It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Jin – I’ll Be There
For some reason Jin gets the best BTS solo tracks. I don’t know why this is but I’m sensing a pattern. Maybe a small percentage of his fans aren’t insane zombies after all.
tripleS Visionary Vision – Hit the Floor
Wait, are these new girls, or the same girls in a different format? I don’t even know, all I know is that my job of trying to remember all these girls (which I promised to do when “Love Carousel” sold 100 copies) is getting harder and harder. Book readers, I’m pretty close to the 100 at this point, so if you really want to read that third book in the series, just borrow it from the library or something so I don’t make the sales and don’t have to worry about it, okay? You can borrow all of my books for free from any library that has the Libby system (most of them) and rob me of sales while still getting to read my shit, do it caonima.
PURPLE KISS – On My Bike
Purple Kiss finally come back with an actual video and concept which is more than a Blizzcon speech (i.e “don’t you have phones?“) and the results are… decent! However the song does that annoying thing where they use the vocal melody to fuck with the tonality in the chorus, it kind of undoes all the good work that the heaviness puts in. Oh well.
SEVENTEEN – Eyes on you
At first I thought “Seventeen” stood for the amount of boys in the group until I realised that it was only thirteen (is it still thirteen? who the fuck knows). Then I thought maybe it was their ages, but then what’s the point of having a group name that’s only valid for one year before it looks stupid. Now I’ve finally figured it out – seventeen is the amount of average-ass tracks this group produces before I find one that I like.
THE BOYZ – Trigger
Starts off promising, but the decision to half-time the chorus is a really weird one and just drains the song of all the life it had. No amount off moodily staring at the camera and flexing can make up for baby’s first trap beat.
ITZY – Imaginary Friend
Someone realised Itzy’s song last week was total dogshit and quickly rushed out this one to please quality control. It’s definitely one of the better Itzy songs mainly just because it keeps things straightforward. When those JYP folks stop dicking around with trying to spearhead bullshit trends and fall back on their proven songwriting ability it’s amazing what they can do.
MISAMO – Identity
Oh except with Misamo who always suck flat-out for some reason.
Yerin – 4U
Yerin isn’t even lipsyncing right here. When someone couldn’t even be bothered faking their vocals correctly, that’s when you know they’re thinking about their next career move. I expect to see Yerin fun fair or Yerin sushi bar chain open in Korea by about 2026.
KISS OF LIFE – Igloo
This bullshit song isn’t even worth commenting on, so I’d just like to say a big thank you to all the people who did the latest Kpopalypse survey, results post coming later this week!
Fromis_9 – Beat the Heat
Special videos should not be made 99% of the time.
Xdinary Heroes – Xymphony
How am I supposed to pronounce that song title, you dickheads. I do like the piano in this song though, it just kind of sounds like he’s hitting the thing out of sheer frustration. I guess if I was stuck in a “JYP rock group” I’d be feeling angsty too. Think about it, all the disadvantages of a rock group (lugging your stupid gear around) and all the disadvantages of an idol group too (having to have a “clean image” (puke)).
Xdinary Heroes – Feeling Nice
Okay so this group might have at least one bad song per week that nobody cares about but that is a pretty good distorted bass tone. You must admit that when you signed up for this k-pop-liking thing you weren’t expecting to hear sounds like that coming at you on a regular basis, were you.
The Wind – I Don’t Thing
I don’t thing this is an adequate substitute for Gfriend visually but I guess the music’s semi-there and I’ll take what I can get.
QWER – Goodbye, My Sadness
Chodan is so great, she looks like such a bitch, and I mean that as a compliment (bitch is only ever really a compliment, let’s be real). She wasn’t a k-pop back when I first started writing my books, but if she was, I think I would have used her as the artist character model for Iseul, because she definitely looks like someone who would be into all kinds of criminality just because she didn’t like her parents or something.
MADEIN – Dadarida
Yeah, it’s bad. These poor girls. First AI crap and now this. There has to be a duty of care clause forced in label contracts by the government or something to stop this sort of rot.
AMPERS&ONE – He + She = We
The porn-tier acting in the intro is hilarious and definitely the best thing about this entire package.
PRIMROSE – Feel It
I don’t actually remember Primose ever having anything even half-listenable so hearing the backing track here was a pleasant surprise because it kicks quite a lot of ass. What a shame that whoever wrote the vocal lines had no fucking clue what to do with it.
TSOY, X:IN – Seoul – Moskva
Apparently the first collab between a Russian and a k-pop group, but I’m not impressed because Lana paved the way.
