Posts

Song Review:: Ken (VIXX) & Yoonseok (In4mal): Radio

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Release date: 2026 April 30 Album tracklist:  Radio Album runtime: 4 minutes   I have no idea what to title the album for this. It’s fine, and you know why? Because I have a two hour plane ride and a bunch of songs that I wanted to do and captivity on a plane. I hate captivity. It makes me very restless, but it also makes me very productive, hence the number of reviews you’re getting right now. Four minutes of song seems ridiculously luxurious right now. Imagine having the room and space to build and grow a song like this to allow for not multiple different sections, but to craft the song as a story with plot progression and everything. There’s no rush, but the varying energy levels alone absolutely delight me. The drop is fantastic, allowing for a return to the sound of the beginning, an excellent callback, before finishing the song off well and strongly. Listen to their vocals. This is what you get from second gen idols. While a large portion of the song has them in a little...

Song Review:: Keyveatz: Key Beats- Key Beats {Pre-Debut}

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Release date: 2026 April 29 Album tracklist:  Key Beats, Catch My Breath Album runtime: 4 minutes So, I forgot to take a look at the ages before I got on the plane, so I have no idea if this is should be on Underage Protocol or not. I’m going to put it there as a temporary hold in case they should be. Of course, should I get off the plane before I get this paragraph finished, then I’ll check during the fifteen minute layover I’ve got. (Spoilers: I did not.) If I don’t, then I’ll do the Underage Protocol just in case and look later. It’s not quite fully with the street-clanging, but it’s circling around that sound in what feels like a hip-hop genre. It’s got a weirdly midi sound to it sometimes, which definitely does make it intriguing, but it’s a bit too disjointed and noisy for me to say I love it on the basis of the instrumental alone. I’m treating this as a debut single even if it could be a pre-debut song. There’s a lot of rapping in this song, which I feel like is becoming mo...

Battle of the B-Sides:: Baby V.O.X: Summer Story

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 Second post of this theme for May! You know, I wish this had a performance I could find. So unfortunately, you're basically just going to get me yapping for this. It's fine though, both because this matches the theme and also because b-sides from first gen are wonderfully plentiful, even if the performances for them are not. Plus, we know that the odds are very good that we're going to get good vocals out of them. There is a group that I know we won't be able to say that about, but when I cover that group, I'll let you know. Like I've said. First generation K-Pop is absolutely wild in a way that is just fascinating to me. This particular group didn't have quite the drama of some of the others, though there was a member who had to leave due to a controversy, and they had a few lineup changes over the years. Baby V.O.X debuted in 1997 as a five-member group under DR Music (which was founded in 1989 and is also known as DR Entertainment, and still has active g...

Music Show Wins:: Week of 04/29 - 05/05

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  Y'all, I just went down a rabbit hole over INKODE, who we should be getting the second boy group debut announcement from soon. Anyway.  We have three first wins for songs this week! Whoo!!! Congrats to those groups! And I believe one of these may be a first win ever, so that's even cooler! For the extra performances, I went with a pretty recent After School Club with Ep. 664 from 2025 and KickFlip. For the The Show re-run, I'm giving you TOMORROW X TOGETHER back when they were still pretty new in 2021. And the two extra stages for this week went to ifeye and UNCHILD. As always, the links in the spreadsheet go to my reviews of the songs. The link down with ASC goes to the full episode because they get weird when I try to embed them. Happy watching, everyone! Show Champion: &TEAM "We on Fire" MCountdown: Cortis "REDRED" Music Bank: NCT Wish "Ode to Love" Show! Music Core:  NCT Wish "Ode to Love" Inkigayo:  NCT Wish "Ode to ...

Song Review:: Park Jihoon (Wanna One): RE:FLECT- Bodyelse

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Release date: 2026 April 29 Album tracklist: Bodyelse , Watercolor, I can't hold your hand anymore Album runtime: 10 minutes   It’s an interesting title for the song, I’m not going to lie. I’m curious to see how it works out. The man is also ridiculously busy, so it’ll be interesting to see how it’s used or applied or if it’s going to be a Korean play on words that I don’t understand because my Korean is not that good yet.  Something about this instrumental is putting me to sleep, not that it’s particularly difficult because I’m incredibly tired, but even the chorus, which admittedly does have more energy and pizzazz to it, isn’t enough to keep my eyes from trying to drift shut. Not that it’s boring, which it isn’t. There’s actually a decent amount of variation going on here, like a little bit of a music box sound underneath the slightly skittering beat. But it’s just perfect to make me want to get all comfortable and snooze. His voice follows suit as well. It’s the soft and b...

Battle of the B-Sides:: NMIXX: Tank

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 Welcome to May and the first of my themed months! All of the songs have something in common, although there are two songs that are probably going to make it very obvious what I'm doing. And why did I pick this song first? Because of the list of songs I'm planning on doing for May, some of them needed to be at certain times. The remainders I popped into a poll and tossed it onto Tumblr. So, the Tumblrites picked this one to be first, which is a surprise. It wasn't the song I was expecting to be chosen to go first, but that's okay because we're starting May off with a bang. That comment will be funnier in a couple of weeks. As is the song that just started playing on my playlist. NMIXX debuted as a seven-member group under JYP Entertainment in 2022, and are down to six after one of the members left. Rumor is they're going to be getting a younger sister group here pretty soon, like this year or maybe early next, which is exciting for them. Also, one of the members...

Song Review:: Lucy: Childish- All Ages

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Release date: 2026 April 29 Album tracklist: Sprout, All Ages , Chameleon, Hippo - Childish ver. Where's Your Love  - Childish ver., EIO  - Childish ver., Porch Light (Feat. Skyelar), bleu, Why you hate...  - Childish ver., blah-blah-blah, Wakey Wakey  - Childish ver. , In a Rush (Feat. Wonstein)  - Childish ver., Outsider  - Childish ver., Pathetic Love  - Childish ver., Lisianthus Album runtime: 50 minutes  My band dropped a new mini album! I think these guys may be my favorite so far of the ones I’ve heard, and I probably won’t stop shouting about them, just so everyone is perfectly clear. I have no idea what the difference is between these songs and their apparently original version other than I suspect that these versions are the ones where they redid the songs that got released with all the members. And I have just now realized that I did the pre-release, but not the title track. Whoops. I love that so many of their songs have such a bright ...