Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 22/9/2025

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

Wow, our loveable friend Seungri just got snapped and he looks so dreamy! It’s true what they say, life must really be a simulation.

XG – Gala

Finally XG have a song where they get the rapping and the singing parts right. It sure took them enough tries, and I’m sure they’ll release some R&B dogshit that sucks soon enough, but for now, we’re good.

Taemin – Veil

Some absolutely great sounds on the track, but the vocal writing is really unimaginative, just the same boy-pop stuff as every other boy-pop song ever.

TripleS ∞! – Password

Triple S have the same problem as Taemin this week – a cool, interesting backing track completely let down because whoever was writing the vocals just couldn’t match the quality of what was happening in the instrumental. It might look like prime Lovelyz but it’s an empty promise, that kind of quality isn’t here.

ATEEZ – Ash

Now Ateez flip it the other way – their songwriters get the vocal writing right, but the instrumental is some generic gym music poop that’s instantly forgettable. If we can get the Ateez songwriter working with the poeple doing the tracks for Taemin and Triple S we might just have some more good music this year… we sure could use it…

Yuqi – M.O.

An old school rap type of song, with everything in it that you could want… except the actual old school rap. Big oops.

Chaeyoung – Girl

Truly awful. Chaeyoung, you are not a ballad singer, just stop this nonsense. She should put the Sid Vicious shirt back on and join a punk group, that kind of thing would actually work for her because she could just let it all out and not worry about trying to sound “nice” for the k-pop morons, something that’s clearly beyond her anyway.

Haseul – Love Poison

Haseul isn’t a ballad singer either. The weirdly dry mix with drums that sound like they’re covered in carpet just emphasises the vocal, and that’s dangerous because there’s not a lot to emphasise.

Youha – Break Free

I was definitely not going to buy Borderlands 4 because apparently it’s glitchy and also it’s way, way, WAY overpriced for what is basically an identical game to the previous three plus I’m sure it’ll be DLC’ed and Season Passed up the ass and fuck that anti-consumer shit, but now that I know Youha does a song for it that’s actually rather good I might wait a few months and pick it up at a Steam sale just to support her (and nobody else). “Break Free” works where aespa’s PUBG collab didn’t quite because Youha’s song is a lot less polite-sounding, going all-in on several abrasive styles that mesh well together without sounding like a messy “change-up” trend. Also she’s an S-tier visual, definitely someone who is being seriously slept on, hopefully this song does something to change that.

GENBLUE – Badass

Hey, guy at the start of the video dozing off, no need to interrupt your sleep. You’re not missing anything here, just take that power nap if you need one.

PRIMROSE – Love Your Flower

One of those songs where the bass guitar player is doing all the work and everybody else is phoning it in. Not much to listen to here unless you want some bass guitar practice material.

KickFlip – My First Love Song

What I don’t get about these songs is they always have these lyrics like “these words can’t express my feelings”… so if that’s the case, why not fucking shut up, then? Anyway I don’t have that issue, my words can express my feelings just fine and I feel like this song is pretty mid.

CORTIS – JoyRide

Superb production here that recalls 4AD label artists from the 1980s, it’s really wasted on such a bunch of mid shoegazing… much like those same artists. All that’s missing is the heroin.

TREASURE – Everything

Actually a really good song, that could have been absolutely great if they just let that fantastic chorus carry it more and removed some of the pointless dicking around.

AxMxP – Shocking Drama

Not bad, one of the better “boy pop masquerading as a rock band” things I’ve heard lately. QWER for people who aren’t feminists.

LUN8 – Lost

Hey this is good! It’s the week of good boy songs. Don’t worry it’ll go back to normal soon.

TWS – Heads Shoudlers Knees Toes

I’m sorry to report that k-pop labels are rehashing all the nursery rhymes that you were forced to sing and dance to in pre-school and making them “cool” and “street”. My coloured block playtime supervisor would like a word.

TIOT – Every 10 Minutes

Every 10 minutes another shit k-pop song is written, but only the top 1% make it to roundup to be shat on, so even if I don’t like your fave’s bullshit music just be grateful that I even noticed they exist.

Xdinary Heroes – More than i like

There is more of this song than I would like.

Galaxy Kids – Stay Close

Not much happening here, I just listened to it and can’t even remember what it sounds like. I do remember the mesh shirt though.

Mingi – Roar

Total garbage song of course, but I can’t help but feel that Mingi would have done even better in the Objectification Survey if this was released back when voting was still active. Thanks to all of you who voted, the results are now all in so check them out and see how your contribution made a difference to the world!

Gen Hoshino feat. Lee Youngji – 2

Oh, Youngji can rap in Japanese now, let’s see who’s shocked, absolutely nobody. Good job.

