It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
NewJeans – How Sweet
As usual with NewJeans, great concept, cool style, visually really different and unique. Min Hee Jin really knows what she’s doing when she’s not flipping the bean to Serge Gainsbourg albums. Pity the song is as boring as her press statements. (And I know what you’re thinking “there goes Kpopalypse being inappropriate again” but the Kpopalypse team didn’t take any issue with this reivew because our vision for original and wholesome review content was crystal clear to us. Slang terms aren’t taught in school and not everyone is familiar with them It’s impossible for people to be familiar with every idiom and offensive term out there and predicting their reception around the world is an even more challenging task. To be sure, we consulted with English professors, professional interpreters, translators and native speakers about this issue who said that the term “flipping the bean” is also not a commonly used slang term for anything sexual and therefore not a problematic term itself, but that any listener could take the term to mean something different depending on their personal experience and exposure to certain slang meanings…)
Aespa – Armageddon
When AI imagery started appearing in k-pop videos I decided that I’d just boycott every group that did it, but since now EVERY group seems to want to do it, I can’t really do that or I’ll just have nothing to write about. So instead I’ll just have to shame these people until they stop doing it, because I’m sure that’ll work. This one’s so blatant that they even show you their AI prompts in the video although I doubt it was “authentic” as they claim, more likely “aespa in your area”.
RM – Lost!
This week is the week of songs with videos that have great unique visual style, paired to disappointing music. Even the biggest RM fan in the world has to admit that this isn’t exactly him performing at his peak.
XG – Woke Up
Above-average raps, very below-average beats. So in other words, pretty typical of hip-hop these days. However I have to give respect to Cocona though, she shaved her head in this video because she wants to be as cool as Kpopalypse and who can blame her? Kpopalypse PAVED THE WAY
Soojin – Mona Lisa
People don’t like it when I sexualise idols so I’m going to make sure that I keep doing it more and more, because it annoys stupid people, which is important. Notice how I typed the word “sexualise” in this paragraph so now you can’t help but perceive Soojin sexually even though I haven’t actually said anything directly about her at all, it’s just your brain doing it her to yourself, you creep. Why are you such a creep, huh? This is of course according to my sinister plan. I have the power.
Seventeen – Cheers to youth
If you know the person who decided to put the CGI avatars in this video, I recommend that you find them and just walk up to them, say nothing, beat the crap out of them with whatever object is at hand that might do some damage, and then walk away. I recommend not explaining anything, and see if you can send a message with your actions alone, but if you really feel the need to drop them a hint you could wear a box on your head, or maybe a raccoon mask. Let me know how you go.
Apoki feat. Somin of Kard – Nu Boo
Remember when Apoki had great songs last year? Well you’ll remember those times even more fondly now because this new one isn’t very good. At least she’s dressed up in some crop-tops and lycra that’ll please all the yordle puss-smashers out there, the rest of us will just wish our bias had this kind of stage wardrobe.
Alexa – I’m Okay
Depressed emo/goth Alexa is definitely a 10/10 styling choice, pity that it comes with a pretty standard emo ballad type of song. Support her anyway because I really don’t want her to quit, thanks.
ILAND 2 – IWALY
In these shit Korean TV shows they have a clever tactic now where they start the girls (or boys) off letting them do their own live vocals for real, so that way later on when they release something that has the vocals all electronically smoothed-over you can say to yourself “wow, look at how much they improved, gosh those idol companies are so good at training their talent, the idol system really works great oh yes thank god for corporations and capitalism”. Anyway the song’s actually pretty decent so it doesn’t actually matter all that much to me that they can barely sing it.
ONEUS – Now
Some awful song by some awful group with a stupid name has now been redone and guess what, it’s still awful. Who could have predicted that.
MCND – X10
Here’s this week’s 57th “AI stink ruins everything” music video. We have to keep dragging these companies until they learn. In 2034, 2024’s “let’s just cram every effect into the video because we can because the AI generates it really quickly and we don’t have to pay humans when we can just wreck the environment with soulless generic junk instead” monstrosities are going to look like 70s men’s knitwear catalogue photos do now.
NEXZ – Ride the Vibe
Another song where nobody could decide what sort of song they wanted to make, so they just made all of them. This trend departing k-pop soon folks, so if you’re one of the three people who enjoys this get your appreciation in while you can.
Youha – Universe
Just a pretty standard video but the song is better than the usual ballad type of thing so it can go in here because it’s probably the best k-pop ballad we’re going to get for a while.
SHINee – Honesty
You see, it’s better than what we usually get, which is this. SHINee don’t give a fuck at this point, and neither should you.
JUST B – Daddy’s Girl
What does the B stad for? I’m tipping “boring”. This band are called “Just Boring” here until further notice.
