Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 3/11/2025

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

The other five members of NewJeans look quite dapper in their dark clothes but I still think Min Hee Jin is queen visual.

Wonho – If you wanna

A just average song and a just average amount of skin showing. Wonho has done better before in both departments.

NMIXX – Reality Hurts

The first extreme ‘change-up’ song from NMIXX that actually fucking works quite well rather than the changes being a handicap the song has to overcome (they’ve had other good songs but none that are this “change-up-ish”.) “Reality Hurts” has some consistent sonic threads throughout it (for fucking once) that unify the disparate parts and make them sound like one whole song that is meant to fit together, rather than three different songs cut up and stapled together like a maniac mortician building the perfect human out of serial killer victims. Not sure what happened at NMIXX HQ lately but after a woeful start to their careers they’re finally getting the songs right for this group.

Miyeon feat. Colde – Reno

Great visual style but the song is a drab blues/jazz thing sort of like Sam Brown’s “Stop” but not as good. You need an amazing singer to elevate such a drab formula into the realms of listenability and Miyeon just doesn’t have the chops for something like this.

Miyeon – Say My Name

This song is even worse though because at least the other one was hitting musical territory that k-pop doesn’t go to much, even if it was doing a bad job. “Say My Name” is literally just a supermarket paintjob.

Choerry – Pressure

Everyone’s out of ideas for Choerry it seems. Stop me if you’ve heard this sound before.

Seo Eve – Nyang

Seo Eve has also done better this year, but average for Seo Eve is still way better than your bias at their peak. Also the cat-based martial arts video is genius.

Rolling Quartz – My Turn

Rolling Quartz struggle with their usual problem – great singing, great playing, killer rock sound, great style, mid songwriting.

Synsnake – Wolfsbane

Generic metalcore that isn’t bad by any means but there’s thousands of bands doing this exact sound. Synsnake sound better when they’re mixing it up a little.

82MAJOR – Trophy

Not bad at all, actually has a reasonable pace and recalls some of the better boy group stuff from the early 2010s before everyone started yelping over lame trap beats.

DKZ – Replay My Anthem

Some weird keyboard patch choices are the only thing notable about what’s otherwise pretty average. Mind you DKZ are usually pretty awful so “average” is definitely a step up, they at least get an effort award for this.

Xdinary Heroes – Lost and Found

Another week, another boy-idol-rock song nobody asked for.

CLOSE YOUR EYES with Imanbek – SOB

Stupid pre-chorus drops aside, this isn’t terrible.

xikers – Superpower (Peak)

This is definitely the week of usually-terrible boy groups making songs that are slightly less terrible than usual. This one’s so not-completely terrible that it’s almost semi-listenable, in places.

WEi – Home

Okay, our run is over, this just sucks flat out.

&TEAM – Lunatic

“I know they all gonna call us crazy”, these guys are crazy in controlled amounts for the cameras as long as management says it’s okay. Fine to be “crazy” in a song but no stepping out of line for real in 2025 HYBE, we don’t want any of these boys and girls getting uppity and giving NewJeans girls heart emojis now, you have to be big cheese to get away with that.

TIOT – I Don’t Wanna Wait (IDWW)

Nobody wants to listen to this sub-One-Direction crap so let’s put our weekly non-Korean LGBT feature here instead, yay! This week it’s Worriers, a truly excellent pop-punk-indie-whateveryouwanttocallit band that you should check out. Melodic smarts galore and even good lyrics which are rare for this style where most groups just use metaphors to write about their heroin withdrawals (looking at you, 1980s/90s 4AD groups), “They/Them/Theirs” feels like the touching last word on pointless pronoun argument bullshit.

Solar – Come Away With Me

Some poop song for a Chinese mobile game or something? I don’t even know, but who cares, you won’t remember this in a week and neither will I.

LUCY – Where’s Your Love

They should have read what’s on the mattress at 0:44.

NCHIVE – Flash

What in the Betacam is this. Did they just clear some room on the Karaoke bar main stage or what.

E11iVYN – Orbit

We don’t have enough weird group names in k-pop apparently, so it’s just as well that EOneOneIvyn is here to mix things up a little. Actually I like the EBM style beat of this one even if they weirdly drop it out of the mix way too much and the vocal melodies are poop.

ARVVY – I’ll be your idol

Yeah this sucks, but at least Lissa Caonima might get some more material she can use for her “Songs that Kpopalypse actually likes” retro screen cutouts.

SM Jazz Trio – Only One

I bet this type of shit is the reason why Lee Soo Man stepped down at SM. I wouldn’t want my name associated with this garbage either.

RapidEye – Energy

Placing bets on which second-gen ex-girl group members are behind the avatars of this monstrosity.

