Posts

Song Review:: V.O.S: Will I See You

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Release date: 2026 October 09 Album tracklist:  Will I See You , Will I See You - Inst. Album runtime: 7 minutes  I'm so excited about the older groups being more active right now. Also, with the weather getting colder, I have to start wearing my wrist and thumb brace more which makes it a bit difficult to type, but it's easier to type on a keyboard than on my phone right now because of the lack of thumb movement. Gotta love car accidents. So much fun. Anyway, they debuted in 2004 and all three of them are married. Good for them. I'm glad they could have that bit of normalcy. This is a gorgeous instrumental. It's almost a lullaby of a song. We've got the trio of instruments that are just so versatile: piano, guitar, and drums. We get both kinds of guitars, which is always fun to hear, although the acoustic guitar does get a little bit more airtime. On top of the standard trio, we've also got a gorgeous violin just soaring its way through the instrumental. This e...

Battle of the B-Sides:: i-dle: VILLAIN DIES

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 Thank you to whoever decided to submit this song for October. I'm slightly surprised that this one was chosen instead of one of their other Halloween-appropriate songs, but I'm the opposite of upset or disappointed. I actually had an idea to do a similarly titled song by Girls' Generation, but then this landed in my lap from The Form, and I'm perfectly fine with swapping it out.  i-dle debuted in 2018 under Cube Entertainment as a six-member group, originally under the name "(G)i-dle". A lot of their songs have been written by their leader, the very fierce Soyeon, and I just have to say that this specific album has a lot of songs I really like on it. VILLAIN DIES is the third track of their 2022 album, I NEVER DIE . The lyricist and composer is Soyeon (CLC, Baby DONT Cry, Key, Kim Namjoo, and Ravi), and the composer-only is THE PROOF (iKON, Jo Yuri, BVNDIT, CLC, ASTRO, Pentagon, Hyolyn, VAV, Viini, and Verivery). This is a dark fairytale of a song, and I lov...

Music Show Wins:: Week of 08/19 - 08/25

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  Yes. Hello. Still very behind. Have some stages.  All links below in the spreadsheet go to my reviews of the songs. Have fun! Show Champion: Stray Kids "THIS & THAT" MCountdown:  Stray Kids "THIS & THAT" Music Bank:  Stray Kids "THIS & THAT" Show! Music Core:  ATEEZ "BAD" Inkigayo:  Stray Kids "THIS & THAT" ASC Performance: N/A The Show: N/A The Extra Stage: NOWZ "Achilles" The Extra Extra Stage: Hyunsik (XODIAC) "After School" The Extra Extra Stage: KiiiKiii "Pop Off Pop Off"

Song Review:: Enhypen: THE SIN : BLISS- Bloody Paradise

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Release date: 2026 August 21 Album track list: Two Fools, Stuck, Bad For You, Bloody Paradise , Checkmate , Highlight Album runtime: 15 mi nutes  They've gotten some nice wins with this song. Very nice. I'm genuinely pleased for them. Don't get me wrong about that. But. I need to point out that this song isn't even two-and-a-quarter minutes long. It's barely two minutes long. What is wrong with HYBE? We've got a nice Latin vibe to the song, which I appreciate, and that beat is heavy. There's something deeply unsettling about it as well, which as a concept is not overly surprising for the K-Pop vampires. But the amount of repetition in the instrumental doesn't allow for growth within the song. We do get a little bit, but not enough to actually change the sound of the song at any point. So much of the mumbling and whispering that pretends to be cool but tries too hard to be cool. It's fine. This as a trend in sound will move on eventually as did all th...

Song Review:: KiiiKiiii: WhyKiiiKiii- Pop Off Pop Off

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Release date: 2026 August 10 Album track list: Ever2Late!, Hey Hi, Pop Off Pop Off , SWEET SOUR, Candy Pink Magic Hole Flip Phone , Blue Hour Album runtime: 15 mi nutes  Well, they didn't get a win with this song, so I'll do a review of it because I'm so wildly behind and this way I have to while also being like "Here's this song! You should listen to it! Don't just take my word for it! Feel free to disagree with me!" I don't know what this sounds like yet. I just assume someone is going to disagree with me and that's fine as long as you can articulate why. They're on Underage Protocol, so I can't listen to it like I normally would, but as time marches on, eventually they'll be off it and I'll actually get to listen to their discography. I'm also late enough that I didn't notice that apparently another song from this album had a music video. I need to know what that song sounds like, so I'll be doing that one probably ne...

Song Review:: Hyunsik (XODIAC): After School- After School {OST}

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Release date: 2026 August 17 Album tracklist: After School , we're not the same anymore, Take My Time Album runtime: 11 minutes  I decided to do this song as one of the extra stages for a Music Show Wins post, so I need to do the review. Which works! It's fine! This is a good way to force me to do reviews I didn't originally get to. I don't think this is his official solo debut and it is an OST, but I'm not entirely positive about what all is going on there. I just know he performed this on Show Champion. I'm trying to decide what kind of song this sounds like. It's a very pleasant instrumental that doesn't have a lot of variation. But. There are some points of rest and little resets, but it's just pleasant and comfortable through most of it. But it's also the kind of song where the instrumental is very much secondary to the vocals by design. At least there's some weight to it, though. It's not a floaty song even with how soft his vocals ...

Song Review:: Cravity: sonorous- LOUDER

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Release date: 2026 September 30 Album tracklist: Pulse, LOUDER , Lucky Charm, LOVE ME, Seize The Night, Fantasy, Odd One Out Album runtime: 20  minutes  I feel really bad for the groups that debuted either right before or during the Covid shutdown. They've had an uphill battle from the start, even more so than the normal uphill battle every group has. I wish Cravity could get more attention because they turn seven next year. The start of this instrumental immediately reminded of The Avengers (the theme song from the movie), and then it went a little bit harder and grindier than the start of the song implies. It's appropriately titled because this is a loud instrumental and rather metallic in places. This will make a great workout song, but I think it's a bit too much for me right now. The stages of this song are probably great though. We've got an excellent range of the voices in this song. A lot of the singing is quite high, and then there's the much lower, more s...