BOY STORY – Please
Why does this look like it was shot for someone’s high school media studies project. At least it mrcs. Speaking of which, thanks to all the people who supported my cat, very much appreciated, kitty’s condition has stabilised and we’re now able to afford the next step in diagnosing the chonk.
AIMERS – Where We Go
Where we go? Not to songwriting class, clearly.
DXTEEN – Good Luck
I didn’t have much luck caring about this song, so instead let’s have this week’s non-Korean non-pop non-world-music selection! This week it’s a metal group from Vietnam called Parasite and they’re great, hitting all the expected metal bases with melodic vocals, shredding solos, growling, screaming, breakdowns and staring into the camera lens moodily all on point. For bonus points the singer has a Shure Super 55 tattooed on her back, it doesn’t get much more caonima than that. I bet she knows how to use it, does your bias? LOL of course not.
JD1 – Error 405
Back to k-pop and it’s an AI disaster. K-pop video producers, please understand that we don’t want AI bullshit cluttering up our music videos, thank you.
ICHIGO PURIN – Ichigo Purin
A couple Korean youtubers get together and throw out something for the weeb market, it’s as bland and cheesy as you’re expecting.
Yurisa – Nya?
Never one to be outdone in the weebcore stakes, Yurisa dials up the DDR-style j-raver trash knob to eleven and the result is actually a lot of fun, with changeups that are chaotic but make musical sense. Yurisa will never look anything but out of place in her own videos but she’s such a fangirl that she can’t help but sometimes get the music right.
FL1X – Two of Us
Look at us, we are in America. Look at us walking down the street in America. You know it’s America because there’s American flags and stuff, and look, there’s an American sign from an American place. We were in America. Yes, us. Look at us being all in America and stuff. We were in America, did you notice? Okay, I get it… but why is it called “two of us” when there’s three of them? Who drew the short straw?
Curious – Call Me Up (Me Me Me)
It’s actually not too bad, and harks back to the golden age of k-pop where songs were simple and didn’t have a million stupid trends or change-ups.
Suho feat. Wendy – Cheese
More shit AI art. Hey I wonder if AI can do impressions in the style of Wendy?
Eungi – Attention
The reason why these adult concept groups are generally pretty good musically is because there’s nothing else to fall back on if the visuals don’t work. It’s not like Eungi is going to sing her way to relevance.
Bada feat. Truedy – PING@.@
They even found Yongma Land and gave it a coat of AI-stinkpaint. Is nothing sacred?
UV feat. Song Jin Woo – Are U Crazy?
UV’s thing seems to be making a song every year with a different veteran k-pop artist. It’s good when they do it well but here they’re missing both the joke and the song. Anyway I’ve had a very emotionally draining week due to both me AND my cat getting sick and this roundup isn’t helping either of us recover so let’s stop it here.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Exclusive Look at Chuu’s New Album and Music Video Filmed in Australia
Since we’re having an AI-themed week, this auto-generated AI video monstrosity full of “today’s bast news” was all I could find when searching up news of “Choose”(!) recent visit to Australia to shoot a music video. “Choo”(!!) came within about an eight-hour drive of Kpopalypse HQ, but didn’t see any kangaroos apparently, which is a shame, but I suppose that’s what you get when you only go to stinky Melbourne. I guess “today’s bast kangaroos is missing without seeing it”!
PAIX PER MIL – Yves (album preview/interview)
Meanwhile Chuu’s other half is looking better than ever in preparation for the launch of my new computer game… oh and she has an album coming out as well, so she talks about that a little bit too. She might be climbing the bias list this year again thanks to this video, we’ll see. Oh and for those of you who complain about me noticing now Yves is attractive, in her own words:
When fans first listen to the debut song, I’d hope fans would be “ah, Yves has a reason, Yves is attractive, Yves is curious”
Newsflash – idols actually WANT to be seen as attractive by their fans, and to have that acknowledged. That’s why by highlighting attractiveness I’m the one on the idols’ side, and all the fans who complain about me are actually enemies of the idols they claim to support. A big reason why I write at all is artist advocacy, a point that the kiddies almost always miss…
G-DRAGON – Heartbreaker
The weirdest thing about listening to “Heartbreaker” all these years later is how much unlike a modern YG production it sounds. The excessive hard Autotune and synth pads date it incredibly, which can’t help but make me think that today’s creations will sound just this cheesy in 15 years. However while the song really isn’t great, it definitely has one thing that a lot of today’s k-pop sorely lacks – directness. It just gets straight to the point; no pre-chorus drops, no post-chorus raps, no godawful change-ups. Could sure use a little more of that energy these days.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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