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

Billlie – RING ma Bell (what a wonderful world)

Billie’s mild flirting with actual rock music is a bit too glossy to really have the kind of impact that it should have, but it’s still another above-average Billlie song that you can file next to all their other above-average songs, which is all of them.  (All the feature tracks anyway, boring b-side filler ballads and shit don’t count because every group’s filler garbage is basically the same shit.)

Key – Gasoline

I guess we had our one great SHINee solo song of the decade last week so now they’re going to go back to boring us to death for the next 8 years, yay us.  Isn’t it great to be a k-pop fan.

TWICE – Queen of Hearts

Twice come down with a case of the Olivia Rodrigos and the results are decent, but fuck whoever gave Jeongyeon the frumpy shirt while everyone else gets cute clothes, the anti-thicc-Jeongyeon discrimination is real.

MAMAMOO+ feat. BIG Naughty – Better

If you’re driving down the highway singing some shit song and you see a hitchhiking rapper, just keep driving.  He’ll only make things even worse.

Balming Tiger feat. RM of BTS – Sexy Nukim

A rhythm track and some mumbling is not a song.

ONEUS – Same Scent

The songwriter here figured that if they got their tropical shithouse melody and just played it an octave lower on a different instrument, nobody would notice that they’re still riding a crappy six year old trend that is now deader than dead.

DAY6 (Even of Day) – Darling on the Beach

How sterile and un-fun does this look.  These boys were probably promised an actual beach video but one of them got caught trying to sneak out of the dorms at night and their punishment is now to have their “summer concept” via green screen.

Yurisa – shinse no aria

Yurisa as a fucking elf again (of course, when is she not) doing some bullshit ballad.  You’ve seen her do this type of thing before and it never really changes much.

PRITTI-G – Love Taker

Your friends trying to make the next Dreamcatcher song but they only have Garage Band and a Rocktek distortion pedal.

CRAXY – Lion

Actually there’s a reasonable backing track here but as usual they fuck it up by having a random yelpy melody that just goes all over the place for no reason because Red Velvet did it six years ago.

BOY STORY – WW

My “boy story”: I was writing my weekly roundup and I clicked “play” on some boy group’s new song.  It wasn’t very good, so I turned it off and listened to something else.  The end.

Blitzers – Gradation

A bunch of k-pop kids get upstaged by the sky.

BLANK2Y – I Wish (K2YWE Song)

Total bullshit music for people neck-deep in fandom delusion only.

DUSTIN – Crazy

They actually went to a reasonable effort to write a chorus here, effort totally wasted sadly because the sheer crapness of everything else about the track plus the total lack of polish means this will be forgotten quickly.

Villain – Dance With Me

When you want to launch a k-pop group but you forgot to budget for clothes.  Good thing that grunge isn’t trendy right now so there’s plenty of flannel in disgusting colours to choose from down at the local op shop.

Ulalasession – Hommage

I started this song and listened to it and had to go and do something and about a minute later I was like “what is this fucking annoying shit song” not remembering that I was the one who pressed play a minute ago.  There was a point to this anecdote but I forgot what it was, anyway the key takeaway here is that the song sucks.

Kim Jaehwan – Back Then

Nice fishnet jumper, I don’t think it’s quite see-through enough to boost his objectification status for next year’s rankings though.  Try harder.

Ha Sungwoon – Baby Blue

I probably shouldn’t include this junk in roundup at all so I’m just going to say “I saw it, it was a thing” so I don’t get asked about it and now lets just move on.

Sunye, Jo Kwon – Greetings

The next time you meet some ballad singer who says they did mission work one time, just slap them in the face and walk away, don’t even explain anything, let them figure out why they got hit.  Maybe they’ll think twice before using food and medical care to bribe poor people to join their shitty religion in the future, or maybe they’ll think you hated their song instead and they’ll stop singing ballads, either way it’ll be a good outcome for all concerned.

SAAY – Alarm

Just a beat and a bunch of vocal rambling.  It’s not the worst thing in the world but it’s also very difficult to care about.

Jiselle feat. oceanfromtheblue – Butterfly

I don’t have much to say about this one so I’d just like to tell you that I was shocked when looking at the August JAV sales rankings that the vast majority of my JAV biases didn’t even crack the top 100.  I guess my taste is more unconventional than I think.

CNEMA – Consolation To You

The guitar the lead guitarist guy is playing is a Yamaha Revstar, those guitars are cool but they’re also the fucking heaviest guitars I’ve also played that are also goddamn hollow.  I picked up one in a music store the other day and nearly put my fucking spine out because I expected it to weigh three kilos, not 15, why the fuck is something that’s basically a hollow block of wood so assfuckingly heavy.  Fuck you Yamaha I wasn’t even at work at the time so I can’t claim compo for my dead arm.  

BIGONE – Password 486

Hey Asian Junkie this is what pop punk sounds like, not Billlie’s new song, just for your reference.  Mind you it’s a pretty pissweak version with only the very tiniest of “punk” veneers, but then that’s how they usually are.  Kpopalypse out here helping out the sport writers who don’t know things about music even though they have a k-pop blogging side-gig, thank me later and repay the favour the next time I do a sport post and try to understand why the digit goes up when the ball goes through the thing.  I promise you I’ll get those facts wrong in a future post just to give you your chance to shine.

