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

Red Velvet – Birthday

This song doesn’t know whether it wants to be trap, blues, yelpy garbage, atonal nursery rhymes or Red Velvet in our area.  There’s just as many crap trends here that should be thrown in the bin as there are members in the actual group.

&TEAM – Under the skin

HYBE’s latest boy-group adventure in the Japanese market is underwhelming so far, they could have just kept Gfriend on the payroll for this and yes I will remain bitter about HYBE shafting Gfriend for as long as it takes.

BIBI – Jotto

Again Bibi with outstanding visuals, an amazing video concept and a song which just isn’t much of anything really.

BoA – Forgive Me

BoA doesn’t really feel right for this fairly generic SM female solo retread, as one of the very important people at SM you’d think she’d get first pick of the songs but I guess she either has shit taste or there just wasn’t much in the lucky dip.

IRRIS – Stay W!th Me

The Paradise Diner serves up another lukewarm meal, I give then a 2 out of 5 on Google reviews.

TEMPEST – Dragon

Accurate song title of the week because it’s “dragon” the song quality average of this post down alright. When I publish the 2022 favourites list and no boy groups are on it, just know that it’s because they mostly sound like this these days.

TEMPEST – Taste The Feeling

From the title I thought this was going to be a soft drink commercial and after listening to all of it I’m still not completely sure it isn’t. When you can’t tell the difference between what’s meant to be a pop song and what’s meant to be an advertising jingle, you know you’re really neck-deep in corporate dick-sucking land.

TO1 – Freeze Tag

It’s a real week of boy-group averageness this week.

Mill – Beat

I get excited for a second when I saw this video in my recommends because I thought it was a new Milli song but no such luck it’s just some whiny boy, snore.

NTX – Old School

Definitely old school, but not in a good way. Gets very strange with the complete tone change at 1:03 where they just decide to switch it up from acting tough in a generic 90s hip-hop style to singing along at the nursery.

ONEUS – Dopamine

I’m not sure what they are talking about, if they need a dog that badly they can just go to Animal Welfare and pick one up, or perhaps read this post.

Kang Daniel feat. pH-1, WDBZ – Nirvana

It’s good to know that Nine Muses’ shipping containers still haven’t left the port, I guess when the lounge chairs I ordered in 2009 finally arrive I can thank Kang Daniel for motivating the dock workers to get the crates on the boat quick smart so they can knock off early and not have to listen to his music.

VICTON – Time Chaser

I absolutely love the backing track of this song. The melody writing isn’t quite up to the same standard, but it’s not too awful and Victon have redeemed themselves from sucking so badly last week that I didn’t even put their video in roundup at all.

Gomak Boys – Sweet Thing

They’re trying to come off all nice and shit but look at that vinyl wobbling on the turntable at the start of the video. Ladies, if your man can’t even take care of his records, how do you think he’s going to take care of your needs, not very well I suspect.

Gomak Boys – You and I

Holy shit that calendar at 1:02 still says July on it. They are literally so slack and irresponsible that they can’t even flip the page over when the month ends, these boys are popping out more red flags than a game of Minesweeper, watch out ladies.

Solji – The days we were us

There’s no excuse for this, it’s not like the most recent EXID comeback was good enough for her to earn the privilege of sitting down and boring us all to death.

Seowool – Dear Snow

And here’s the male version of “broad-shouldered sitting down in a fuzzy jumper”.  The song’s somewhat better here but it still sounds like a shit version of SoReal.

RE:VERSE – I Promise

Okay, from the words of my song submitter: this is a “survival show made by Kakao Ent. where 30 members of already debuted groups will compete to debut in a virtual girl group. The identity of the contestants won’t be revealed until they’re eliminated and their talents will be shown via virtual characters instead”. So be afraid because this shitshow is coming your way soon. Given the branding it’ll probably be a few Loona members that aren’t getting any shine plus various other B-listers who are overshadowed by other members in their own groups and who you forgot were even a thing.

Noa – Gravity

You think that guy using a phone booth is all aegyo and shit, but it’s probably just because his groupmate is borrowing his mobile to look at molka so he can’t make calls on it right now.

Scarlet – No More

Oh did I mention that there’d be “no more” Future Idol entries in roundup? I put this here anyway because it’s probably the best song that Future Idol have ever had, which isn’t saying much, but there it is for what it’s worth.

Setua – Three, Two, One!

Watching snooty bitches play classical instruments and get half the notes wrong took me back to conservatory days when I used to give people like this pieces to play and they would complain. Also I love how the electric guitar totally doesn’t fit but it’s there anyway.

Cubanism – Rosalia

The Cuban trend is long gone in western music so it was interesting to hear this song because it made me remember when Ry Cooder flew over to Cuba to market a bunch of local musicians for completely non-selfish reasons ahem. I guess this song might not exist if not for that, feel about that how you want.

