It’s time once again for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s check out some new releases!
Scan-dol of the week – Onew (SHINee)
Wanna One – Burn It Up
All that buildup for something which sounds like it would be rejected from a Cross Gene album. The male Produce 101 isn’t any less disappointing than the female version.
Jessica – Summer Storm
Jessica beats Taeyeon at her own game by releasing some boring Coldplayish rock crap that’s maybe about 10% more listenable because at least she doesn’t wank off with stupid vocal runs all over it.
Weki Meki – I Don’t Like Your Girlfriend
This song has a nice enough breakdown but the rest of it is beyond awful. Or maybe I just like the breakdown because the rest of the song stops at that point.
Juniel – Last Carnival
If I had to play this boring funk music I wouldn’t want to be identified in the video either. However I’m digging the sexy close-ups of Juniel’s carboxy scars, hey Seoulbeats how about a roundup of the best carboxy-scarred legs and arms soon?
Boyfriend – Star
My girlfriend came into the room while I was writing this and saw this video freeze-framed. She read the title and said “Boyfriend, is that the name of a k-pop group?” I said “yes, they all have stupid names like that”. She said “is that because they want to make the young girls like [puts on stupid ‘girly voice’] “ohmigod I wish he was my boyfriend!“. I said “yes, that’s exactly it”. It doesn’t take a k-pop fan to understand the nuances of k-pop marketing.
Oguogu – Ice Chu
I always find it odd when in advertising people anthromorphise food and then make the food act like it wants to be eaten. These ice creams trapped in Guantanamo Bay’s k-pop ice cream torture section fighting for their lives make much more sense.
Blanc7 – Hello
I was expecting to see “Yoochun was here” mixed in with the graffiti but then I remembered that they weren’t singing in a bathroom.
Skull & Hahaha, Lee Sun Bin – One Love
Hey it’s a full MV with hardly any actual music in it. We should probably be grateful.
Moon Hyuna, Euaerin – Doong Doong
I assume “doong doong” is Korean for “toot toot”, if not please tell me what it is so I can spam it everywhere.
BONUS SONGS
Ignito ft. J-Tong – Moon
The trend of people wearing shirts that look like black metal shirts but don’t actually advertise a black metal band is just weird. In the 90s nobody who wore that shit thought it looked good, we just liked the bands and felt that wearing the horrible-looking shirts with the stupid unreadable band logos made of twigs on them was an acceptable compromise as we were ugly and weren’t getting laid anyway. Nowadays young attractive k-poppers wear T-shirts that are in a black metal style but not really related to any band in particular but they’re wearing it just for the look alone and it’s supposed to be cool or something. Nobody could have predicted this cultural shift, not even Boram.
Hang5va – Yellow Beat Break Down
That kid has a picture of Daft Punk on his wall, so you know straight away that this is going to be rubbish.
Jessi – Arrived
If only the music was as retro as the video, instead of some horrible nu-school R&B garbage.
April – Happy Everyday
This is the other April, the one that nobody gives a fuck about. The song is alright though, which is annoying because now it means I have to start noticing them and that’s going to make my blogging slightly confusing. Why can’t they change their group name to “blow up dog walkers” or something.
Wookey – Glisten
I imagine that if you really did make a roll-up cigarette out of glitter and smoked it, it would really fuck you up. Imagine what chemicals they use to make that stuff.
Glen Check – Follow The White Rabbit
Glen Check are one of those groups that “indie” people wank themselves to death over, but fuck me, they are so shit. The chorus vocals sound pretty similar to the yawns I was making while listening to this. Maybe they actually are yawns that the producer cleverly incorporated into the music using digital trickery like Max Martin did with Backstreet Boys’ farts.
Giryeon – It’s Too Late
Don’t be so negative, Giryeon. It’s never too late to stop making bullshit music like this. I believe in you.
12years – OMG
This video got me thinking – what does alphabet soup actually look like in Korea? How do they stick all the hangul together so it doesn’t get all out of shape with the vowels and consonants in the wrong position, or do they just not give a fuck?
Alphabat – Get Your Love
The song is awful but the video is even worse for someone like me with colour blindness. I feel like a paraplegic stuck on a staircase. I hope all of you with colour-seeing privilege got something out of this video because I sure didn’t.
Dmeanor – Right Here
American desert seems to be just like Australian desert except you have to look out for pop stars in sports cars trying to kill you instead of snakes that are the same colour as the dirt and 7 foot tall birds.
Dawn Of The Day – Americano
Y’all can quit asking me about whether I like this girl or that girl in some new k-pop group that I’m only vaguely familiar with and where I can’t even tell the difference between most of the members, because the singer here is cuter than any idol who has debuted in the last 6 months. Poor girls are stuck with a Kurzweil keyboard though, they’ll be taking that one to the repair shop soon, I feel sorry for them.
SUPER SPECIAL TAPE-HOLDING SEGMENT
Wanna One – Energetic
Tape holding exhibit A: I don’t know what’s more unrealistic and deeper into the realm of pure fantasy here – some millennial kid holding a cassette tape, or the horse running along the beach turning into a guy in their other video.
Ants – Don’t Fight
Tape holding exhibit B: This video goes one better than Wanna One’s cassette holding. Nobody younger than me should even own one of these. I have about two dozen of them and I can’t even remember what the fuck they do.
Eddy Kim – Now
Tape holding exhibit C: it seems holding outdated tapes is this week’s new black in k-pop. Why not step into the 1990s and get yourself a DVD player you boring cunt.
C.Cle – Seoul Funk
Tape holding exhibit D: fuck, please let’s not get all misty-eyed and nostalgic over the cassette walkman. Those things chewed tapes even more than car stereos and you were lucky if it had a battery life that was even as long as the running length of whatever tape you were listening to. Like Atari’s “ET“, landfill really is the best place for some inventions.
SPECIAL RETRO BONUS SONG
TVXQ – Rising Sun
By popular demand I thought I’d better drop this song here because it wasn’t in my Top 30 of the Dark Ages list, and I got more questions about why I didn’t include this song than any other. The omission (like every other) was of course completely deliberate – I didn’t forget to include the song, I just don’t like it that much. It’s not completely awful though and I’ll give credit where I feel it’s due – “Rising Sun” is easily the best song from this TVXQ lineup and the first minute and a bit is even one of the most kick-ass intros in the whole of k-pop. However when the actual meat of the song comes into play everything gradually falls apart, as we’re treated to silly raps and cheesy vocal harmonies that throw lukewarm water over all the dark, brooding atmosphere, killing the mood completely. Maybe SM agree these days, you know for sure that SM don’t give any fucks about this group (at least in their original five-member incarnation) when they forget to remove the filename extension from the video title when they upload it to their official channel, even your average hobbyist YouTuber isn’t usually that sloppy.
That’s all for this week’s roundup – more next week!
Filed under: your mum Tagged: roundup