Layone, Jo Gwangil, Ahn Byeong Woong – Private Ryan

Why are they shooting at the girl?  Just let her rap, I bet you’re scared that she’d probably slay all of you on the fucking mic.

Heenain – Flying

People think they can just blur the camera a bit and play a few DX7 patches in the chorus and they have an 80s retro hit, but I’m telling you it doesn’t work like that.

Ahn Yeeun – We Are Here

This song manages to be incredibly nasal yet annoyingly millennial-whooping at the same time, I didn’t even know this was possible.

Yeom Seung Woon feat. Kimmono – Can’t Fix It

Eh it’s okay I guess but the most interesting thing about it is definitely that guy’s neck tattoos, not the music.

JP feat. Khundi Panda – Bills

A rap track where they mess around with extreme swing ratios and the result actually works in context instead of sounding like a learner driver trying to do a manual hill start.

Vizo – A HA

All the alcohol in this video isn’t enough to make me understand this jumble of melody.

Band Girin – Travel

Best choreo 2022 hands down.  Also I’m just digging the sunny mood.  Some good vibes here.

HEN – Nightmare

Speaking of which, what is this miserable crap, fucking cheer up, geez.  If you’re not living in a city that’s being bombed you have no excuse to be this morose.

SLEEQ – Hey

Someone asked me on my livestream if this goes hard or something and it doesn’t so there you go.  Mind you, you could have found that out yourself just by listening to it.  People ask some strange shit sometimes.

Hanlim – I Can’t

I can’t, either.

Soseom – The Regret of Yesterday

Speaking of regret, do you ever question your life choices?  Such as choosing to write about k-pop instead of death metal?  Because I question this from time to time.

Bami – I Don’t Know How To Be Alone

I’m sure there’s some great tracks I could be reviewing instead of these endless waves of fucking insipid coffee shop bullshit.  I guess I’ll never know.

Soyeah – Here I Am

You know it’s okay.  It narrowly missed getting replaced by a death metal video so good work being at least a little bit interesting I guess.

Chuu – One And A Half

Oh hey Chuu did a thing.  This is good because even though the song sucks I get to look at Chuu a lot, she’s on my bias list for a reason you know, and wow she looks great here.  Also did it ever occur to anyone that maybe Chuu doesn’t actually want to go on stupid Loona tours because she knows how much of a shit show it’ll be and she has the power to veto that garbage so she does?

SOME FUCKING IDOL RAP TV SHOW SECTION IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT THAT YOU GIVE A SHIT, COMPLETE WITH DUMB AUDIENCE CUTAWAY “REACTION” FOOTAGE BECAUSE THE TV SHOW PRODUCERS ASSUME YOU’RE A TRUE MORON

Shin Jimin – VVWD

Little miss squeaky from AOA is back, not saying “hey” but not doing much else either.  Here she raps over her own double-tracked voice like that one Public Enemy concert I bought on video years ago and was hugely disappointed in because at almost no time in the whole thing does Chuck D rap without the backing track with his own voice on it helping him out.  Just like your k-pop faves.

Moon Sua – The Magician

This girl from Billlie has a backing track with a bit more movement and a bit more physical movement on stage which is good too, and she even doesn’t really give a crap about miming it and just yells over the backing track because why not.  Still not much of a song though.

Exy – Diamonds

WJSN’s entrant is going the opposite route and taking it very seriously.  I think if she dropped the mic and vocals still kept coming out she’d probably cry and have to be ushered off stage and given a towel and a few “there theres”.

Moonbyul – On My Way

Moonbyul’s experience shows here, she has a bit more stage confidence than the others.  Still waiting for a song but oh well.

Seonyou – Fifteen

Okay this nugu girl from CLASS:y actually has the decent rap song I wanted, certainly the only one here worth a damn.  Also I swear I saw a Kim Garam penis on that chalkboard but it was just a letter in a funny shape, disappointed, oh well.

Mimi – Sunset

Mimi is one of the members of Oh My Girl that you probably forget exists from time to time and you’ll probably forget that her weak R&B rap song exists just as quickly.

Yubin – Second World

Yubin’s song is so short that it might as well not be there.

Jooe – Decaffeine

Jooe’s song is kinda shit and seems to be more about showcasing choreo and that’s fine, she does it alright, plus she’s paid her dues being criticised in Momoland for no reason so just having her look great here is enough.

BONUS RANDOM VIDOES OF THE WEEK

Wonho – girl group choreography practice, practicing for the fanmeeting

I showcase quite a lot of girls dancing to boy group songs but not much the other way around, so enjoy this video of Wonho flexing his feminine dance moves.

StayC – So Bad – Live

Here’s what most idol voices actually sound like.  StayC are probably one of the better groups of new idol singers and even then they can still only hit about 85% of the notes… and this is while sitting down, now add the amount of movement required to do the dance routines at the same time and you can see why most groups either lipsync or half-ass it over backing tracks containing their own voices.

Bibi at Waterbomb 2022 Festival

Gosh look at all that water.  Look very closely.  There’s a drought in Korea and farmers can’t water their crops, so you’d better appreciate all the water here so it’s not wasted.

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