Bang Yedam – Against All

Should have just been against his songwriter.

Kik5o feat. Somin – X

I don’t really know what to say about this but just a heads up that the latest Kpopalypse survey is now in OVERTIME and you have maybe a day or two at most to do it before I close it off. CLICK HERE to do the survey, it’s free, anonymous, quick to complete and you get to tell Kpopalypse to fuck off! Where’s the downside?

I.MET.U – Velvet Trigger

“Pre-debut” music videos are like “early access” games, people want to have their cake and eat it too by releasing something yet having an ‘out’ if they’re judged too harshly for it. Either shit or get off the pot, folks.

Nyxie – Watch Out

About 150 of you all let me know that this exists this week for some unknown reason, but that’s weird because this thing only has about 200 views.

Olivia Marsh – Too Good to be Bad

I usually just ditch Olivia’s songs from roundup completely because they’re so boring and I really should have done that here. However I was amused by this video because of the appearance of the Brown Bags, maybe one of them is Danielle?

Kim Boa – Fake Love

Probably one of the better ex-Spica solo songs but that’s not saying a lot.

Gyubin – Cappuccino

When the song is actually named after a coffee, you know you’re in super-bland musical territory.

Pentacle – Shame

And here’s Gyubin in an alternate reality where her music isn’t boring as fuck. It’s not really Gyubin but you know what I mean.

Hwina – Wildfire

Eh, it’s oaky.

RingoLYN – End of the world

Apparently RingoLyn is a Korean who is working in Japan as a gravure actress, and that’s good because we need someone to fill Honey Popcorn’s shoes. I thought she had slight Yua Mikami vibes, but a reader thinks she looks more like Hibiki Otsuki. What do you readers think? Let me know in the comments below!

Mirani feat. Kid Milli – Yellin’

Not what I expected from the title and the people involves, which is defintiely a good thing. I don’t know if I like this but it’s different so that’s something.

Jena Powder – Joah

Two and a half minutes of fucking pointless warble and it’s still one of the better songs out of the ones I nearly chopped out.

Leenalchi – Go Forth and Learn to Live

Just letting you know that I’m aware that this exists and I’m choosing to not say anything about it in the hope that it doesn’t encourage anyone.

DEAN feat. Miso – Nocturne 07

Dean wrecks another song merely by existing.

Jung Hyerin – Melty Love

This trot song isn’t very good but her ballads are even more boring than this, be glad I didn’t include the other song she did this week.

Psyburger – Psygo

Just look at it. If you click play on this, you deserve what you get. And if your device has YouTube autoplay on what the hell are you doing to yourself, go into your browser settings and turn that shit off for good. My page will load quicker and you’ll probably get an extra five years out of your life before you succumb to dementia.

TwoFour – The Last Scene

I’m told that Jane Jang is in this band, but it’s no substitute for her work with 015B.

Urban Zakapa – Stay

Urban Zakapa have been making shitty worthless ballads as long as I can remember being into k-pop. I bow down to them for their consistency in reliably giving me something to hate all these years.

Isegye Idol – Be My Light

Just your reminder that generic anime theme poop music still exists.

RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Vanity Fair – LE SSERAFIM Reveals Uncomfortable Truths in the Hot Seat

Don’t expect any fun questions that might actually be uncomfortable like “who stans Israel and who stans Palestine the most”, or “who’s best at ignoring other girl groups in the corridors”, this is all “who drools the most on their plushies while sleeping” type stuff.

KOOKIELIT – Former K-Pop Idol BÉBE YANA spills the TEA about her idol days & solo music

A somewhat better interview with Bebe Yana, some actual decent questions in here, as well as the usual promo “talk about your new album” stuff of course. Worth a look. For the record Bebe Yana has an Australian accent but it’s also tempered with American accent a little, a very strange combination.

4minute – Mirror Mirror

A fairly drab song and video from 4minute featuring Hyuna looking like Hyuna 1.0 and the four others all looking stunningly awkward, it’s easy to see why the other four were outshined so much in the public eye at the time. It wasn’t their fault, nobody knew how to dress or style them, their wardrobe team clearly practising Jeongyeon-tier levels of sabotage, no wonder the group imploded so fast. This song was also from that annoying phase k-pop went through where verse melodies just constantly oscillated between the root note and the third and never did much else. Not much of a song and like many songs that get into the weekly retro song feature I ignored it back during the birth of this website for a reason. Its main relevance to me today is that I have a theory that all the flouro tubes that adorn nugu tier videos were all recycled from this video.

That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week! Oh, and do the survey! Only open for one more day! Do it, caonima – or don’t!