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

J-Hope with J.Cole – On The Street

Dude you can’t wear military dog tags until you’ve actually enlisted, this guy is going to turn up in one of those “stolen valor” videos one day…

Sorn – Not A Friend

Apparently Sorn wiped everything from her Instagram account as some kind of wacky promo for this song. I guess next time she releases a love song, she can combine that with Insta as well and tell us who she’s dating. Maybe she’ll do a song about how growing up in CUBE was hard and coincide it with an interview with me, you never know.

NiziU – Paradise

Hahahaha it’s a Niziu song. They’re never going to get it right, are they. Next.

Lim Kim x Jamie – Love Me Crazy

Probably the best thing Lim Kim has done in ages, which isn’t saying much given how consistently she pops up on my worst list. Lim Kim talks about her early career like she didn’t give a shit about it because she didn’t have creative control, but honestly some people need to put their egos down and admit that they are a lot better off with others writing their songs for them.

SECRET NUMBER – Like It Like It

The best thing about the song is the lyrics which look like they were AI-generated. I appreciate that the music is the same thing as “Nerdy” and “Hip” and those are good songs, but if Secret Number could have veered away from that slightly by keeping the pace but changing the harmony, that would have been appreciated.

CRAVITY – Groovy

You know they’re getting better. I would consider letting Cravity into my cavity.

OnlyOneOf – Seoul Night

Again I get to laugh at the OnlyOneOf fans massively in denial each time these guys serve us up a dog-whistle BGP concept. “Talk about the music”, why would I do that when that’s honestly been consistently the least interesting thing about this group.

TXT – Happy Fools

Ignorance is bliss as they say, and you’d have to be pretty ignorant to think this song was actually good.

Wonho – Flash

Not much flashing going on here which is definitely a shame, but then I guess it’s only just come out of winter for those with Northern Hemispherian privilege.

8TURN – WE

It has sportball shirts, I couldn’t even watch. Who in their right minds things that this looks good.

LIGHTSUM – i

It’s like one of those less-good Twice songs. Hey Twice are touring in my country soon so I’ll do my best to get a ticket for that so I can write a review about it and annoy you all. Anyone who wants to talk about my wholesome review style is welcome to come up and say hello in person.

PIERCE – Do You Like Yogurt

For overseas people I refer you here. Ignore Aldi brand being at the top, that’s some serious bullshit, Gippsland and Tamar Valley are the best yoghurts available here.

A-plus – Candlelight

According to my song submitter, A-plus are “a group formed by students majoring in the Kpop department of Howon University, just like Azer”. I just think it’s impressive how a University has a k-pop department. All genres/scenes/whatever should be able to be majored in a University degree. Imagine going to study Norwegian black metal somewhere, and just missing out on a high-distinction because you didn’t do the makeup properly around your eyes.

Onew – O (Circle)

This nonsense wouldn’t fool Hana.

JO1 – YOLO-konde

You know if OnlyOneOf actually had JO1’s group name, they’d have transcended dog-whistle and ascended to new frontiers of fap. Half of you probably don’t know what I’m talking about and that’s just fine, enjoy your innocence.

Sohee feat. Xinsayne – YOYO

Yeah nah.

Soohyun Yu – Chuk & Chak

This is what we need, trot crossovers from our C-list pop artists.

msftz – On My Way

Remember that artist who had that one great fucking rock song last year and it got on my favourites list? Well she’s back to being boring now, what a pity. There are shades of a good song in here, but it’s not enough.

BIG Naughty feat. Lee Suhyun – Hopeless Romantic

No Suhyun in the video, not interested.

Yong Jun Hyung feat. Sion – Post It

I don’t give a fuck about this shit so here’s your weekly lesson in black music, pay attention class. As a well-known connoiseur of only the absolute best that R&B has to offer, someone naturally asked me the other day (as one well might) “what is THE ultimate R&B song? The R&B song that puts all other R&B to eternal shame?” and here it is. The song works so well because it’s so stark and minimalist in terms of mood, repeating the same mantra-like instrumental passages, meaning that Shara’s voice over the top never sounds like it’s too much, and even better that her contribution is short and she spends over 50% of the song’s running length not singing, leaving you wanting more. When the instrumental takes an even darker turn near the end of the song you’re yearning for her voice to come back and ground it, but it never does, leaving you with a hollow void which is only cured by repeating the song over and over. It’s not only the best R&B song ever, but one of the best songs in any genre, by anyone, anywhere, and neither Massive Attack as a group nor vocalist Shara Nelson sounded this good ever again, either together or separately (although they did get ‘close but no cigar’ on “Safe From Harm“). 

