It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
Chuu – Only Cry in the Rain
Don’t panic! I know the song title suggests ballad crap with high notes for fuckwits but it’s actually not like that at all and well up to the standard of upbeat Chuu songs lately (i.e fucking great) while not being a retread of anything in particular. You know it’s good because the Pope died the exact minute it was released, probably from being overloaded by Chuu LGBT-friendly vibes making him vanish in a puff of homophobic smoke. Good job, Chuu.
TWS – Countdown
Another reasonably okay-ish kinda song to help you forget HYBE’s litany of crimes against their own artists past and present. Yes it will work, yes you’ll lap this up like the corporate bitch you are, who is TAG PR nobody knows nothing to see here just keep dancing and move along…
Jang Wonyoung – Shake It Off
This crappy tossed-off commercial for some terrifying-sounding Vietnamese drink is still better sounding than 95% of this year’s k-pop comebacks so far.
Kai – Wait On Me
Kai’s had a pretty good musical track record lately so I guess he’s earned a day off. Someone definitely wrote this bland mumbly slop on the seventh day.
Kai – Walls Don’t Talk
If walls could talk they would say “needs less fabric to distract us from the shit song”.
SUPER JUNIOR L.S.S – Pon Pon
Nobody cares about this crap music but I’m glad it exists anyway because it means that I’ll probably have some new images and videos to share when Shindong inevitably rides high in the Kpopalypse Objectification results a few months from now.
Apink – Tap Clap
Apink seem to be in their retirement phase at this point, where all that gets produced now is DIY messing-around stuff and “nostalgia” videos that remind you of how they used to be better than this.
UNIS – Swicy
I like the concept and general feel of this song a lot, it just lacks a catchy hook. Could have been a CSR beater here, but not quite.
ODD YOUTH – I Like You
An “experimental” backing track that’s both out of time and out of tune, combined with an annoying as fuck vocal part, adds up to one of this year’s prize turkeys.
NiziU – What If
Niziu on the other hand have been… good, lately? I’m confused, but I’ll take it.
Miyeon & Jike Junyi – Glow Up
I have nothing to say about this horrible crap, so here’s a quick reminder that you have only a few more days to do the latest Kpopalypse survey, which you can access by clicking HERE! Don’t miss out!
A bunch of people – Memory of the Moon
Not hating on anyone here, but just saying: If I die tragically and a bunch of you cunts decide to release a shiftul ballad to “remember” me by, I swear that’ll be enough to make me rise from the grave and beat you all to death with my ballsmeat.
TIOT – Flex Line
K-pop boys in prison is a great concept but can we restrict their recording studio access please.
&TEAM – Go in Blind
Not the best song ever or anything but I’m just kind of gobsmacked that a k-pop song in 2025 is riff-driven.
TRENDZ – Push Down
I can’t even take this seriously when they look like they’re on the set of Daryl Braithwaite’s “The Horses“.
CLOSE YOUR EYES – Upside Down
Not sure how I’d feel if I had to be in a boy group and wear a T-shirt that said “Cherry Boy”. Eric Reprid probalby stans.
JO1 – Bon Voyage
I think I’ve received enough JOI for the week already so instead let’s have our weekly non-Korean LGBT feature here, yay! This week it’s American group 12Rods, and while they’re apparently – allegedly – “straight”, I’m not sure if I believe them, as their music and lyrics have such heavy queer undertones that it’s kind of difficult to ignore. If they aren’t actually in the gay pride parade, they at least definitely turned up to cheer it on. Anyway regardless of all that, at their best they made some great introspective rock music like a 2000s-era Pixies and I’d be remiss as a music fan to neglect to tell you that they existed.
EPTS – Tab Tab
“Epic Travels” doesn’t really condense down into “EPTS” very sensibly but I guess they didn’t want to get sued by Steven Spielberg’s estate. Anyway this isn’t a very good song but it’s not significantly worse than other not very good songs by big Korean labels with 100 times the budget.
Haruto – Flash
More of that Autotune nonsense everyone hates.
Lee Daehwi – Lovestruck
We’re in “horrible male ex-group member solo” territory.
DPR ARTIC feat. Moon Sujin – Mirror ball
This is pretty well produced and would probably sound alright in the club or something as background noise if you weren’t really listening to it, but as something to pay attention to it kinda sucks ass.
Lee Ra Kyung – Chill Lady
It’s a banger! Trot is always at its best when it’s going hard and stupid.
Meenoi – 9 to 2
Nice looking video, I like Meenoi’s aesthetics in general, but the song is just too boring.
AXN – On My Way
Actually decent although it does take a while to get going.
