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

ITZY – Blah Blah Blah

Oh wow Itzy has a kind of shouty song but it’s also actually quite good for a change, I didn’t think the human race was on this timeline but there you have it.

BTS – Yet To Came (Hyundai Ver.)

I think I had this same song here last week or the week before, just a different version?  I can’t even remember, everything BTS does these days is so forgettable.  Who even are these nugus.

Crush feat. J-Hope of BTS – Rush Hour

Rappers who sing instead of rap are like whores who hold hands while on the clock instead of sucking dick.  It’s nice that such a service exists for the people who need it, but that’s not why I’m spending my money.

Adora – Magica Symphony

Adora is great, I like her a lot.  I think this is probably her worst song and it’s still kind of almost not awful.  I prefer this video just for the fashion sense though, Adora is someone I need to remember about in 10 months when I update the bias list again.

Mimiirose – Rose

Not much of a song, but the look they’ve gone for with the girls is really striking.  I like it how there’s one girl in there who has clearly steadfastly refused to have nose surgery.  She’s awesome, you do you, girl.  I hope they do well and have better songs than this in future.

Lapillus – Gratata

Every girl group comeback is this shit now.  Can we just stop it.

Lapillus – Burn With Love

I guess even new groups need to have their tropical shithouse quota covered off just in case that bullshit becomes trendy again.

Billlie – B’rave ~ a song for Matilda

Whoever is naming Billllie’s songs and coming up with their concepts is clearly on drugs, and that’s fine, because the drugs work most of the time.  I can’t say I’m into this slow R&B crap but it’s slightly more tolerable than most other versions of the same thing and at least they get some decent matching black outfits.

CRAXY – Butterfly

Their music is gradually getting better, but their videos are just getting worse.  Quit with the lazy animated bullshit, bring back the ridiculously-edited gangster mafia dramas, at least they were funny.

TRI.BE – In The Air (777)

When I was a teenager I was really into Steve Vai, and when I saw his 777 necklace with the all seeing eye I thought it looked cool and went looking for the same thing everywhere not realising that it was just some custom jewelry that he had made for himself.  Later on I found out it was actually supposed to represent some christian crap and then I forgot about it pretty quickly after that.  Not sure why I took so long to realise he was christian given that every second song of his was called “I love god yes I do gosh god is so great I really dig that god guy can I go to heaven now please” but I was pretty dense as a youngster I guess.

Xiumin – Brand New

How many trash songs is the “Paradise Diner” going to be in the music videos for.  It’s joining the iconic status of Nugu Park, Kim Lip’s missile silo, that old brick building with the arched windows, etc.  Maybe it’s the only diner that has an idol diet menu where you can order what Hana has to eat every day.

KEY – Bound

Why do they make male singers always sound like they have their nuts cut off.  We all understand why they want the females to sing high, to amp up the girlishness for the pedo fans, but is anyone actually getting their rocks off from listening to Key sound like he’s getting his balls crushed in a vice?

Jun – Limbo

Another male idol made to do strange things with his voice that I haven’t recently heard outside of a torture chamber.

CHANMINA feat. ASH ISLAND – Don’t go

I’m told that this is a Korean debut by a Japanese rapper.  Which is weird because it sounds nothing like I expected – there is zero rap in it, and the tune is even good.  I’m not sure what happened here but I support whatever this is.

HYO – Deep (4B Remix)

If you’re still in the club at 3am after some guy you know from class gave you some weird pill and you just want to hear some vibrations that match with the colours you think you’re seeing on the dance floor then this probably works in that context, but I can’t recommend it for normal people who actually like music.

P.O.A – ON AIR (Stand Up)

Sounds like absolute fucking shit, and then at 0:45 it just… gets really good?  One of the weirdest k-pop songs I’ve ever heard just from an arrangement perspective.

RoaD-B – Icarus

Okay so one of the guys looks like he was plucked out of year 5 maths class but the song actually isn’t bad at all, it’s great to see the upbeat songs returning to k-pop (fucking finally).

Keith Ape ft. Bloody Mary – Fuck Off Of My Face

QAnon is a movement full of lame left-behind hipsters who know nothing and believe anything just because it’s “not the mainstream, man” and they’re doing a lot of damage to rational thinking worldwide, but if they have a silver lining it’s how they’re dragging the rest of that type of bullshit down with them and making all people who have those beliefs look like the total loons that they are.  That’s kind of how I feel about Keith Ape.  Sure his music sucks but if other people hear him and associate all trap with him I’m okay with that because it means nobody will listen to any of it.

