Just A Little Fangirl Love

Release date: 2026 May 22 Album tracklist: PERMISSION Album runtime: 3 minutes   So funny story, when I was typing this up, I accidentally called this song “Possession”. I heard once that Taemin’s songs are religious trauma as a song, and I have to say that the instrumental at the beginning of the song reminds me a lot of that. There’s ghostly wailing in the instrumental, and I love it. There's also kind of a funky, musical vibe to the instrumental, wherein the character is just slinking around the stage, bonus points if it's a villain or a morally grey character. There's a high level of drama inherent here, and while there isn't really a lot of variation technically, the song is very sticky because of the prevalence of the bass guitar. Kai and Taemin really do circle the same sounds for their songs, don't they? Hashtag, Best Friends Things. This is still very much a Taemin song, don't get me wrong, and while it's settled in that sing-song style during the c...

 This is why I laughed last month during the month of chaos when Love Shot was chosen because this was the first song I picked when I decided on the theme for the month. I wouldn't have done two EXO songs back to back because I like more variation than that. The other really funny thing is Love Shot is the title track from the repackaged album and Tempo is the title track from the original. The other reason why I laughed. There were a lot of EXO songs available and that one was picked. I don't know what to tell us. But! This song is the focal point of this month's theme because there's something very specific about this song that is the most known thing about this song. It's the first thing I learned about this song. I listened to it because of that thing I learned about it and swooned . EXO originally debuted in 2012 under SM with twelve members split between two subunits. Fun fact, I have a friend who used to be an EXOL back in the day (AKA when we were in high s...

 Okay, so. I actually decided I was going to do this song now back in January, I think, because I have a friend who is a teacher and has been sharing K-Pop with her students this year. They're remarkably resistant to a lot of songs (they hate Girls' Generation specifically, love VOODOO DOLL and OKay , and tolerate Chase Me and Mr. Simple , but also tolerate Red Velvet, Hearts2Hearts, and aespa) and have generally poor taste because they refuse to give girl groups an actual chance and what do you mean that they didn't like Zombie Party by SPEED? They can however sing almost the entirety of Gangnam Style and CUPID . But up until OKay was released, BOUNCY and VOODOO DOLL were the crowned kings of the class. Which makes it wildly hilarious to me that xikers has now dethroned ATEEZ. But I obviously can't cover OKay yet because it's not two years old, and I obviously can't cover VOODOO DOLL because I already did that one. So, even though they'll likely ne...

Release date: 2026 May 18 Album tracklist: Intro., TOP 5 , V for Vision, Customize, Exotic, Changes, Zero to Hundred Album runtime: 19 minutes   This is their first release after the contracts ended for some of them and we now have the new version of ZEROBASEONE. It’s not going to be fun for them to have to rearrange all of their songs for choreography and singing, but unlikely many of their MNET survival show group seniors, they didn’t disband by the end of their initial contract period, so we’re in a little bit of an unfamiliar territory with them in some ways. And I'm appalled at the title track run time. It's barely longer than the intro song. The instrumental is largely a collection of beats. We occasionally get an instrument that gives a little bit of a melody, but it’s not the basis of the instrumental. Which is fine. This feels a little 90s boy group in spots, and I’m cool with that, but I’m not currently over inspired about this instrumental, other than to note that we...

Release date: 2026 May 20 Album tracklist: ATE! Album runtime: 3 minutes   If you missed their debut back in December, then thank you for reading this one. This is SM’s new Japanese girl group, they were all over twenty at time of debut, and the song was fire, but SM needs to give them more money for their music videos. Welcome to the show.  Honestly, this feels like a mildler version of something that could have come from f(x) back in the day. This is very synthy and electronic, but there’s a vibrancy to it that feels bolder than either of their two most recent Korean girl groups, if that makes sense. There’s also something a little first-season-of- Buffy about the song that it feels like a fight scene. And there’s a dance break. I’m pleased. Normally I’d be crawling out of my skin a little bit over the amount of repetition with the “ate” line, but it’s not long enough to make me bored, and it’s interrupted by singing. The other thing is the “5-6-7” pause “we ate” line. I c...

 I hope some of you figured out the group based on that last little hint that has now been fixed on Angel 's post, and I hope at least one of you was able to figure out which song I decided to do. This song sits in a little bit of an interesting spot because while it does technically match the May theme, it's actually fulfilling a much bigger role. If you've been around here for a while, you may know that I've got a massive soft spot for Seventeen that started out because they're NU'EST's brothers (and was resisted for several months even though I'd already attached to SCoups because the jerk decided to shred his knee in a potentially career-ending injury right when I got into K-Pop so that injury was the second thing I learned about Seventeen and resulted in my worry being activated before I ever actually knew anything). So my attachment was inevitable. It has since grown into respect independent of NU'EST, but that's why it's surprising tha...