San E – September Chicada

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming, and… oh boy. Maybe I should just forget about k-pop and become R&Bpopalypse.

Bella – Juice

Whistling in songs is just a hard no.

Kim Taeyeon – An ardent lover

No not “Annie’s dad” Taeyeon, but the other one, the 10 year old ballad singer. Let’s go “into the new world” of trot ballads! You know what time it is? It must be party time! Trot ballads are my best friend, are trot ballads your best friend? Etc.

SAM – Perfect Paranoia

It’s cool actually but someone gotta get the memo that Autotune and rock music is not a winning combination. The few songs that are like that that are also any good are good in spite of the sonic choices, not because of them.

Zior Park – Christian

Really worth a look just for the video.

TIGER EATS TOAST – No Worries

Tigers don’t eat toast and this song isn’t very good but at least it has mrcs overload.

Chaebin – It isn’t only me liking you, right?

Hang on, why is she buying the “family size” cereal while singing about lusting after someone? I guess perhaps she’s a single mother. I support single mums becoming a k-pop.

Hennexxi feat. Hangzoo – RATM

I don’t hate this. The entire lyrical theme seems to be about how rap music sucks now and I can’t argue so good work I guess.

Kim Ha Yan with 648 – Chakgak

And again with the Autotuned vocals. Nobody in this genre cares if you miss a note, just stop that.

RB NINE – Get Sturdy

This guy gets the mic right sometimes, and then sometimes not. He clearly doesn’t know which way the front is and is just lucking out occasionally. Which is typical for rappers for some reason. Gosh it’s almost as if most rappers don’t really know anything about how music is made, imagine that.

Blueny – Romantic Cliche

Actually I’m really surprised more artists haven’t tried the “makeup tutorial as an entire music video” by now, given how much makeup tutorial v-logging has taken off lately.

Ingyeong Choi – Love ends

That outfit is tripping me out. It’s like she just immediately got offstage from some yolo shouty dance number that’s at least 50% aircraft malfunctioning noises in the backing track, and the video director was like “right, no time to change your clothes, we need to get this ballad shoot done”.

Woolenciah – Ethics

Feels like it’s going somewhere but it actually goes nowhere. Just like the video.

Kash Bang – Ikebukuro

It’s happened, they’re rapping about Faygo in Korean rap songs. It’s a good sign because it means that since the gradual decline in rap from the 90s we’ve now officially reached the lowest point possible. It’s only up from here, folks.

Nyoon – Loop

Someone noticed that she has a nice face profile so like 90% of the camera footage here is of her side-on looking at some random object.

IN HONOUR OF OUR FALLEN WARRIOR KIM GARAM SECTION

Fantasy Boys (My Teenage Boy) – Fantasy

Oh speaking of which, your “healthy porn for women” (and gay men) is here. Pause at 1:02 and see if you can spot Kim Garam’s contribution.

Fantamony – Life is short

There’s something about Fanta-something and chalkboards. She’s got a lot of room to work with here, she should have been hired to give this a bit of visual flair.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Vox – how South Koreans got so much taller

Spoiler: they ate foods. Damn I could make “content” for Vox, not sure if they could pay me enough to churn out this shit though.

Triple S – Everyday life something something something

We’re not fooled, are we? Especially after reading my book, right? I sure fucking hope not… but if you are, these videos usually have plenty of uwu wholesome fun times for you to ‘vibe’ to or whatever so you can hand-wave away the torture.

BTS – Danger

“Danger” is honestly on the good side of average and one of the better songs that came out of Boys Fantastic or whatever they were called back then. Gosh imagine how much more of an effective fighting force they would have made if they enlisted at this age, but then I guess we can’t all be like hero Chanhyuk, can we.

---

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