Kang Minkyung, Choi Junghoon – Because We Loved

Music for rapists to play from their car stereos so they can convince you to get in the car.  Don’t make eye contact with people who like this kind of music, just walk on by quickly.

Keumjo – Two of Us

One of the many girls that made a brief appearance in the constantly rotating Nine Muses lineup, the way she never once looks directly at the camera or even anywhere near it is super strange.  It’s a complete shutdown and the polar opposite of something like NewJeans’ “Hurt” video.  Keumjo is basically like “I’m singing this for me and me only, who the fuck even are you, cunt”.  I like the attitude but I’ll pass on the actual song, not that she would even care.

LA POEM – The War

Do people really care about vocals in k-pop?  Let’s test this, if this video can get to 10 million views by the end of year I’ll concede that there are some k-pop vocal analysts out there that aren’t completely wasting your time.

LAY – Veil

Did you know that this year China experienced the most severe heatwave ever recorded anywhere in the world?  I’m pretty sure this is Lay’s fault, he insisted on the forest having an orange tint behind it for this music video so they just thought they’d scorch the whole country.  When we’re all living in mud huts and eating grass in 50 years you can blame this dickhead.

Simon Dominic, Loco, Woo, Coogie – TTFU

What’s worse than one rap fuckhead in a shit song?  Four rap fuckheads in a shit song.

JAY B – Go Up

Fu Yaning goes up, and this doesn’t.

Kim Jaejoong, Mika Nakashima – One Heart

That one guy in JYJ who probably didn’t rape anyone because he was too sick from COVID has a new song and it sucks.

4s4ki feat. Swervy – Freedom Kingdom

Swervy being better than your bias is just normal, and here she spices up a pretty weird song and makes it even weirder still.

KISU – Drive!

This video made me think about weird scammy guitar companies for some reason and I eventually stumbled across this cool video about TTM Guitars and their “endorsement scam” so I’m just going to put this here instead of this shit song.

t024 – On My Side

“Let’s put on masks and fuck around with sparklers and shit” isn’t a bad low budget idea for a video actually even if it reminds me of that scene at the end of SDDE-677.

9bo – Lobster Swimming

Instead of having a digital avatar they decided to just be themselves and make everything else CGI instead.  I’m not sure which is worse.

KOREANGROOVE feat. ZENE THE ZILLA, Toigo – Party After Party

Nobody called “Zene The Zilla” can make good music.  This is just science.

Dead Chant – 20th Century Boy

A ballad in rocker’s clothing.

COCONA – Wake Up (School Of Rock)

Stylish but bland, that chorus where they just sing the one thing all the time doesn’t help.

OUREALGOAT – Every Second

It’s not the GOAT.

KissN – In a flash

If there’s one thing worse than “sitting in a chair singing” music videos, it’s “sitting in a chair with a table in front of you with random things on it” music videos.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Eunha – Fifth place sounds cute

I have no idea what the fuck she’s on about, but if she wore that outfit to my birthday party I would agree with any old bullshit that came out of her mouth.

Cat0lin – Blackpink “Shut Down” violin cover

If there’s one good thing about the fairly bland “Shut Down” it’s the violin samples, so even more violin is just what the doctor ordered.

Orange Caramel – The Gangnam Avenue

I’m going to start using the random bonus videos to occasionally talk about music videos that I never got to cover when they originally came out (you can request more of these via the usual channels).  Here’s the first one and honestly “The Gangnam Avenue” is pretty weak compared to almost everything else that Orange Caramel were doing around 2014 musically.  It’s also not that great visually, and the girls actually look better before they take their cleaning clothes off, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t the intention.  As a result this song actually flew under the radar of a lot of the group’s fans at the time (being released almost straight after the far superior “My Copycat” probably didn’t help) and it may have even caused their demise – they never had a comeback after this, and Raina did mention in an interview once that one of their later singles flopping was why she thought Pledis didn’t want to invest in the group further.  However in retrospect it all holds up fairly well just because we didn’t get enough content from this era of Orange Caramel generally speaking, and Orange Caramel’s worst feature is probably still better than 90% of your fave’s discography.

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That’s all for this week!  Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!  In the meantime, the latest Kpopalypse survey is now live – CLICK HERE to do the survey!