Just A Little Fangirl Love

Release date: 2026 June 01 Album tracklist:  Atmos , HOURS, Possibility Anti Believer, Still Raining, Thousand Miles Away Album runtime: 20 minutes  Happy eighteenth, SHINee! That is a fascinating use of a stereo sound system at the beginning. I really appreciate when you can hear the audio engineering in a song because it increases complexity so nicely, which is especially useful in a song that's relatively stable. The moments when the song cuts out and gets a bit grungy and sparse are important for the balances in the song. If I had the time, energy, or inclination, I'd be curious to see how much of the song is louder versus sparser.  Taemin has moments where he sounds like Jonghyun. The thing I like about SHINee, as well as a lot of other groups, especially the older ones, is that the members have distinct vocals where you can tell who is who pretty easily, which makes it easier to learn a group. This is also a full vocal song, where you get Minho approaching a proper ...

Release date: 2026 June 01 Album tracklist: Baby, Why Do You Leave Me;  Baby, Why Do You Leave Me (inst.) Album runtime: 7 minutes  How did they know I was thinking about doing one of Sanullim's songs in the next few months? How did they know? How did Catch the Young know? In all honesty, I love how they've carved out a little niche for themselves by remaking a bunch of older songs. And in the case of this song, if I found the correct song, this one was originally from 1979, which was decades before even I was born and I'm older than all the members, and is part of a 50th anniversary collection wherein a bunch of other bands were apparently invited to cover or remake their songs. This is super cool, everyone. I'm not going to cover all of the songs because there are at least three albums worth, but I really like this band. Some of the artists that are part of this, I've never heard of. Which is fabulous. Also, in case anyone cares, on Sanullim's Vol. 1 album fro...

 It's not that I delayed this on purpose, but I needed to settle from the 3/10 star weekend I had at the beginning of the month. Sixty hours of stress, anxiety, and frustration. I will also never be going back to El Paso. NU'EST could literally come back and do a single concert, only in El Paso, and I would not go back. I would be begging Aron to add literally any other stop, but I would not be going back to El Paso. The city hates me. The people are lovely, but like I said. 3/10 stars. One of those stars was the pizza I got, because wow that was delicious. Okay, debut time. Group debuts I covered: KEYVITUP , hertz.wav , MODYSSEY , UNCHILD . Soloists who debuted that I covered: Somin (APRIL/KARD) , ALL'N , Kangin (Super Junior) , Vari (NINE.i) . Songs I was looking forward to: TOP (BIGBANG): TOP IS BACK, BABY! KickFlip: I was a little shaky with them on debut, but they have since won me over strongly. I like these kids. TOMORROW X TOGETHER: Do they get songs of a decent len...

Release date: 2026 May 11 Album tracklist:  ddok ddok ddok Album runtime: 3 minutes  I am so far behind, everyone! Pre-release! Album comes out in a few days! This does not sound like a BOYNEXTDOOR song. Where is the fun? Where is the playful loud vibrancy inherent in their title tracks? Why is this song so serious? I had a lot of hope because having a doorbell effect was an interesting start to the song, and it was quickly dashed. There's one spot that perks my ears up every time I hear it, the spot with the background choir because oh, that's interesting, but it's not enough to save the rest of the song from the gray-scale that is this instrumental. There's a stretch of the song that reminds me of Red Light, Green Light by TFN , but that's basically the only place where the vocals approach the normal fun. I'm glad that they're getting to show versatility, and I'm equally glad that this is a b-side and not the title track. This sounds more like Cortis ...

Release date: 2026 May 22 Album tracklist: PERMISSION Album runtime: 3 minutes   So funny story, when I was typing this up, I accidentally called this song “Possession”. I heard once that Taemin’s songs are religious trauma as a song, and I have to say that the instrumental at the beginning of the song reminds me a lot of that. There’s ghostly wailing in the instrumental, and I love it. There's also kind of a funky, musical vibe to the instrumental, wherein the character is just slinking around the stage, bonus points if it's a villain or a morally grey character. There's a high level of drama inherent here, and while there isn't really a lot of variation technically, the song is very sticky because of the prevalence of the bass guitar. Kai and Taemin really do circle the same sounds for their songs, don't they? Hashtag, Best Friends Things. This is still very much a Taemin song, don't get me wrong, and while it's settled in that sing-song style during the c...

 This is why I laughed last month during the month of chaos when Love Shot was chosen because this was the first song I picked when I decided on the theme for the month. I wouldn't have done two EXO songs back to back because I like more variation than that. The other really funny thing is Love Shot is the title track from the repackaged album and Tempo is the title track from the original. The other reason why I laughed. There were a lot of EXO songs available and that one was picked. I don't know what to tell us. But! This song is the focal point of this month's theme because there's something very specific about this song that is the most known thing about this song. It's the first thing I learned about this song. I listened to it because of that thing I learned about it and swooned . EXO originally debuted in 2012 under SM with twelve members split between two subunits. Fun fact, I have a friend who used to be an EXOL back in the day (AKA when we were in high s...