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Song Review:: VVS: $TAY THE NIGHT- $TAY THE NIGHT

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Release date: 2026 April 21 Album tracklist: V.V.$, A$K, COUNT IT UP, DA$H, BOTTLE$, MIXIN' THANGS, VAMO$, $TAY THE NIGHT Album runtime: 16 minutes  The fact that I have to specify that this is the girl group (because there's also a boy group and VVS is the name of the Vanner fandom) makes me a little peevish. Their company should have done their research better. I also never actually did their debut song. Whoops. We are on Underage Protocol on them until next year, which could have been worse because the maknae was almost sixteen at debut, but not quite, which is why we're on Underage Protocol. This is the second longest song on here, and at an acceptable length, but the overall runtime leaves something to be desired. This is an impressive instrumental in its stability. There's very little that changes throughout the song on this end, but it's got both weight and energy, as well as some very interesting instruments to extend and  meld the two different sections. I ...
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Song Review:: Kim Jaehwan (Wanna One): I'll Be There

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Release date: 2026 April 22 Album tracklist: I'll Be There , I'll Be There (Instrumental) Album runtime: 6 minutes  So funny thing. I've been sitting here, going "Why is his name familiar?" So, naturally, I looked him up and immediately recognized his face. He was the Wanna One boy that was the other judge on Build Up with my boys Baekho and Eunkwang, and Solar my queen. I'm looking forward to this because he's supposed to have a stunning voice, and, as we know, I love stunning voices.  The instrumental on its own is provided, which makes me a happy camper, and what an instrumental this is. Guitar? Check. Piano? Check. Drums? Check. Strings? Gloriously check. We have the cinematic swelling that I love to see. Well, hear. But generally speaking, the amount of movement in the instrumental directly tied to the amount of dramatic turning points glows so brilliantly that he's got to have a voice to match it. I'm a little bit more excited, tentatively, f...
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Song Review:: B1A4: SET- Rock Paper Scissors

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Release date: 2026 April 21 Album tracklist:  Rock Paper Scissors , CPR, Colors on me, 5959, The star Album runtime: 16 minutes  And here is the actual title track, everyone! I don't know why I didn't do what I normally do, which is triple check what the title track is after the TVXQ! thing back in 2024 when I had just started this, but here we are. Apparently, someone who reads this needed to hear CPR. Or I did. I don't know. But here we are with the actual title track.  This sounds more like a title track. We've got high-dancing energy with the instrumental and some very fun record scratching both in the instrumental and mimicked in the vocals. You know what else this instrumental has? Audience participation clapping. This song is so close to just being full festival energy; it's just missing a little bit more drama. This start of this song sounds like Chicken by Sungjae . I love that song and I smiled when I realized what song this sounded like. If I were less ti...
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Song Review:: Close Your Eyes: OVEREXPOSED- POSE

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Release date: 2026 April 21 Album tracklist: POSE , What If I Miss Love? Album runtime: 6 minutes  Because I made the error, I'm going to separate the two B1A4 posts with this one that I also need to do. I also generally really like this group, y'all. I'm not as hyped about the runtime on this song, although the b-side has an acceptable length. As a side note, sometimes I think about how often I use adverbs when I write any of these and the general rule of thumb I was taught (and apparently ignore) was to use as few as possible. Yet, here I am. At least I'm using commas more.  This one has a pretty hip-hop feeling beat, but it's a very slow one. We don't have a ton of variation going on, which is fine, though there are some bars of rests in the instrumental, which I appreciate. This one doesn't really do it for me though, although given what I was doing for the majority of the day yesterday, I imagine this would be a really good cleaning song. It doesn't...
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Song Review:: B1A4: SET- CPR

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Release date: 2026 April 21 Album tracklist:  Rock Paper Scissors , CPR, Colors on me, 5959, The star Album runtime: 16 minutes  So I recently discovered the meaning behind this group's name, and it's the members' blood types. That reminds me of Dragon Pony, the band that is so named because they were born in either the Year of the Dragon or the Year of the Horse. Or 2NE1, because the average age of the members at debut was 21 years old. I love the weirdly literal names. And this is actually their first release under their own company after fourteen years at WM Entertainment. Ooh, this song makes excellent use of a stereo sound system. That's fantastic. The instrumental is just plinking all over the place and it keeps the song fairly unpredictable with actual physical movement instead of just relying on more static variations. That's satisfying. Generally, the entire this is pretty gentle, and ironically, a song that you could actually use for CPR, although it is on...
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Song Review:: Cortis: GREENGREEN- REDRED {Pre-Release}

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Release date: 2026 April 20 Album tracklist: REDRED Album runtime: 3 minutes  It's not many groups that I can't listen to because they have too many minors. Usually it's the fifteen- and fourteen-year-old maknaes that land a group on Underage Protocol. Unfortunately, Cortis is on the list because they have the same issue as my beloved NU'EST at debut, who are the reason why I added that stipulation. Taemin and Max Changmin prompted the under sixteen issue. NU'EST resulted in the >50% rule. Good news is that we have less than a year before I lift that and can stop worrying about it. Cortis's music so far has been kind of hit and miss for me, at least as far as the promoted songs go that I've reviewed, so I'm not sure which side is going to get this song or the title track when the mini album is released. We are still plagued by the HYBE refusal to have songs over three minutes, which will be in sharp relief since almost all of their groups are releasin...
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Battle of the B-Sides:: DIA: Waiting For You

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 The actual proper name of this song is " 널 기다려", so if you're looking for it, that may be what you need to look for. Okay, now that that's out of the way, welcome, everyone! This one came to you from from the big Roulette Wheel I made (which, if you're looking for it, the link is in the Junk Drawer page). This is one of the songs on there that I've never heard before, and, if I'm being honest, there are only two songs that I know I've heard by them because one is in my big The Jams playlist: Hug U . The other one was shared as the extra stage from The Show . So, I'm kind of excited about this because I know that this group gets recommended to me often from the various algorithms. If you're also unfamiliar, we get to explore them together! So, DIA debuted in 2015 as a seven member group, but they've had a few different lineups over the years. For this album, the line-up was Eunice, Cathy (now Huihyeon), Jenny, Yebin, Eunjin, Chaeyeon, and C...
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