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Song Review:: ODD YOUTH: can't go back- can't go back

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Release date: 2026 August 19 Album tracklist: can't go back , Happy Album runtime: 5 minutes  My girls! If you're new here, I absolutely adore this group and the day I stop yelling about them is the day I need a wellness check. If this is not new information for you, are you as excited as I am? Hot Chicken and Spooky are still my favorites from them and I'm always happy to add to my collection of songs I love from them. Which is most of them, if I'm being honest, which is why I hunted down a poster of the group. I love how bright and energetic this song is, and it's positively brimming with second gen energy, which is delightful to be hearing. I can hear the Apink and the Girls' Generation and the Sistar and the Orange Caramel influence going on in this song, and it's got me toe-tapping to its summery brightness. It's got a couple of spots where it leans on the synth and the EDM of the elders, but there's also a little bit of the snare drum going on ...

Song Review:: Wonwoo (Seventeen): Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter

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Release date: 2026 July 16 Album tracklist:  Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter Korean ver. , Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter Japanese ver. Album runtime: 10 minutes  With DK now enlisted and Mingyu about to enlist, which tells you when I'm writing this regardless of when it actually gets posted, I'm feeling emotionally fragile, so I'm going to do this now. Since we're actually really close to getting him back. And this was for his birthday, which makes me happier. There's a violin. Instant approval. And five whole minutes of song. I love him. I love that he gave us this as a gift. The instrumental is softly cinematic with very distinct sections that allow for enough variation that it can actually move and flow. The piano is the most delicate instrument of the bunch, but it carries the weight of supporting his vocals more than any of the others. This is such a pretty instrumental, and I love that. You know how amusing it is that the deep-voiced rapper of Seventeen and their ...

Song Review:: BABYMONSTER: CHOOM- MOON

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Release date: 2026 May 04 Album tracklist: MOON , CHOOM , I LIKE IT , LOCKED IN Album runtime: 12 minutes  Last one of their b-sides to get a music video, I think. While I still can't technically listen to them because of the whole "they had a fourteen-year-old at debut" thing, this has been very handing in letting me hear basically the whole album, and let me tell you, there have been some of these I added to y playlist of song I can't listen to yet because the group is on Underage Protocol. Fingers crossed that this is another one. Oh, and also, as of the time of writing this, this was #92 globally on YouTube music. Oh, this is a slow and grindy instrumental. Even when more elements get added at the end, it still has a very heavy quality to it, and it never really gets more energetic. But the progression from the sparse opening to the not-overpopulated ending moves at a good pace and it's a logical progression as well. There aren't many big surprises here, w...

Song Review:: Jennie (BLACKPINK): Fallen Angel- Less than a Lover {Pre-Release}

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Release date: 2026 August 28 Album tracklist: FALLEN ANGEL , HEAVEN, Less than a Lover Album runtime: 9  minutes  Congrats on the wins! I forgot I needed to do this one! I think this is a pre-release, which is why I'm labelling it like I am.  One of my big complaints about a lot of songs lately is that the instrumental isn't particularly distinct, because so many of them, including this one, are largely two or three beats layered together through most of the song with very little variation. This one at least has the benefit of water plunks and plops, and I cannot express how briefly excited I was about twenty seconds from the end, but it just wasn't enough to overcompensate for the repetition. Now, I'll be the first to admit that R&B doesn't really do it for me normally because a lot of the modern R&B does an excellent job of having the kind of sound that lulls me a bit too much into drowsiness. This song is no different. Between the slow beat and the amount...

Song Review:: TRY THAT: Frequency {Pre-Debut}

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Release date: 2026 August 18 Album tracklist: Frequency Album runtime: 3  minutes  Hello, everyone! You all know how I feel about the debuting groups! There's so much hope and potential going on with them that I just want to throw them at people and say "WOULD YOU LIKE ANOTHER GROUP?" with all the aggression that the caps-lock implies. In this instance, before I've heard this song, I'm fully on board with supporting them because the maknae turns twenty this year. So we are good to go. The actual debut date is unknown for them, but hopefully we can get them a little bit of traction before they debut. You can help me out with that right? This instrumental has a very ZEROBASEONE vibe to it while also being oddly lo-fi elevator music. It's a bit of an interesting combination, but it's actually pretty mild through most of the instrumental, although we do have a late-song kick up of its heels where it pretends to be more energetic, but it's also got a drop r...

Song Review:: SF9: TENACITY- Without Wings

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Release date: 2026 August 26 Album tracklist: Without Wings , Curtain Call, PRESSURE, One More Kiss, Cross My Mind, Too Easily, Mr. Bang Bang, Best Mistake, REAL FROM THE FAKE, Do You Want Me Album runtime: 27  minutes  I've decided that I'm just going to have to have a repeat of 2024 when I started this. So everything is getting paused while I write them and get a bit of a backlog going so I can start posting three a day again. And this particular release, circling back to SF9 who is the star of this post, has six members with Zuho and Yoo Taeyang still in the military. We're getting through our military era with these guys slowly but surely. I kind of wish this song was more distinct in the instrumental department. We do have spots where there are a bunch of rests being used, and used well. But other than those spots, the instrumental is both very stable and very repetitive, designed to essentially provide the support through the beat and little else. This is the kind of ...

Song Review:: NOWZ: Achilles

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Release date: 2026 August 05 Album tracklist: Achilles Album runtime: 2  minutes  I'm so behind right now. It's fine. More or less. I'm tentatively hopeful over this as the last four or so comebacks they've had I've enjoyed. I'm hoping this will continue, but it's fine if I don't and I get a break. I'd like to like all the songs, but that's unfortunately not realistic. If I haven't said this recently, the reason I stuck with this group from debut, despite not liking their first few title tracks, is because I decided I was going to support them because they were all adults at debut and by the end of the calendar year, all five of them were in their twenties. That's something that's important to me, because it gives the idols a little more life experience and also lets them have those awkward teenage years of self-exploration and mistakes away from the cameras. The other added benefit is that the children also theoretically get a little...