It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup!  Let’s take a look at some new releases!

Jin – The Astronaut

Apparently donated to Jin by Coldplay, and their songwriting style shows with the lack of brevity and the sheer amount of time that the listener has to wait for anything to happen.  If your parents don’t like it that you like k-pop because of [stereotypical reason x], this might be a good song to use to fool them with, don’t tell them what it is and just let them listen to it first, they’ll probably mistake it for some of the boring shit in their own collection.

Acid Angel from Asia – Generation

Jaden Jeong might have migrated a Loona-ish concept over to his new group SSS, but it looks like he didn’t take the songwriting team along for the ride because what we have here is an underfed song with blues-based warbling melodic lines trying to carry the whole thing.  A song can’t exist on vibes alone, someone needs to get in there and write actual music at some point.

Wonho – On & On

Clearly a B-side of some description, and nobody is trying too hard.  Wonho songs shouldn’t even be eligible for roundup if he doesn’t get his shirt off, don’t @ me.

Stray Kids – Give Me Your TMI

I welcome the guitar in the chorus, and there’s some nice basslines elsewhere, but there’s also too much random vocalising which doesn’t fit.  It’s the same mistake that Mamamoo made last week, just in a different format – there’s no point creating a track with neat futuristic sonics if you’re just going to blues-warble over the top like it’s still 1930, get out of the studio grandpa.

ALICE – Dance On

Ignore the presentation which is worthy of a gender studies thesis on its own, and it’s basically just IVE’s “After Like” with the groove from Suhyun’s “Alien” and that’s certainly not a bad musical combination even if it really wouldn’t have killed them to change things up just a little.  But then if they did try and innovate a bit we’d probably have shit trap breakdowns and tuneless yelping so I guess I should be grateful about how derivative this is.

CLASS:y – Tick Tick Boom

I stand by what I said other other week, we need more marijuana and guns in k-pop if they’re going to continually attempt reggae.  Too much tick, not enough boom.

CLASS:y – Zealous

If you’re a consumerist moron who should be fed feet-first into a meat grinder in order to reduce humanity’s carbon footprint, you probably love queueing up outside stores the night before they open so you can buy shit you don’t need and maybe you’ll like this song too.  For the rest of you, your mileage may vary.

BIBI – Motospeed 24

Bibi has worked out that Kpopalypse likes her so she’s doing her best to try and look as unappealing to me as possible by dressing up in sport gear and singing about cars or something, but it’s not working because she completely kills this look anyway, try harder next time.

BIBI – Sweet Sorrow of Mother

Fun fact: while I’m not familiar with the specific brand of vintage microphone that Bibi is using here, when confronted with a previously unseen microphone the general rule is that the bit with the grille with air holes is the part that you sing into, and the solid metal part is the part that you don’t sing into.  So that microphone is actually pointing towards us, not her.  While Hanlon’s razor generally applies to situations like this, there’s still a possibility that it’s deliberate and the video director is trying to tell us something.

Jvcki Wai – Go Back

I’m so happy that Jvcki Wai is back, the only girl who can rhyme “China” with “south side” and make it work.  Okay this song is crap but I’m going to Stockholm Syndrome my way into liking it anyway just because I’m thrilled that she’s making music again and not shooting heroin under a bridge somewhere.

Adora – CBGC

Adora is great because she has this cute lower lip thing where the left lip hangs a little lower than the right lip like she got half her face paralysed when she was 6 years old in a freak playground accident and she never quite got over it.  It makes her much more stannable.  Perfection is boring and for losers, if you know any perfect people bully them.

Joy, Wonstein – Love Song

See, Red Velvet members are all perfect and it’s boring, that’s why they had to make the beat of this song slightly out of time, just to keep you awake.

ETERNITY – DTDTGMGN

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Jo Yuri – Blank

Don’t you hate it when you’re in the art gallery just trying to look at and appreciate some great art because you’re in that kind of art appreciation mood and you’re really getting into it and noticing some great details and it’s enhancing your life a whole lot and then some idiot walks in with a microphone and just starts making tons of noise, like I’m trying to look at this painting can you please stop that woman

EPEX – Hymn To Love

This is what happens when you get After School’s “Bang!“, remove absolutely everything about that song, then write a completely new song with guys in it that sucks.

ATBO – Attitude

It’s cute how they’ve sectioned off part of the song as the “challenge” portion, I guess the challenge is if you can actually make it to that part of the song without falling asleep.

TFN – Amazon

It’s lucky for Tax File Number that Bolsonaro lost the election right when I had to review their song, so a track called “Amazon” where the lyrics are “get out of here in my zone” is actually pretty fitting and suddenly makes a lot more sense than it otherwise would.

TEMPEST – Young & Wild

Young – yes.  Wild – not so much.

Younite – Bad Cupid

It’s going to be slow new releases for a while due to the Itaewon tragedy making many of the larger more image-conscious agencies postpone their activities, as many Koreans quite understandably aren’t in the party mood right now.  Lesser tier artists don’t have this luxury however – their scrappy budgets often just won’t allow it and if anything they probably benefit from the sudden lack of big-name competition.  Younite not only released this video today, but it’s filmed in a small alley similar in dimensions to the one in Itaewon and even has emergency sirens and a police “do not cross” line opening up the proceedings, which is probably enough to give quite a few people PTSD right now.  Sucks to be them as I’m sure none of that was deliberate and they’re just as upset by the events as we are, these poor guys are just doing what they’re told and surely must feel like The Coup did in 2001.

TEN – Birthday

Nothing much going on here apart from some funky hats and a dubstep drop which is so mild that it sounds like Busker Busker dropped their coffee.

