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June 2026 Wrap Up: Soccer and Ranch

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 Did y'all know I've written over 1200 posts now? And that's not counting the drafts of the reviews I've got sitting to be typed up. Those are just the ones that have actually been posted. I'm super behind on literally everything to do with this blog. But it's fine. June was a good month. Debuts! Debuts I covered were: NXON , Keyveatz , and V8 (Seventeen) . The ones I did not were HAT:Q , B.YOUR SIDE , A-1000 , for groups, HyunHaYo (Treasure) for a sub-unit, and some of the soloists were Renjun (NCT) , Evan (Enhypen) ,  Lee Jae Wook , Kaina , and Kim Dong Geum . I'd just like to point out Lee Jae Wook, because he is of course the lead actor for Alchemy of Souls , which is, of course, the reason that I'm sitting here writing these words in my present and you're sitting or standing or laying there reading these words in your present.  Songs I was looking forward to: SHINee: I love that even though they're not the most active of groups these days, ...

Song Review:: Keyveatz: OXY_GEN- OXY {Debut}

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Release date: 2026 June 29 Album tracklist: Key Beats , Catch My Breath, OXY , SUB_ZERO (feat. punchnello) , SUCK IT UP Album runtime: 12 minutes  Well, not a single song on here is over three minutes. That's not ideal. Also, the group is not on Underage Protocol, which is nice, because then I get to sit on the song for a little bit. But, let's see what kind of a debut we're working with.  Okay. This is quite the intense song. Even when the skittering beat goes away, we're left with a deep bass that at concert levels is going to rattle the bones in your chest. Very strong techno music going on. There's a spot that's got the variation levels that I look for where that deep bass is cut out, but overall, there's something about the song that feels a bit too frantic for my energy right now.  We've got a decent mix of rapping and singing, which is good. On both ends, we're listening to well-supported voices, and this is obviously a group where it's ra...

Song Review:: Jeonghan & Joshua (Seventeen): DREAMSCAPE- 12 o'clock {Debut}

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Release date: 2026 October 19 Album tracklist: Like you, 12 o'clock , Outside, One plus one, Not personal (Joshua Solo), Coloring (Jeonghan Solo), No looking back Album runtime: 19 minutes  Whoo! The next of the Seventeen subunits has debuted, which means that now Jeonghan is in almost as many subunits as Hoshi is. If they'd done the Guoz subunit, then SCoups would have been in as many official subunits as Hoshi. I'm deeply upset though over the fact that we have a title track that is shorter than two-and-a-half minutes. And only two of the seven songs are over three minutes. But this is a specific problem across all of the HYBE groups. I don't know what it is about this song, but it sounds oddly SHINee. Am I the only one hearing that? It's got a good streak of funky guitar and almost catcalling whistling. It's just really too short to have too much variation to it, although I love how the rest of the instrumental sort of pauses a little during the whistling. We...

Song Review:: V.O.S: Will I See You

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Release date: 2026 October 09 Album tracklist:  Will I See You , Will I See You - Inst. Album runtime: 7 minutes  I'm so excited about the older groups being more active right now. Also, with the weather getting colder, I have to start wearing my wrist and thumb brace more which makes it a bit difficult to type, but it's easier to type on a keyboard than on my phone right now because of the lack of thumb movement. Gotta love car accidents. So much fun. Anyway, they debuted in 2004 and all three of them are married. Good for them. I'm glad they could have that bit of normalcy. This is a gorgeous instrumental. It's almost a lullaby of a song. We've got the trio of instruments that are just so versatile: piano, guitar, and drums. We get both kinds of guitars, which is always fun to hear, although the acoustic guitar does get a little bit more airtime. On top of the standard trio, we've also got a gorgeous violin just soaring its way through the instrumental. This e...

Battle of the B-Sides:: i-dle: VILLAIN DIES

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 Thank you to whoever decided to submit this song for October. I'm slightly surprised that this one was chosen instead of one of their other Halloween-appropriate songs, but I'm the opposite of upset or disappointed. I actually had an idea to do a similarly titled song by Girls' Generation, but then this landed in my lap from The Form, and I'm perfectly fine with swapping it out.  i-dle debuted in 2018 under Cube Entertainment as a six-member group, originally under the name "(G)i-dle". A lot of their songs have been written by their leader, the very fierce Soyeon, and I just have to say that this specific album has a lot of songs I really like on it. VILLAIN DIES is the third track of their 2022 album, I NEVER DIE . The lyricist and composer is Soyeon (CLC, Baby DONT Cry, Key, Kim Namjoo, and Ravi), and the composer-only is THE PROOF (iKON, Jo Yuri, BVNDIT, CLC, ASTRO, Pentagon, Hyolyn, VAV, Viini, and Verivery). This is a dark fairytale of a song, and I lov...

Music Show Wins:: Week of 08/19 - 08/25

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  Yes. Hello. Still very behind. Have some stages.  All links below in the spreadsheet go to my reviews of the songs. Have fun! Show Champion: Stray Kids "THIS & THAT" MCountdown:  Stray Kids "THIS & THAT" Music Bank:  Stray Kids "THIS & THAT" Show! Music Core:  ATEEZ "BAD" Inkigayo:  Stray Kids "THIS & THAT" ASC Performance: N/A The Show: N/A The Extra Stage: NOWZ "Achilles" The Extra Extra Stage: Hyunsik (XODIAC) "After School" The Extra Extra Stage: KiiiKiii "Pop Off Pop Off"

Song Review:: Enhypen: THE SIN : BLISS- Bloody Paradise

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Release date: 2026 August 21 Album track list: Two Fools, Stuck, Bad For You, Bloody Paradise , Checkmate , Highlight Album runtime: 15 mi nutes  They've gotten some nice wins with this song. Very nice. I'm genuinely pleased for them. Don't get me wrong about that. But. I need to point out that this song isn't even two-and-a-quarter minutes long. It's barely two minutes long. What is wrong with HYBE? We've got a nice Latin vibe to the song, which I appreciate, and that beat is heavy. There's something deeply unsettling about it as well, which as a concept is not overly surprising for the K-Pop vampires. But the amount of repetition in the instrumental doesn't allow for growth within the song. We do get a little bit, but not enough to actually change the sound of the song at any point. So much of the mumbling and whispering that pretends to be cool but tries too hard to be cool. It's fine. This as a trend in sound will move on eventually as did all th...