It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s check out some new releases!

EXO-SC – What A Life

I got into k-pop on the strength of all the great upbeat tracks around the 2008-2011 era and here I am seven years later force-feeding myself the latest trendy tropical shithouse bullshit everybody hates over and over just so I can write a fucking shit throwaway two sentence review just so cunts won’t ask me what I think of this bullshit song. What a life, indeed.

Day6 – Time Of Our Life

There’s some respite this week, though. I support the “not being completely boring shit” direction that Day6 are going in lately, they should stick with that.

TVXQ – Hot Hot Hot

The song of TVXQ’s careers is a fucking hot dog commercial. There’s some things that I don’t think anyone’s super Boram ESP powers can predict.

Hyo – Badster

Okay so the other week I said Stray Kids “Side Effects” sounded a bit like Eisenfunk’s “Pong“, Hyoyeon obviously read that and said “hold my TR-909”.

Chungha – Chica

Well it’s better than “snapping” one off into the toilet bowl to her other song.

Lovelyz – Close To You

It has a decent chorus but overall it’s just a bit conventional, plus is has that weird “major turnaround” thing where it should be going to a minor chord at the end of the phrase but it goes to a major one instead because this is pop music so we can’t have too many minor chords or whatever. Annoying.

Busters – Starlight

Busters’ agency have a history of complete age-inappropriateness that tops even the worst agencies out there, so we should all be grateful that there’s no video for this one so I don’t feel compelled to write another boring post about how dog-whistle works for an audience that 80% doesn’t get it and never will. I think they will be doing a video for their upcoming “Pinky Swear” though, so I guess hold onto your hats for that one.

Pentagon – Humph!

Humph indeed.

Hyomin & Justatee – Cabinet

No Hyomin in the video, I guess she couldn’t even be bothered turning to this tropical embarrassment. It makes me feel even more sorry for EXO-SC who couldn’t scam their way out.

Flashe – Talk

The song is pretty awful but the T-ara tier editing is worse. I don’t care how good they look, this is unwatchable.

Taeyong – Long Flight

I hope he’s not this boring on an actual flight. If I was a flight attendant I’d sue for PTSD from listening to this shit.

KNK – Sunset

A really good backing track, sadly the vocal melodies don’t quite match it but at least there’s not that many of them.

Norazo – Shower

A lot of people think that I’d like Norazo because they’re so different or whatever, but actually I don’t. To me this just sounds cheesy and dumb like bhangra with more guitar or something. Nothing musically interesting here, just lots of loudness and “oh aren’t we zany”.

YoungWon – Cocky

It’s that terrible music everybody hates, back again.

Bangbae Bros – That’s Dope

Unfortunately not the attempt at opening up the dormant gonzo KAV market that it sounds like from the title, this is just a group with a Busker Busker-ish song. Oh and the plot twist in the MV is exactly what you think it’s going to be.

Eunki – Blow

And blow it does.

Cacophony – Sick Boy

Kind of different and cool but also plodding and uninteresting.

Gaho – Fly

Maudlin standing around in fields alert.

Lena Park – With You

The maudlin standing around in fields alert signal is getting stronger! Take cover!

Min Se Young – Get Out

This one has a vibe from a few years ago, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean “good” by default. It’s the kind of song you would have ignored a few years ago because you were busy listening to Girls’ Generation, T-ara and After School.

Standing Egg – A Song Only I Wanna Know

I think that if the person who wrote this song is the only one to have known this, it would be a better world for everyone.

Shelhiel – Do You?

No I don’t.

WishGirls – Yours Is Mine

Can I please make a wish for less tropical house from nugus, thanks.

Heyne – Tasty Tasty Tasty

The scariest thing about this video is finding out that her speaking and singing voice are almost exactly the same, I don’t think k-pop is Heyne’s calling, she should probably consider making a living voicing dolls for horror films.

BONUS RANDOM VIDEO OF THE WEEK

So About Lana the Russian Kpop Idol…

The international k-pop corner of the Internet is full of little self-appointed Hitlers who all believe that they know what’s best for everybody else, hiding their deep-seated racial intolerance and xenophobic hatred for healthy cross-cultural exchange under a veneer of fake “wokeness” – and sometimes they make YouTube videos like this one here. Is being a foreigner debuting in k-pop racist? Is mouthing along to a song with “problematic words” racist? Is not being able to pretend to sing and dance as well as an actual k-pop artist racist? Your mileage may vary on all of those, but I’ll tell you what’s definitely 100% racism in its purest form – making a YouTube video where you obsess for a large chunk of it about the exact makeup of somebody else’s racial chemistry, and whether that means that they “deserve” a place in somebody else’s music scene or not. If you don’t like the thought of racial discrimination, maybe don’t partake in any of it yourself – just an idea, unless that’s too “woke” for you?

That’s all for this week’s roundup – Kpopalypse roundup will return next week!