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

CL – +DONE161201+

It’s telling that these new songs by CL appeared almost immediately after she broke ties with YG, and also that the dates on them are in the past. Guess she’s been hanging onto these until after contract expiry so YG wouldn’t get publishing points. The songs are nothing all that special, but I get the vibe that she knows it and is just clearing house of the old stuff before she works on the new stuff.

CL – +REWIND170205+

Also telling that the videos are zero budget and that there’s no “baddest female” style posing. It must feel good to just put shit out there and not have to play YG’s game.

Park Jihoon – 360

I guess if I were someone with a crush on this dude I’d probably think this was the greatest song ever, but I’m not, so I don’t.

Amber Liu – Numb

This is Amber’s ballad release with the timing calculated as “reflection evidence” to elicit maximum sympathy from any of her fans disturbed by her cosplaying Judge Dredd the other week. If you ask me a cover of this song would have convinced me more, and certainly would have been musically preferable.

Lim Kim – Yo-Soul

Sounds like shit obviously, but at least it’s different shit, I guess.

Lim Kim – Entrance

Fucking art-school wank, teenagers who have never been to a theater might be impressed by this but I’m not.

Hi Cutie – Lovely Day

The song doesn’t quite get there but it’s this group’s best effort so far.

JxR – Element

Eh.

U-Kwon ft. RGP – Fuego

The usual Latin crap.

Prism – Burn It Up

Surprisingly pedestrian given the title, not much burning going on here.

Lee Jun Young – Curious About U

I’m curious about whether he’s finished all the Diablo 3 expansion packs yet.

Superkids – Na Na Na

Holy shit can’t kids just grow up normally? I’m not sure what’s more offputting and inappropriate, the bizarre creepy adult courtship rituals played out by pre-teens, or the musical mashup of nursery rhymes and Stray Kids’ “Side Effects“. I don’t know if kids should have to deal with either.

JBJ95 – Only One

Yeah this isn’t good.

Primary ft. Sumin, Qim Isle – Woozoo

What a shame that Korea’s most technically proficient genius producer also has crap music taste.

Monsta X – Middle Of The Night

Actually a really good backing track but they don’t do much with it melodically. This is begging for an UZA or Aseul to rewrite it into something worth listening to.

Davichi – Dear

I’m not sure why this is periodically at two frames per second, it’s like they made it using the Australian Internet when they were down here last time.

OurR – Circle

She can play soccer with her friend stop being so goddamn possessive, that’s probably what pushed her away you know.

sokodomo ft. Qim Isle – Too Much

It was too much at 2 seconds in.

Ravi, Chillin Homie, Xydo, Cold Bay – Asura

Oh dear.

Eyedi – 7UP

I don’t know what this is or what it means. Is she promoting a soft drink? Who are MU:con? Where’s the collab at? Whatever, it’s okay I guess.

Changmo – Meteor

Rappers think lots of gold jewelry might impress some woman but any young lady worthy of anybody’s time is just going to look at such extravagance and think of all the printed circuit board connectors that metal could have been used for instead. What a waste, hey.

Damoim ft. Woo, Keem Hyoeun, Nucksal, Huckleberry P – I’mma Do

Tropical trap. Yes, you read that right. Let’s move on quickly.

Momentsyumi – Call My Name

It’s good at the start where there’s a cat, fortunately the cat appears before the music does so you can watch the cat and then turn this off.

Hwang Chi Yeul – Untitled

No song in history called “Untitled” was ever any good, and that’s because if you can’t even be fucked naming a song, you probably couldn’t be fucked writing a good song either.

Crush – Alone

It’s the season of boring ballads.

Nell – Cliché

Yeah Autotune was the wrong choice but even without it this would be garbage.

clovd – Blue Hole

Why is he writing a song about PUBG Corp. I guess he got one-shot across the map by a Kar98k one too many times and decided he’d express his angst about it.

Chillin Homie, Veiniyfl, M1NU – Stole

Speaking of which the gameplay looks very laggy here. The original Thief game did it better and didn’t make us listen to shitty rap either.

Martin Smith – Film

What is this fake widescreen crap. They’re trying to make you think it’s “extra wide” but they actually just cropped it. I’d demand the rest back if this was a video I’d want to see twice.

Steady – Love Is Always Vivid

I deleted so many songs from the roundup submissions this week because they were all just so fucking boring and I had nothing to say about any of them. The fact that this garbage survived just shows you how mundane the stuff you’re missing out on is.

Giriboy – Snow Sweeping

He’s wearing a Public Enemy shirt, maybe he ought to check out some of their music so he can learn to perk things up a little.

Grizzly – Tell Me Who

This guy just wants to pace around somewhere random doing nothing, and after listening to this song that sounds like a relatively good idea.

StorySeller – Oasis

It’s okay and then the Autotune high notes kick in and it’s all over.

Ji Dong Kuk – I Cry

Do Koreans just cry all the time or what. Life’s not that bad, cheer up a fucking bit for once in your life.

Sejeong – Tunnel

Imagine if FirstRabbit was a Gugudan stan. That’s six holes to softly wrap instead of one. He’d be up all night with Photoshop here, getting it just right.

Kang Min Hee – Open Ending

She’s holding this mic the right way, just FYI.

Narae Lee – From

They actually look through the jazz section of a record store in this video, now if that’s not a warning sign I dunno what is.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK

AOA – Come See Me Drum Cover by You’s Drum

Ex-AOA drummer from their band days Youkyung shows that she’s easily got what it takes to still be in the group, drumming on AOA’s first decent song in two years and making it look very easy. Which it in fact is – there’s not a lot to AOA’s songs drumming-wise, but hey she’s in time and does the job without any fuckups and that’s what you want from a drummer. If you listen at 2:47, you can hear a different beat drumming in the background, which shows that Youkyung here is not at home but in some kind of rehearsal studio with poor sound insulation and her neighbour’s drumming bleeding through the walls. Maybe she’s a drum teacher and this is her teaching studio, if so I hope she’s teaching the next generation of Korean musicians to not suck as much as most of the songs in this roundup.

That’s all for this week’s roundup! Whether we get another roundup this year will depend on the quality of songs, as you can see they’re starting to really wind down now but I think there might be one more week we can squeeze out of Korea’s pop music… we’ll see. However there will be more Kpopalypse posts this year of some description regardless! Stay safe, caonimas!