THE FIX – Rush

If they’re calling themselves “The Fix” and their song is called “Rush” they’d better at least do heroin. I can see it in the interviews now “oh no, please don’t misunderstand, we’re just referring to the natural high we get from performing music because we’re such good clean honest folks” fuck off with that shit, just take drugs you assholes.

Isegye Oppas feat. Hangzoo – True Lover

How come when my supermarket grates parmesan cheese, they grate the fucking wax in there with the cheese as well? I don’t want to eat wax you fucking cunt. I don’t want to listen to this song either. I’m sure there’s a connection here somewhere that I can turn into a joke somehow but this song isn’t worth the brain energy.

GRAY, Loco, CODE KUNST – Be Ready

Ah, it’s Gray, the man who is named exactly how all of his music sounds.

Beacon – Friends

Oh wow it’s great! Rock music is originally black music so if you don’t like this song you’re racist. In fact I think the way k-pop fans fixate about the virtues of R&B but hate rock is proof of their racism, given that the term “R&B” is actually a racist dog-whistle but the term “rock” just means that you enjoy fucking.

OmyuO – A-O

Listen to the very end of the song (which isn’t the end of the video as there’s a fair bit of fluff afterward) and how the song just sort of politely dies out. THIS IS NOT HOW ROCK MUSIC IS SUPPOSED TO GO. Come on, where’s the feedback, where’s the thrashing out on the final chord like a mad cunt, why are random objects not being destroyed, I ask you this. Earn that AC/DC t-shirt, girl.

Honey Pepper – Life goes on

I hate it when they’ve got the random person front and center in the video but she’s a model and isn’t in the band. If you’re relying on her that much to sell your fucking song at least do her the courtesy of giving her a tambourine or something.

Kanto – Confession

My confession is that when I see a song with Kanto in it I usually skip it.

OVAN – Celebrate

It’s cool how his acne scars were still healing but he was like “fuck it – I’ve got band-aids, let’s do the video anyway”. Got to admire the attitude.

Sweet Rain feat. IAB – Travel Alone

Go to YouTube on this one and check out the lyrics and the video description. This girl needs to see a doctor, she has clinical depression for sure, let’s hope that she gets the help that she needs.

Kim Min Hee – Chowa Chowa

Just putting this here because it features a full run of nugu park’s various structures and it’s been a while since we had a video like that. Paradise Diner might be all the rage with the new generation of k-pops but the veterans still remember the joys of Yongma Land.

iiso feat. Chillin Homie – Comi

Check out the amazing visual design, great direction and high budget on this shit song from some nugu I’ve never heard of. Genuinely impressive.

Jaina – That Flower

I had to double check but no that’s not the same clock-face backdrop that IU uses in “You And I“, just one which looks very similar.

J-Tong – Chosun Savage

I think we’ve finally found someone willing to thrown down the challenge to Wonho in 2023’s best ass category. J-Tong and Yooa dating news on the horizon folks.

ID:EARTH – Escape

Oh she has indie voice disease.

A+B – Come Close

What do they mean “live version”? Maybe they just mean the performers are alive and not dead, technically true I suppose.

HYNN feat. Jo Gwangil – Orpheus

Hey you… yes you, about to make a comment somewhere. Shut the fuck up for four minutes of your life, stop reading my crap, and go listen to this great ballad, then come back. There, isn’t that better? Do you feel better now, like your life actually has a greater purpose than being a little bitch on the Internet? No? Well, fuck you then.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Rockit Girl do a show somewhere with some metal guy

Check out the shots of the audience and the sectioned-off barricades, this is how to do crowd control right so people don’t get hurt by piling on top of each other. The only crushing allowed at a Rockit Girl gig is Leeseul’s curves being crushed into whatever she’s wearing at the time, read more about OH&S compliance and safety at venues in my crowd crush post and stay safe.

I don’t know what this is but it’s to do with Korea Maxim or something, fucked if I know

I thought this was worth putting here because they manage to drink milk in this video without spilling any. These are important life skills, k-pop stars take notes.

KARA – Lupin

The requests to cover old songs in roundup that I’ve never thrown down on keep coming thick and fast and I really have no idea why because I won’t have anything all that interesting to say about anything that I didn’t already cover in a favourites list – I haven’t written about these songs before for a reason. KARA’s Lupin is a good example of a song I ignored the first time with good justification, it has some pretty good individual sections but that chorus sounds like it’s from a completely different song to everything else as it has a lilting mood which kind of goes 100% against the rest of the song, making it all a confusing listen. At least it’s fast and there’s no hard Autotune at a time when that shit was really trendy so it’s got that going for it, but this isn’t a KARA song that I have any strong emotions about, and seemingly neither did their agency, as they didn’t even bother to fix the video aspect ratio, a sure sign that nobody at DSP had a fuck to give.

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