Rie – Because

This is your friendly semi-regular reminder that no members of OnlyOneOf have officially come out as gay yet, and their entire concept may just be something that their label has decided to saddle them with for the sake of positive international-fan-friendly marketing (and hey it clearly works, so why the hell not).  Of course that doesn’t mean they’re NOT gay either, but just because you’re “telling a queer story” doesn’t mean you’re actually queer, there’s such a thing as “gay for pay“.

DIAWINGS – I feel that

Diawings are always awkward in that nugu way which is why they’ve been on Kpopalypse Nugu Alert before, but I have to admire their determination to never give up even if it’s abundantly clear that they’re never going to get anywhere.

Memoria – Bling Bling

I’m going to stop putting Future Idol songs in roundups because… well, just look at it.  I just feel like it’s punching down a little too much, let’s save the blisteringly honest one-line reviews for if any of these girls are unlucky enough to join a real group.

Jin – Not a coincidence

Not the BTS one but the Lovelyz one, and why is every post-Lovelyz track a dull ballad.  Did not one person in this group want to mosh or what.

Doyoung, Kim Minha – Fallin’

The most fascinating thing here is the guys in the background who all answered the same “we need models to pose as crusty white middle-aged lounge-jazz musicians with grey hair to add credibility to our k-pop project” Craigslist ad.

The Bigdipper – Wherever you are

I think the whole “sitting down as a warning sign” in k-pop videos applies twice as much when it’s picnic deck chairs.

ABLUE – Carnival

The fluros are nothing new but I’m liking the mini-sparkler things that shoot up during the chorus, that’s a nice touch.  There’s a lot of fabric floating around on this set though so I hope they practiced good fire safety.

Seo Eunkwang – Invincible

Some BTOB guy does some song for some computer game that nobody outside Korea even plays.  Honestly it’s probably better than most of what his group ever did.

Narin – R.P.G Shine

Awful hiccuping acapella trash that just shouldn’t exist, the problem with these kind of groups is that they always lean so hard on showing their “skill” that they forget that the purpose of a singer is to sing songs that people might like.

SAAY – Talk 2 Me Nice

Sorry no, fuck off.

TRADE L feat. pH-1, Jay Park – NG

I’ve heard soju is great, Jay Park why don’t you try some.

GRANADA – Shocking

All these great instruments yet it still manages to have generic christian rock vibes or something.

MEMI – I don’t give a

Hey the riffs here are really decent, quite good actually, it’s just a pity about that cheap drum machine sound.  This girl needs to get herself a full band together and start rocking out, perhaps Granada can spare a few members, they seem to have a surplus.

Luli Lee – Flame

I’m a big fan of Luli Lee, playing slap bass and singing at the same time is way more impressive than that acapella burp burp drum noise crap.  So you can go “boom tish” with your mouth, so fucking what, play a bass guitar or get fucked. 

Red.bit – Show Window

It’s not terrible until the chorus happens, and then it’s just grinding on those same two notes all the time.

Anandelight feat. NSW Yoon – Burn It

Another rap song that sounds decent but shoots itself in the chorus.  Perhaps rap guys should just not do choruses, honestly rap usually works a lot better without them.

KOLAVO – Thank You

If you know anyone who’s pro-life just play them this video, they might reconsider their position.

Kim Wan Sun – Malus Prunifolia

Okay, she has the mic positioning right, which I’d expect from someone who owns a jeweled one.

verycoybunny – Close Your Eyes

Arguably not the most interesting video concept ever but it’s okay I guess.

Roy Kim – It’ll Be Alright

Yeah yeah “his name was cleared”, whatever, we all know what the Korean justice system is like regarding sex offences, if you did anything less than rape the president’s son’s goat you only get six months community service.  Even if he was innocent, I honestly don’t care if Roy Kim had a bunch of molka on his phone or not, the dude still fucking sucks and I would hate him anyway just for the crime of introducing his poisonous songs to the world so why not listen to something better.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Dreamcatcher – Love Shake fancam October 29, 2022

Now there’s a heading I thought I’d never type, but you can trust Kpopalypse your number one global English-speaking source for Dreamcatcher news and events to bring you this important information first.  It’s well known how much the original Minx members not-so-secretly despise “Love Shake“, and clearly they still do given their complete refusal to actually sing it here, letting the backing track do 100% of the vocal work.  Fitting that they brought this out for Halloween, as I’m sure the prospect of them adding this song back into their regular touring rotation is scarier for the Dreamcatcher members than any costume party.

Punch, Chanyeol – Stay With Me – meets required cat and bird standards version

There may be many horrible things in the world right now but at least there are some bright spots too, like Bolsonaro not getting re-elected, and my cat hanging out with a couple of birds.  Of course they need a pane of glass between them so they don’t murder each other but let’s not sweat the details and just get into the nice romantic vibes, look at the birds aren’t they pretty.

CL – MTBD

CL often came in for a panning on this site back when she was more active and deservedly so, but sometimes she had material that actually suited her – “MTBD” is definitely one of those times.  It’s far too repetitive and insubstantial to be anything approaching great, and the hook with the quoting of Inner Circle’s “Bad Boys” is right up/down there with her usual standards of hapless cringe, but the rest of the rapping isn’t embarrassing and the beat and tone are both consistent throughout.  Time has certainly been kind to it, the song sounded relatively abrasive in its day but compared to some of today’s screechy girl groups with disjointed cut-and-paste arrangements and jarring rapid-fire nursery-rhyme melodies straight from nowhere, “MTBD” sounds positively relaxed and in-the-pocket.  Sometimes CL’s culture-mashing rap experiments actually worked, and if she’d kicked off her solo career with this instead of the truly shameful “The Baddest Female“, I think a few more people would have warmed up to the idea of her as a soloist in general.

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