Suho – Who Are You

Who am I, someone who isn’t going to listen to Suho this week, so instead let’s have our weekly non-Korean LGBT feature here instead, yay! This week it’s Dazey and the Scouts, a “queercore” group who only did one album before they broke up but damn it was a good album and you can listen to all of it here and a live concert here too if you like. That’s the sum total of what I know about them, now you know as much as me. Enjoy!

Doh Kyung Soo (D.O.) feat. Penomeco – Dumb

Back to k-pop’s attempts at rock and it’s not great, folks.

Mimi – Sweetdreams, My dear

Mimi from Gugudan’s song is pretty dreary but at least the production is surprisingly good, the sound of it scratches that itch even if the song itself doesn’t.

Tova Oh – Salty Rain

I feel about this song about the same as I do about her song last week, it’s kind of okay in a mantra-like way but I miss the old harder UZA electronic style. Mainly though I just want to know why there are racing cars in the video, that seems ultra-random and weird.

Im Young Woong – Ulssigu

Basically just disco bollocks. Oh wait no it’s “city pop” hahaha. Anyway, he really sings the words “perfect like this AI” in this song so you know it’s shit.

Son Yuji – Like A Wave

This girl is from 3ye and her song is… I don’t know, it’s okay but it really needed some production help. Something other than the drab machine-backings would have got this over the line.

Moon Sujin – Blowing My Mind

A decent song but the Autotuned voice is really on the nose. I mean I’m 100% certain she couldn’t sing this song without the computer helping out because what other reason could there possibly be for trashing the song this hard with the computer voice, but it’s just a shame that it was obviously needed because the sonic combination just isn’t it.

Ilya – New!

Just putting this here for that one person in my asks who asked me if I could name any PinkPantheress clone songs in k-pop. At least one of these comes out every single week but I usually just leave them out of roundup completely for your sanity.

Beomhan – D.U.M (Dancing Under Moonlight)

He’s back! And once again his song has odd audio issues, this time it’s with the sound weirdly bouncing up and down in volume all over the place. He says he’s aware of the issues and it’s not like that on other platforms so that’s your cue to go and stream on Spotify. You’ll support him, won’t you?

Guckkasten – Roller

I’ll leave you with this song, which is actually Guckkasten’s best song in at least a decade. This band used to rock but they do a lot of sleepytime crap as well sadly. Here’s hoping for more songs like this out of them in future.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Cheyenne Lin – Sexualization and Girl Groups: Having Our Cake and Eating It Too

A great video, absolutely something you should watch if the topic interests you, and if you’re into k-pop and representation issues, then it should. I actually disagree with a lot of the details and asides here (and I won’t go into detail about which ones deliberately because I want you to make up your own minds about what she’s saying and discuss it without my evil patriarchal male-gaze wasian-privilege hanging over it), but the central point she’s making – that it’s fine to enjoy Katseye as “cool music to listen to” but treating it as “new wave of lifechanging intersectional feminist queens omg” is a serious overreach because it’s still the same old corporate dicksucking at the end of the day – is absolutely spot on. It’s exactly the same point that I was making years ago when I was criticising stuff like 2NE1 and CLC’s “No” for being “feminism-lite” because the place where it’s coming from obviously undermines the message. Why do you thinik I-dle’s Soyeon hands out with QWER’s Chodan these days, Soyeon has been taking notes on what a true feminist is.

Swell Entertainment – I was scared to review KCON

Look at her, pleading with the k-pop fans in the opening about not sending her death threats. She’s scared but she shouldn’t be, k-pop fans talk shit but they don’t actually do anything offline, they’re not like teenagers attending high school in the USA. If k-pop fans had any teeth at all I would have been sent an exploding blow-up Hyomin doll through the post years ago, or at least some toilet paper (would have been appreciated during COVID tbh). Anyway, she’s talking about stuff like event organisation here which is definitely relevant to kpop fans so if you ever intend to brave one of these KCON things like I did, this video is worth half an hour of your time (although I’d recommend playing videos like this at 1.5x speed if you’re busy like me).

CatChuuuu – Catch U

A song that truly belongs on Nugu Alert, but it won’t get there because it has nearly half a million views, “Catch U” is pretty awful musically but probably goes viral periodically more for visual reasons. Terrible songs like this aren’t anything new in k-pop but the bizarre use of filters, horrible backgrounds, tragic costumes and generally misguided video direction here is unusually bad, and not bad on purpose. Everyone involved here is earnestly trying their hardest to be as awesome as possible. It’s the difference between The Shaggs and Steel Panther. The joke wears off quickly with the latter, but “My Pal Foot Foot” never gets old.

That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!