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Song Review:: POW: Gimme Love

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Release date: 2025 February 1 Album track list:  Gimme Love Album runtime: 3 mi nutes  With what I'm assuming is probably a digital single, POW has officially stepped into 2025. Their singles I covered last year, and it's a little crazy I've been doing this long enough that I'm starting to see repeat names, were enjoyable and a little surprising. Full disclosure, I'm writing this on my phone at an airport, so if there are any mistakes, I'll try to catch them, but assume it was autocorrect and I'll go back over it when I'm back home. We've got the standard guitar and drums for the instrumentals, soft, mellow, and wholly fitting for the topic at hand. This is one of those super soft love songs that speak of the peace one finds with a partner who understands. We get some audience participation snapping that could very much function as audience participation clapping. Much in line with the instrumentals, their voices are so soft. This is the kind of song...

Song Review:: Hui (PENTAGON): 20th Anniversary of the Korean Wave Pt. 5- My Memory

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Release date: 2025 February 17 Album track list: My Memory , My Memory (Inst.) Album runtime: 8 mi nutes  My man, Hui. Apparently there's a twentieth Hallyu anniversary that he released a song for. I don't know what this whole thing is. His is the only release I've seen for it. I don't know. But regardless of what this is, Hui is one of those that I'll automatically and immediately add to my list, if I don't automatically do the review. Obviously, I didn't get it done right away, since this came out just under a week ago, but we're moving in the correct direction. Progress. And also, I'm really excited to listen to this song. Haven't yet, because I've been waiting to do this review. And good heavens, a four minute song. Hui. You spoil me. This is why you're my PENTAGON bias. That and your voice has an instant calming effect on my brain. Violin taking center stage with a piano right behind it and other orchestral instruments behind that. O...

Song Review:: EVNNE: HOT MESS- HOT MESS

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Release date: 2025 February 10 Album tracklist : HOT MESS , Birthday, Love Like That, CROWN, Youth, Keshiki - Korean Version Album runtime: 19 minutes  This one is a little bit earlier than the ones that I've been doing recently, which makes me sad because I thought I was making progress and getting later  in the month, instead of earlier. But it's fine. At this point, the entirety of the group is at least eighteen, the youngest actually turns nineteen this year, so that's good. Project group formed from Boys Planet trainees, including Keita! Which is exciting! I liked him! But the length of the title track? Really? What is this? That beginning startled both me and my cat. Goodness. This song is chock full of energy from start to finish, a veritable runaway train. But like. Also if the runaway train wasn't going at breakneck speed? It doesn't make me feel out of breath listening to it, in other words. There's also a lot going on with the various instruments, to ...

Song Review:: Just B: "- 한걸음만 (han geol eum man)

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Release date: 2025 February 12 Album track list:  한걸음만 , Hoodie,  한걸음만 - Instrumental, Hoodie - Instrumental Album runtime: 14 mi nutes  I had to check YouTube for which track of the two was the title track, and neither of them has a music video, so I picked the one that had a visualizer come out first. 한걸음만 also doesn't seem to have an English translation, so any time I refer to the title of this song, I will be using the name over in the parentheses. I'm lazy and that's not how I'm choosing to practice Korean right now. Hello, Just B. Glad to see you putting out music. This is their second that they've released so far this year, which currently makes their track record a new song or more once a month.  Ooh, this is nice and cinematic. Soft rock ballad, here I come to settle into this. I can't decide which part of the movie this would be in, but it's definitely something emotional, like the confession moment not in a romcom or the moment when the hero, bea...

Song Review:: Ilhoon (BTOB): moonwalk

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Release date: 2025 February 13 Album tracklist: moonwalk , moonwalk - inst. Album runtime: 4 minutes  The time has come. This has been sitting in my drafts, titled but otherwise unused since the song came out. If you remember, the last time he released a song , I basically had it reviewed within a couple of hours. This time I was so far behind that I didn't dare skip the line because then it would simply be chaos. So I haven't listened to it yet, and also partially because I had a feeling that it would devastate me, which was kind of confirmed by my mother who today asked me if I'd listened to it yet and then told me to make sure I had tissues. She has wonderful timing, dearest readers. Still, it's not on purpose that I am doing the reviews for both Changsub and Ilhoon one right after the other. They released songs about the same time that I learned about at about the same time, so their started drafts for me to do in order were right next to each other. Really. That...

Song Review:: Changsub (BTOB): Feel the Groove

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Release date: 2025 February 14 Album tracklist:  Feel The Groove Album runtime: 3 minutes   Finally I can get to my cat's ult bias .  Which is Changsub. In case you didn't catch that. He seriously loves this man's voice and I genuinely do not understand how my demon child who loves horror movies can love the balladeers of BTOB so much, but specifically Changsub. I asked T'Challa once if he would abandon me if he ever met Changsub and he screamed at me. I'm taking that as a yes, feral demon child that he is. So, congrats to Changsub for taming the wild beast. And sadly that's not a metaphor. T'Challa was feral when I got a hold of him and some days I think he'd like to ignore the last seven years and go back to that. After this review, I'll have to put this on for him.  Oh, you're just going to casually throw around an organ? That's fine. Bring on the funk, Changsub. I'm reminded quite a lot of one of the tracks from Final Fantasy X  with ...

Battle of the B-Sides:: BoA: Start Over

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 This one is for my personal indulgences, because I wanted something first gen and I wanted something fairly recent. So, I'm going with Queen BoA, all hail the queen. The song does turn five this year, so it's not completely recent, but she's also got her 25th anniversary this year and I'm hoping she releases something for that. She also debuted at the age of thirteen, but we're not going to talk about that because then I'll be a little too filled with The Rage on her behalf and these are supposed to be not-rage-filled moments. This song comes from BoA's tenth studio album, Better, released in 2020 to mark her twentieth anniversary. Eleven tracks, of which Start Over is the ninth, for a total of thirty-eight minutes. Produced by SM the Dude and Marcus Andersson (who has produced for LE SSERAFIM, ILLIT, Demi Levato, and VCHA, among others) and written by Lee Seu Ran (who has written for BTS, TxT, IVE, Everglow, NCT, Super Junior, and GOT7, among others), Rosi...