Welcome to the first edition of a brand new series, Kpopalypse roundup!
A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO KPOPALYPSE ROUNDUP
One of the takeaways of my Caonima Activity Survey is that Kpopalypse readers would like more content and especially more reviews. Waiting a whole year to find out what I think of new songs is certainly pissing some of you off. However, Kpopalypse readers also don’t want to lose the unique flavour of what makes Kpopalypse blog what it is, have new content replace existing postings, or for me to copy or double-up on content that you can get on other blog sites without making it uniquely Kpopalypse somehow.
The solution I’ve come up with is to have a bonus weekly post that’s tied specifically to the Kpopalypse radio show, where I run through each of the new releases that I played on the show and what I think of them. I used to post videos of most of the new songs I’d play each week on the Kpopalypse Facebook page, but instead I’ll post them here. This way, the post won’t take up any more of my own time than the Facebook postings did so this new content means the total amount of Kpopalypse postings will increase, PLUS it’ll satisfy radio listeners who can have everything in one nice neat spot AND people who don’t give a shit about my radio show but just might like to know what I think of the new stuff that came out over the last week will be happy too. It’s a win/win/win!
Some things:
- These posts will be short with very little thought put into them compared to my usual posts!
- Regular radio listeners will know that generally speaking I do NOT play to my own personal music taste but try and give a broad cross-section of everything, so expect a range of opinions, not just “I played this because I liked it” because how often I play songs I dislike might surprise you!
- These roundups are not meant to be complete, I won’t be focusing on EVERY new release, only the ones I played on the show.
- Requests will never feature in the Kpopalypse roundups unless they’re also new releases that I was going to play anyway.
- These posts will not feature anywhere else apart from Kpopalypse blog. Also, as minor posts they also won’t feature in the Kpopalypse article index.
Let’s get started!
NEW RELEASES 26/10/2015
Twice – Ooh-Ahh
I’m not keen on this. It’s Shannon Williams’ great “Why Why” ruined with too much random noise and cheerleading clutter. Also how many times is k-pop going to re-do T-ara’s “Lovey Dovey” Zombie MV?
DIA – My Friend’s Boyfriend
To some extent this song suffers from the same problem as the Twice song, there’s just too much going on. There’s a great song here but it’s lurking under 57 layers of noise so nobody can hear it. I still liked this better than the Twice song, and it’s also the best DIA song so far by a wide margin, but listening to this wears my ears out.
SHINee – Sing Your Song
A pedestrian ballad for the Japanese market, I think it’s pretty safe to say that only SHINee fans will appreciate this.
IU – Twenty-three
IU seems to be heading towards Lim Kim territory with this one and I’m so not into it. The snide video and lyrics poking fun at her public image are great and she looks better than ever but the song is the kind of unremarkable disco/funk boredom that Gain does every other week.
N.Flying – Lonely
The best ballad of tonight’s show, with nice enough instrumentation and raps that don’t drag on too long but certainly it’s nothing special.
Click-B – Reborn
Click-B are the veteran k-pop group who did “Love Letter” (covered last year by Berry Good), one of the only decent pre-Golden Age k-pop songs. This new song is nowhere near as good unfortunately, generic tough-guy k-pop 101.
Andup ft Incredivle – It’s Me
This week’s best rap song out of the ones that I found. Actually a decent beat, something that Korea knows how to do when it feels like it. Very short but that just means it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
BONUS SONG
Pure Boy – Wedding Day
This inexplicably uncanny video would be worthy of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert if the group didn’t have another video with over 150,000 hits. Simple pop fun, just don’t think about it too hard.
Kpopalypse will return next week with another Kpopalypse roundup!
Tagged: roundup
