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

KARA – When I Move

I love having KARA back as much as the next boringly straight and male k-pop fan, but anyone who thinks this can hold a candle to the better KARA songs from a decade ago is high on nostalgia and simply kidding themselves. Unlike everyone else who listens to k-pop, I don’t brainwash myself into thinking that a song is genius just because the performers are attractive and I like them.

RM with youjeen – Wild Flower

RM tries to recreate “Winter Flower” with some other singer but it doesn’t work because he clutters up too much of the song with his bored/boring rapping, leaving the poor vocalist to try and do all she can with the tiny fraction of the song she’s been given.

ITZY – Cheshire

Not as awful as some recent Itzy nightmares but those silly chorus vocals kind of undo the hard work done elsewhere.

Hong Jinyoung feat. Frawley – Girl In The Mirror

Hong Jin Young’s trot songs are a success partly because they’re mostly not even trot at all, just using that style as a jumping off point to explore other sounds, and she has another winner of a track here. I don’t know who Frawley is but I can only assume he helped with the English lyrics which sound unusually decent for a k-pop song, not that I really give a fuck because I think way too much emphasis is placed on the language vocals are in, this song would sound just fine in any language. EDIT: apparently Frawley is the girl who sings the second part of the song – who could tell? Certainly not me…

BIBI – Blade

Bibi, just take a break, girl. Nobody at this point will feel wronged by you if you give yourself a couple week’s time off. If you know her, invite her to your Christmas party just so she gets wasted, goes on a massive bender and has to stop making ultra high-budget videos for a couple weeks.

P1Harmony – Back Down

A backing track with about ten things going on at once, and a couple of them are really good, but because of the vocals nobody can tell exhibit A

ATEEZ – Paradigm

A backing track with about ten things going on at once, and a couple of them are really good, but because of the vocals nobody can tell exhibit B

NiziU – Blue Moon

Niziu continue to be a total fucking embarassment.

NiziU – Festa

At least this track is somewhat different, it’s their best song ever and it actually almost works but of course they break up the only good parts of the track with some total bullshit because it’s Niziu and their brand just seems to be gimmicky crap so they have to try and make it suck of course.

NiziU – I Am

Their third track has Niziu sucking in a more generic yelpy screechy k-pop style that we all know and hate.

ASTRO – Let’s Say Goodbye to the Person You Like Most

Some fucking ballad nobody cares about, one for the Astro-in-fuzzy-jumpers fappers only.

Kim Chaewon, Lee Jinsol – Forever & Forever

Two former April members swap notes about what they want to do with Hyunjoo should they meet her in the future and still feel like they have a score to settle, k-pop ballads don’t sound too bad when they’re veiled threats as it happens.

INI – Spectra

I spent ages looking for the “trouble” control on my stereo and I just can’t find it, whatever could they be talking about?

XEED – Dream Land

Yeah this isn’t it.

JUST B – Cherry on top

With all the flammable material these boys wear on their face, singing next to a petrol bowser has to be highly dangerous. I don’t think their label are really looking out for these guys.

Hyolyn – My Will

Hyolyn is actually well-suited to this type of rock thing because she’s got the powerful delivery for it that not many k-pop artists have. If only she spent more time doing this sort of thing during her career instead of the total waste of time dull ballads and generic R&B that have hung like a ball and chain around her career so far.

Ha Sungwoon – Daylight

Snore.

F.Hero feat. Yugyeom & Twopee – Ooowee

F.Hero keeps trying to cross over to that Korean audience but he’s wasting his time because it wasn’t Changbin that saved “Mirror Mirror“, we just want Milli back.

B.I. – Middle with you

R&B on the left of me, ballads on the right, here I am stuck in the middle with B.I

Niel – A to Z

Niel is apparently from Teen Top and he seems to have a “Crazy 88s” themed video, I was just waiting for Chiaki Kuriyama to turn up with a ball on a chain and start bashing everyone in the head. Hopefully the first one copping a steel blade to the face will be the songwriter.

Niel – In your space

I like how he’s dancing in front of an SUV, clearly his company realise that Teen Top fans have grown up and are mostly soccer moms by now.

WeNU – Haru Haru

I’m not sure how many more roundups we’ll get this year before the inevitable break until January where everything’s just ballads, coffee-shop shit and Christmas garbage, but if music like this keeps coming out I might cancel the party earlier than usual.

