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Song Review:: aespa: Lemonade- LEMONADE

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Release date: 2026 May 29 Album tracklist: WDA (Whole Different Animal) (feat. G-Dragon) , LEMONADE , SHAKIN', Can't Help Myself, Camouflage, Bite, Switchblade (feat. Ty Dolla $ign), Roll, My Plan, 'Til We Die, LEMONADE (feat. Becky G) Album runtime: 33  minutes  And continuing with the SM obsession with lemons. It's a proud tradition at this point (with even Onew having a bunch of them in one of his music videos), and I know I'm doing things out of order, but this one got a win (congrats!) so I want to make sure I have it done before I post the Weekly Music Show Wins that I'm behind on. I just think it's really funny that we got two SM lemon songs this season. First this one and then Lemon Tang by Hearts2Hearts. And, delightfully, the runtime is acceptable. This sounds very Whiplash . It's not my favorite sound for an instrumental, because it's not complex enough for my brain to really enjoy it, but this one is very science fiction in a Tron sort o...

Song Review:: Hearts2Hearts: Lemon Tang- Lemon Tang

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Release date: 2026 June 22 Album tracklist: Lemon Tang , 15-LOVE, Baby Steps, heart emoji (♡), Secret Recipe, RUDE! Album runtime: 17  minutes  Underage Protocol is active because SM has an alarming habit of debuting actual full children. But the group is down to less than two years now before the maknae is eighteen. However, as a side note, I had one of my teacher friends show either  RUDE!  or FOCUS to her students and her students loved it and thought it was really cool that one of them was fourteen, which made me raise my eyebrows and shake my head, but they're like ten. Fourteen is cool and old when you're ten, even if she may have been fifteen when whichever song it was came out. I'm not enthused about the runtime, but it could be worse. The title track is a little too short for my liking, but it could be a lot worse. Could be worse. The slightly off-key whistling at the beginning is a bold choice and one that I happen to think is quite charming. The pian...

Music Show Wins:: Week of 06/03 - 06/09

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  Sigh. It was good while it lasted. This is such classic The Show behavior that I'm unsurprised, just disappointed. We have three first wins for songs, and with the exception of one, all of the wins are Big 4. Actually, Big 2, because only two of them are represented here. A rookie group also got themselves a second win, which is a little funny because every single member has several years worth of experience from other groups prior to debut. For the After School Club performance, since they got a win this week, I decided to go with ILLIT from ep. 621. I love watching the rookies the most because they're usually a little bit skittish and uncertain, but I like seeing how quickly they warm up and get comfortable. I'm looking for a full episode from 2018 for a duo, but I can afford to take some time to hunt it down. I'm going to sulk a little over The Show, so you don't get a performance. Sorry. However, I did give you MEOVV for the extra stage because I absolutely a...

Battle of the B-Sides:: Woodz (UNIQ/X1): Stray

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 Sorry for the wait, whoever suggested this! I had the May theme all set up, so I arranged June so that this would fit in well, because I listened to this song after you suggested it and went "Okay. I need to step outside my comfort zone a bit." Which is why, if y'all noticed, I added two new rappers to the Expanded Offerings line-up to help set Woodz up a bit in his capacity of metal for this song, and specifically rappers that were being a bit more aggressive than I've done on here previously. It's all for my good. Not that I don't listen to metal on occasion; I've got several work playlists that are basically just metal and heavy rock so that I can have screaming expressed in my soul without me actually doing it out of frustration. Never have I related to an anime more than Aggretsuko . I highly recommend it. Woodz has had a pretty illustrious career already, originally debuting as the main rapper of YueHua's boy group, UNIQ, in 2014, then debuting ...

Song Review:: dodree: LILAC {Pre-Release}

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Release date: 2026 June 17 Album tracklist: Lilac Album runtime: 3 minutes  Oh, I'm exited about this song because I adored their debut song.  More traditional Korean music taps into my love for traditional Irish music. I fully recognize that they tap into the same part of my brain, and it's fine. We've got so much melody going on in the instrumental and a range of textures because we've got a range of instrument types. Percussion, stringed, woodwind. And, delightfully, we've also got audience participation snapping. I love it when we get that as part of the instrumental. Gorgeous. They have beautiful voices. Well-supported, a little bit lower, haunting on occasion. Those are some very pretty runs and vocalizations they've got going on, and some of the vocal techniques remind me a bit of yodeling, which just delights me more. The vocal skill and control that's on display with this song is very nice. I like this a lot. I may have gotten distracted by the Cara...

Song Review:: BoA: Ain't No Hard Feelings

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Release date: 2026 May 30 Album tracklist:  Ain't No Hard Feelings Album runtime: 3 minutes  Queen BoA is in he house! I am so behind, but I'm not going to skip, especially not when this is her first release following her establishment of her own company after leaving SM. The majority of the instrumental is taken up by the beat with various instruments, but there are spots where a sort of melody brushes against it. There is a little bit of variation going on with the instruments, not as much as I'd like though. The danceability to this song is quite high though, so I'm expecting the choreography to be strong for this song. For those of you who prefer UK garage as a genre, or at least enjoy it more than I do, you may really like this song, though I'm not sure how good of a representation of that genre this is. I'm learning still. She sounds a lot like Hwasa here, and I know she's both older and senior to Hwasa, but because BoA doesn't always sound like th...

Song Review:: tripleS: LOVE & POP pt. 1- Baby Flavor

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Release date: 2026 June 01 Album tracklist: Sad Girls Schemin', Peer, Baby Flower , Type of Girl, Sleek, I Like That, Me Myself Mode Album runtime: 17  minutes  Congrats on the win! The funny thing about tripleS, and I hope one of them can get the help she needs when she's ready, is that at one point, I actually could have listened to the whole group, but then the new maknae got added. We are very much on Underage Protocol now. I can still listen to some of the subunits, thought, but I have to check each one to make sure I can. I was kind of hoping that this was a subunit, but it's the whole group, so yes, we are on Underage Protocol. Underage Protocol is my small way of protesting when companies debuting minors that are under sixteen, or debuting more than half of a group underage. If a group is on Underage Protocol, I won't listen to them until the entire group is eighteen. I give the songs a single listen each for instrumental and vocals, and then two at most watches...