Crucial Star – Delay of Sadness
Alice Cooper on the shirt got my hopes up, but there’s none of that excitement here I’m afraid.
BLEXA – Luminous
Sort of a pop/djent hybrid… I don’t know, it doesn’t work for me. I wish they’d picked one or the other and just gone with it, rather than shoving a sprinkling of 8-string guitars into a pop/rock song.
The Godot – Get away
I like the sounds in this one, taking me back to an 80s Sonic Youth vibe, but I don’t think the song itself is really up to much.
Adios Audio – Star415
The singer’s voice is kind of strange but it works for this style. Not a bad song if not that exciting.
Hey’oh – Bomberman
I’m not wildly into this song either but I liked watching it because the guitar player plays a lot like me i.e not really a shredder, just plays shit blues licks a lot.
Rockit Girl – With You
Easily Rockit Girl’s best song since “Little Cat“, and it’s not even a fast-paced rocker, but the songwriting is on point all the way through. Their first original song in a while, they took extra care with this one and it shows. They’ll never top their debut but this is close enough to satisfy musically as much as it does visually. (Could have ditched the crap AI flower blooming in the hand though, wasn’t worth the carbons.)
Soran – Love Crash!
Needs harder instrumentation but otherwise pretty good, worth a look.
Rumkicks – Mosquito Fighter
Now this is more like it. Holy shit this is great! Rumkicks have really stepped up the production quality here, as well as riff-writing and songwriting across the board… not that they were bad before, but now they’re just killing it. Let’s leave roundup here because it’s not going to get better than this.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Ploopy678 – The WORST K-pop performance ever…
While we’re on the topic of punk, I was already familiar with the incident in this video (the Rux performance where two of their entourage got nude seemingly just for funsies, antics that the newly-democratised South Korea wasn’t ready for, leading to a huge backlash and a massive clampdown on all independent music Korea-wide, setting the independent scene back decades) but this is a pretty good recap for those who don’t know. It’s a good lesson for groups too, in not entrusting aspects of your creative output to dickheads. It’s the same reason why you don’t get your best friend to draw your album cover… they’ll do a shit job for sure, and then you have to accept it or you’ll lose your friend. Hardly the worst k-pop performance ever musically though, Rux honestly sounded pretty good back then, if we want to talk about an actual bad performance that damaged Korea’s world standing I still think CL’s closing ceremony medley at the Seoul Olympics takes that crown. Anyway I really am digging Ploopy’s punk-lite fashion in this episode (definitely mrs), and it’s always worth watching her videos just to see her do those mega-awkward segues into her sponsor. I’m convinced that she always brainstorms the most dad-joke way to do it each time she does a video, I have to respect her troll game.
Natasha Louise – The jealous Kpop CEO (JYP)
This video is kind of a mixture of stuff that I think is very valid, and stuff which is frankly a bit silly. The best part is the VCHA stuff at the end, and how it highlights that k-pop’s training conditions have been normalised but are actually completely horrible, she’s dead right about that. Criticisms of Tzuyu’s treatment here are certainly absolutely valid too. Also I like it how she points out that people being fans of groups “pre-debut” is something people do as a “flex”, but it ends up making them look like idiots, because let’s face it, if you’re declaring yourself a fan of a music group before they have any music out (and therefore how do you know if it’s any good or not) then you’re clearly grooming yourself to be a fucking capitalist cultist moron. On the silly side we have the R Kelly stuff (there’s no evidence JYP knew about that, and being in another country why would he, so why even bring it up), the Josh stalker stuff (if only throwing more money at the problem was the solution to deterring stalkers, the list of very rich celebrities being stalked is long) and the main crux of the video being JYP not promoting certain artists out of “jealousy” based on a few jokey comments on variety shows when the real much more mundane reason is probably just perceived marketability. Speaking of cultists, she kind of dropped the ball here by making a JYP deep-dive video but not mentioning his religious cult involvement at all, now that’s something that needs a lot more scrutiny. Still worth a look overall, and I like her duck, I support more plush toys in k-pop content.
Park Bom – Don’t Cry
According to my song submitter: “this song was so successful that it remains the one YG female soloist song to get a Perfect All Kill – yes, somehow Jennie and CL havent beaten this record yet. Even knowing what I know about the musical tastes of the Korean public especially in 2011 I’m still like huh this song of all the songs“. I don’t get it either, this song is pretty mid for 2NE1 tracks back at that time, and not mid in that “Cherry Blossom Bullshit” type of way, just mid in that 2NE1 b-track way. Oh well, who understands the public sometimes.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week! In the meantime, don’t forget that you have only a few more days to do the latest Kpopalypse survey, which you can access by clicking HERE! Stay safe, caonimas!
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