Yein – Bus

The bus to take people to the songwriting class clearly departed before Yein left the house and got to the stop.

Punch – Memory

Punch continues her weird rule of only ever being any good on OSTs for some reason. This song isn’t an OST so it sucks and is only worth checking out because at least Punch’s sorely neglected visuals get some screentime in her own videos for once.

Chowori feat. Tak of Baechigi – Fly Away

This is a decent rock song, and while the rap isn’t really necessary it still fits the song well enough.

Igloobay – Spring Dreams

Okay, what is CHUNMONG and why is it over literally every frame of this video.

The Night of Seokyo feat. Zieun – Sweet Dream

A bit peppier than this group’s usual output, which I appreciate, but it’s still just a bit too far in coffee-shop land for my liking.

Repeat feat. Judy – Challenge Song for Love

Yeah I don’t care about this. Cute video I guess.

Park Koon – Breakfast

You just know that 90% of these squeaky-clean male trot performers were in those secret molka chatrooms, why else would someone even come out with an image like this except to avoid suspicion.

M1NU feat. Cherry Boy 17, Touch the Sky, Khan, Benny G, RB NINE, Vapo, h3hyeon, Lee Jung Hyun – Man Remix

A rap collab with no women rapping and no beats is bad enough but the green turf floor implies that it’s about sport or something so zero points all round.

Dbo – Walking Around

This guy just sucks at music and he doesn’t even care, there’s actually something admirable about that. Not sure if I want to listen to the result though.

Kassy – Cold breeze is blowing

For those who keep asking, here’s a ballad that is actually really good – stick with it.

Again Eden – I Feel You, Jesus

Jesus asked me to tell you that yes he can feel you feeling him too and he will tell the manager if you keep this shit up.

Maximum Quality – M

A total failure on the production end means this rap track doesn’t go anywhere. Most of the audio information here is in frequencies where you can’t really hear it, leaving the annoying vocals to dominate.

Rio – Shibuya

The music isn’t much, just meandering Rhodes-driven coffee-shop crap really, but the video has next-level visual style so it’s worth a look just for that.

Cacophony – The Marvelous Absence

Cacophony always do weird stuff pretty well so even when they’re in dull coffee-shop mode the results are still a bit more interesting than when other people do it.

POINTING OUT ATTRACTIVE WOMEN LOOKING GOOD IN SUITS BECAUSE I’M A SEXIST SCUMBAG WHO SHOULD PROBABLY BE KILLED SECTION

It’s – Red Moon

This is getting ridiculous now with the MV designations. What the fuck is a “Vintage MV”? Nice suit though.

Hynn – Run

Hynn’s promoting this song a lot instead of the excellent “Orpheus” for god knows what reason (Gwangil Jo’s limited availability and/or incompatibility with TV perhaps) and it isn’t as good but at least she’s killing the visual department with smart suits on every stage.

Hynn – Run (again)

Seriously, how perfect do her clothes look here.

Chuu Can Do It – Chuu’s Internship LIfe

I don’t quite know what’s going on here, I’m just here for Chuu in suits.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

TOWMOO – What if we play a prank on professors with a professional pianist, Hayato Sumino…?

Spoiler, they can actually tell the difference between and amateur and a professional piano player in a blind test, because unlike k-pop, everything here is actually real and not mimed or synced.

HUP! – Can Translators Translate Their English? (feat.LIL CHERRY, GOLDBUUDA)

Even fluent English speakers would be hard pressed to know what the fuck these two are rapping about when they rap in English, which just goes to show how silly non-Korean speakers look when they try to evaluate Korean rap. Also Lil Cherry rapping in hanbok is adorable, more hanbok rappers please.

MBLAQ – Mona Lisa

MBLAQ did the “Latin” or whatever the fuck you call it thing long before it was trendy in k-pop generally, they didn’t do that great of a job on it though so the overall net impact of “Mona Lisa” being a thing was probably negative, if it even had any impact at all. Aside from the beat, the other trend that MBLAQ would foreshadow is way too much vocals across the board (and that’s not even counting those hideous scrotum-tearing high notes) which suffocate the mix and make sure nothing here even has a chance to breathe. Sometimes being a step ahead of the curve isn’t such a good thing.

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That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup will defintiely return next week!  It may or may not be the last one for the year, as the new releases are definitely slowing down, but there WILL be a break from roundups at some point during December to prepare for the yearly favourites and worst lists!  Expect them fondly!