Izx! – Wavy
I love the poster. “Live the dream – become a k-pop idol – apply now – you can do it” except these guys aren’t even doing it. An “ironic” video featuring the boys stuck in a warehouse pushing trolleys around doesn’t really work if that actually is their life. Orange Caramel’s “Lipstick” video would lose all meaning if the girls actually could play ping-pong.
EvenThough – Better Off
K-pop fans: “I’m fed up with all these underage girls debuting in k-pop, everyone’s getting younger and younger, we want mature women.” K-pop fans when mature women debut: “this isn’t my bias, who are these hags”.
Jaehyun – Unconditional
Just kind of plodding and dull.
Monday – New Things
Did Weeekly’s company really name some of their girls after days of the week… but not all of them? Why the half-assed way of doing things? Did some of the girls put their foot down and say “NO I will not be a day of the week fuck you”? Or maybe they just forgot what some of the days were? I eagerly await the oportunity to do the tell-all interview.
BOL4 – Bloom
First BOL4 song in ages that I’ve actually liked, was not expecting them to find their pre-split form but then I wasn’t exactly expecting Bruno Mars to have a great song last week either, so you just never know. Having the synths here do part of the hook was the right decision as there’s only so much “indie voice” I can take in one k-pop song.
Holland – Bitch he’s mine
I like Holland because he’s so unapologetically thirsty that even the people who are like “yass queen slay” start to get a bit offended by how openly sexual he is because he’s just all like “I would totally lick the smegma crust from Jungkook’s shaft while Taehyung massages my hemorrhoid with his tonsils”. That said, this song licks even more ass than Holland’s wet dreams with your bias in them.
Choi Sangyeop – Fake Blessing
This wasn’t super interesting so instead let’s have our Asian but not Korean not pop not world music feature here instead, yay! Thanks to a caonima for recently reminding me that Australian group Angelspit were once a thing. I always thought their early music was as good as any industrial stuff anywhere, plus singer DestroyX’s visual style at that time was the best thing I’ve ever seen. Even though this video is really just a photo shoot masquerading as something more due to T-araesque editing, it’s still the most impressive thing they ever had, such a shame that it’s in Minecraft resolution for no reason (it’s on their official channel, come on guys it’s not 2006 anymore). This feature is more about DestroyX herself rather than Angelspit as a group though, because while the group still do actually exist, they may as well have disbanded because they just strangely suck ever since she left. DestroyX also continues to do stuff now as Amelia Arsenic and I’m not into her new stuff as much but it’s still better than most of the k-pop dogshit this week so there you have it.
Effie & The Deep – SRRY
Back to k-pop and these girls are doing some throwback thing where they’re mimicking the hard Autotune, buzzing synths and vocal meter of debut-era 2NE1, and okay they kind of forgot the “song” part but I still enjoyed the style of it even if it seems like an AI both wrote the song and chose their clothes.
Idiots – Beyond The Horizon
Just joyous rocking. I dig it.
Achii – Fly
What a shame that the enshittification of our world by AI art has me scratching my head at this otherwise brilliant concept. This video has ‘art directors’ but who knows how much they really did. We are living in sad times. Shut down all the data centers, I don’t care if I lose my website as long as AI art also dies.
Super Rookie Challenge feat. Choi Yudam, X33D, JSC X buddah’s belly, SAM, PiLO, Soopia, Toast Boy – Party
These rap collabs things are always worth a quick skim just to see if there are any females standing around who look like they might actually rap instead of get trotted out for the soft R&B junk sections. In this case one out of three ain’t bad as Sam actually gets to do some rapping before the second half of this descends into the usual blandness.
Super Rookie Challenge feat. DNYDK, NWV, Young Krow, Yemin, KNOCKONMYDOOR, Seorok, Views in i – Public Enemy
No such luck here, only one girl and she sings all the way through. Never mind.
Ucute – Cute Bichon
mrds (well, kind of)
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
XG – WOKE UP MV & Photoshoot | Behind The Scenes
Worth it for the iconic Cocona head-shaving scene alone – Kpopalypse paved the way. In other news how come XG are seriously good when they rap and suck fucking ass whenever they sing. Just quit the entire idol business and be a rap group, it’s better for everyone.
[Miss Maxim Office Life] My Sister’s Friend is Too Big_MAXIM_Miss Maxim Jeon Ji Eun
Seems like a nice girl. Let’s support body positivity, I know you want to. I don’t know what the “noona” guy is really talking about but hey whatever, maybe someone can decode that for me. I don’t think he was thinking about it too hard, to be honest.
Strawberry Milk – OK
This Crayon Pop subunit featuring the twins had the right idea, but musically was lagging behind Orange Caramel at the time. Of course a decade later it has aged pretty well simply because there’s a great fucking gap in the market where Orange Caramel used to be that nobody is willing to step into for whatever reason. I guess people really do hate good music and making money.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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