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Song Review:: Stray Kids: THIS & THAT- RUN IT {Pre-Release}

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Release date: 2026 June 24 Album tracklist: RUN IT Album runtime: 3  minutes  Look at all the capital letters. We've got a little over a month and a half before the album is going to be released, and between now and then, their next tour is starting. Seungmin, I hope you're well by then. Chan, you'd better have that surgery before then. The timing of the tour feels very rushed, but there is a looming e-word sitting over Lee Know's head dropping closer every day, so despite how ridiculous the schedule is, before we find out what that is going to look like for Stray Kids, I'm willing to chalk it up to them trying to get one last tour in before that all begins. The runtime on this one has me very hopeful for the rest of the album's runtime. Fingers crossed. Y'all know I'm down for brass instruments. As fierce and dramatic as this instrumental is, and it's pretty dramatic in the "we're marching off to battle" sort of way, I'm intrigued ...

Greatest Hits:: Girl's Day: Something

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 So when I was trying to decide how I was going to honor my boys getting discharged, I decided to give each one of them a song to represent another aspect about them other than just as idols. For Minhyun back in December, it was a NU'EST song he was a lyricist for (thank you Submitter, for tossing that into my lap and helping me decide how I was going to do this). For JR back in March, it was a song for which he learned to play the bass guitar that was in a drama he acted in. For Baekho, I'm going to do a song he has writing credits for (y'all are going to be surprised by what song I pick, but you've got about a year before you get to find out which one it is). For Ren, as soon as I decided it was going to be some sort of a representative song, there was literally only one choice I could do: Something by Girl's Day. For those of you who know, of course I'm going to include that. For those of you who don't, look forward to a very funny comment section. I als...

Song Review:: Ravi (VIXX): Dust

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Release date: 2026 June 22 Album tracklist:  Dust Album runtime: 2  minutes  I would have had no idea he'd released a new song if I hadn't been wandering about Tumblr today and if one of my mutuals didn't post about the song like twelve times. And now you all get to know about it too! I'm going to leave him connected to VIXX here and in the future, because while the whole mess over his enlistment is deeply serious, as are his health problems, and he did finish his military service back in December with a double enlistment. He may not be able to be part of the group anymore since withdrawing back in 2022, but I'm accepting what happened as the final consequences as far as I'm concerned and I'll leave him connected to his group. As long as nothing else happens with him. I will be most cross and disappointed. I'm also disappointed in the runtime, but you know what? It's his first one back after years. I'll give him this one, but I'm not rounding...

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 ...