIDER – Riding

I stopped writing roundup right here and went to do some stuff, I got my second COVID booster, and took my gf to pick up some vape juice, which was a good two hours of driving and waiting around and more driving and more waiting around.  I spent that whole time thinking about what a group called “RAWRIDER” would sound like.  N.O.M meets Skatt Bros’ “LIfe At The Outpost“?  Judas Priest meets Grant MacDonald?  Then I came back and finally listened to it and… well it definitely wasn’t what I thought, but I guess it’s pretty good.  Those guitar riffs are neat.  Not so sure about the vocals but lets be honest with a song like this the vocals are hardly the main event.

nomad & Malitabu – Slide

Really boring meandering crap where some girl warbles over a drum and bass beat, back when I used to DJ late nights there was a radio show on just before mine and literally every single track they played each week for about five years sounded exactly like this kind of musical shovelware.

Choi Byung Hoon with 183 – Who Loses

I’m not sure what the story is here but I like the video concept a whole lot.

6Band – Banana Yum-Yum

No it’s not a Loona/Oh My Girl mashup, it’s… well okay, I’m not entirely sure to be honest.  I appreciate that it rocks though.

Kim Hyang Soon – Baby

I love it how this some is so bombastic and dramatic and then that whatever-the-fuck-it-is stringed instrument comes in with one note like “booooingggg”, and it sounds so against the feel of everything else that it’s hilarious, like a violinist in a chamber orchestra suddenly ripping a massive fart.  It’s a hundred times funnier than PSY Burger.

Nahee – Love Note!

Why does everything sound like this now.  Are we this easily fooled?  I guess we are.

meeruu feat. Dilla – Savage

“Producer rule” applies once again – if the producer is listed in the YouTube title, it’s probably gonna suck, folks.

Kim Marie – Fly!

Hey it’s bright, fast and decent. 

UNEDUCATED KID – Celebrity Disease

Terrifying.

CRUMP, Liggy – Sinner Of The Year

Slim picking with the rap music this week but this one’s okay I guess.  Although one again they don’t understand that the best 90s hip-hop isn’t the mellow stuff.

CIKA feat. Owen – Jump

Reminds me of Silkybois “Bomaye” except that the music sucks, plus Black Nut can rap and these guys can’t.

Boni – Wash Me

She probably needs a good wash after shooting a video in the stinky seawater all day.  What a horrible video shoot this would be to do.

LIVE STAGE STUFF I’M RELUCTANTLY PUTTING IN ROUNDUP AT READER REQUEST BECAUSE I’VE FINALLY GIVEN UP ALL HOPE OF GETTING AN OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR THESE SONGS

Le Sserafim – Blue Flame

Actually this has the same problem as “Fearless“, in that it’s got a cool bassline and it’s a neat rhythm track which kind of carries it all over the line despite the fact that not much really happens.  I see this as a positive thing because at some point they’re going to get it really right for this group and then at that time at least whatever the new song is probably won’t have any filler or stupid sections.

Ichillin’ – La Luna

I can’t even remember this group’s other song, but I’m fairly sure that this is the better one.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

MAXIM – Plus Size Model Contest

I’m sure that you’re aware that MAXIM’s yearly plus size model contest is on again, but just in case you missed the memo here’s part one and the second part is also up on the Maxim YouTube channel.  You’re welcome.

Kerrigan May does a rap in the playground just because

I love how she shoulder-checks before she starts her verse to make sure there’s no little kids in the area who might overhear and go “oh my god mum it’s the sex with a pickle lady”.  The sacrifices musicians with adult content have to make are real.

Kpop Game | SAVE ONE DROP ONE | Male idols Abs version

And why does this have to exist?  What the hell is wrong with the person who made this bruh.  They made the video bc they are a degenerate, people who interact with it are also creepy degenerates as well, no one is excused from this.  Literally what is wrong with them.  How weird that people participated in this.  Why would you even make this list.  Gross.  Oh wait… this is a male list?  Oh, then it’s fine.  Forget I said anything.  Gosh, look at those abs.

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