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Greatest Hits:: FIFTY FIFTY: Cupid

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 As I said with the BOUNCY post, I have a friend that I've been helping to introduce her students to K-Pop. BOUNCY was their favorite song for most of the year, close second being VOODOO DOLL. Now, obviously, I can't do VOODOO DOLL again, OKay is too new, and I'd already decided on doing BOUNCY for them. But! I also wanted them to decide on a song. They spent the entire year liking boy groups, and hating the girl groups generally. There were a few exceptions to that, but for the most part, they hated the girl groups. Except for this song. As I predicted, they'd already known this song, but I was not expecting them to be able to sing and dance along. But when I asked my friend to have them pick a song, I was expecting a boy group. JikJin by Treasure, Techno Love by H.O.T, Move by TNX, Gangnam Style by Psy, In Bloom by ZEROBASEONE. Even Chase Me by Dreamcatcher because they actually requested that one a bit. You know, something that they really liked consistently o...
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Song Review:: aespa: LEMONADE- WDA (Whole Different Animal) (feat. G-Dragon) {Pre-Release}

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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  I know he isn't actually at YG anymore, but a YG artist featured on an SM artist's track? Fascinating. It feels a little like a Universal movie monster (like Bela Lugosi's Dracula) showing up in Singin' in the Rain . Not going to lie. Not that I think of G-Dragon as a Universal movie monster, but that's an iconic staple of Universal Studios and Singin' in the Rain is one of MGM's more iconic musicals. Two heavyweights in their respective divisions, so to speak. Underneath that skittering beat is a very grindy sound that turns a bit neon cyberpunk. I know I've been a bit lukewarm about aespa's recent songs, but I honestly like the layering in the instrumental that's going on he...
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Song Review:: LE SSERAFIM: PUREFLOW, Pt. 1- BOOMPALA

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Release date: 2026 May 22 Album tracklist: Pureflow, BOOMPALA , CELEBRATION , Creatures, iffy iffy, Need Your Company, Sonder, Saki (feat Aliya's Interlude), Irony, Trust Exercise, Liminal Space Album runtime: 27 minutes  Well, well, well, what do we have here? A HYBE group title track that's almost three minutes long. We haven't seen one of those in a while. Does that mean that we're finally moving back to the era of decently lengthed songs? Can I be tentatively excited? If this isn't an afrobeats song, well then I need to get better acquainted with the genre, though I hesitate to do any genre the disservice of being applied to an instrumental that fades into the background so strongly, it almost might as well not even be there. Almost three minutes of runtime wasted on a song that might as well be the fan I've got going. It's impressive because there is volume at the end and a sonic change of scenery, but it's too little too late. What this song probab...
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Song Review:: AND2BLE: Sequence 01: Curiosity- Curious {Debut}

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Release date: 2026 May 26 Album tracklist: Curious , Aura, Sugar Rush, Bed, Happy & Album runtime: 15 minutes  I'm so close to being able to repair some of my laptop keys so I can properly type again (my s is currently just the rubber bit and I have to keep sticking it back on if I type too aggressively). As bittersweet as this debut is, I am happy that they get to re-debut this quickly. Okay, so these are the four members of ZEROBASEONE who left WAKEONE earlier this as well as a former member of EVNNE late last year. The other former member of EVNNE left YueHua Entertainment as well, which is why he isn't part of this group.  Starting off a cappella. That's interesting. There are a lot of interesting things happening in this instrumental. Honestly, this feels like it's about four or five different songs in a trench coat, and I'm here for it. It's actually really soothing for my brain, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that. We've g...
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Song Review:: HEART OF WOMAN: Heart Byte : LEGACY- Lost in Proof {Debut}

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Release date: 2026 May 28 Album tracklist: ALIVE, SHOW H.O.W, Told U So, TEA, My Vision, Skit.exe, Lost in Proof , ($.$), Close To Me, One Beat, Dive With Me Album runtime: 28 minutes  You know, it's not every day that a group debuts with a full album. It's also not every day that a group debuts with an album that has only a single song that is over three minutes long. And it's not the title track. No, the title track is barely over two-and-a-half minutes. Good news, though, the maknae turns nineteen later this year, so we don't have to worry about them needing to be on Underage Protocol. Yay! At least something was done well! The company they're at was co-founded by Wheesung (who had gotten a lot of big awards over the course of his career, and I may be tempted to do one of his songs as an Expanded Offerings), so even thought I'm more familiar with him in a connaître rather than a savoir sort of way, if the statement from the company that he was very involved i...
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Greatest Hits:: Yezi: Cider

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 Welcome to June, where I'm going to be stepping outside my comfort zone a little bit! It's also going to be majorly sentimental here at the end of this month because I've got two discharges that I'm looking forward to. But that's in the future, and we're going to start the month off with a me kicking myself off a cliff. I touched a solo rapper (metaphorically, please don't come at me with the pitch forks because I have never actually been close enough to RM to touch him and unless something really weird happens in my life, I never will) back in March, but I picked a soft, comfortable-for-me song that wasn't too far away from something I normally would vibe with. When I was looking for songs to put in June, I decided to do a female rapper, because I thought that would match the Woodz submission coming up in a few weeks and force me out of my safety zone. And I listened to a few songs with none of them giving me that "Yes, I need to do this now"...
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Song Review:: XIA (TVQ!/JYJ): GRAVITY- GRAVITY

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Release date: 2026 June 02 Album tracklist: Intro : Drawn, GRAVITY , Homage, Forest of Memories, What About Your Goodbye, Beat's Knockin, eXtreme Love, Slowly, Like Like Like, Outro : Reached Album runtime: 30 minutes  So this song popped onto my YouTube algorithm, and I went "Huh. I don't recognize that name or the Korean name he seems to have. I'd better look him up." Former member of TVXQ!. He's one of the former members of TVXQ!. Obviously you know that now because I tag the titles of the post with the artist's group, or former group, as applicable. And even though the intro and outro songs are under a minute-and-a-half, the average runtime for he whole album is over thirty minutes. He's got a five minute song on here. I'm eternally amused when a soloist, even after it's been years since they were in a group, still manages to have that group in the soloist's DNA. There's a strong, grungy sort of feel to the instrumental. I mean, we...
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