Just A Little Fangirl Love

Release date: 2025 May 26 Album tracklist: Motion, Motion - Instrumental Album runtime: 7 minutes  I have a friend who will be super happy that he released this. I haven't heard it yet, but B.A.P are some of her babies, so I can't imagine she won't be excited. She, like me, really loves the 2012 groups and I think it's hilarious that we didn't originally bond over kpop, but D&D (our characters became joined at the hip rather quickly and also produce probably 90% of the chaos in the party, druid and barbarian. Who would have thought?) I know they  can't go by the name B.A.P, but there's nothing that says I can't call them that. He might actually have been the one to say that in the one clip I saw during promotions for Bang&Jung&Yoo&Moon. All I know is TS Entertainment sucks. Royally. But I also know that this man's voice is in the basement and it sends shivers down my spine. Okay, I'm down with this. Smooth R&B, I'm pretty ...

Release date: 2025 May 26 Album tracklist:  TILT , What's Your Problem?, Irresistible, Girl Next Door, Trampoline, Heaven Album runtime: 17 minutes  I've already seen some of the photoshoots/concept art/performance shots because it turns out that one of the blogs I follow over on Tumblr is a huge RV fan. And wow. I've avoided the actual song so far, but it is time. Hopefully Red Velvet as a whole group can have a proper comeback soon, but in the meantime, I'm very excited for the Reveluvs and this subunit. The runtime does make me squint at SM a little. I do not like that. But at least the title track is over three minutes. That intro feels very 1940s/1950s. Anyway. That is an incredibly strong beat through a lot of the song, but the piano solo sections are wandering into the magical realm of possibilities. We don't get the piano as much as I'd like, but recognizing that it does seem designated soothes that a little. Also, the song has a lot of different texture...

Release date: 2025 May 25 Album tracklist: Poet | Artist , Starlight Album runtime: 6 minutes  I wanted to take a second to let this song rest a little before I did a review on it because that's where I am sanity-wise. Seventeen years active in the industry is more years than some of the recent debuts have had alive on the planet, and I'm so proud of SHINee for being able to stick together this long. Also, I'm a little excited to be able to use the forward slash button on the keyboard. I never get to use it. I don't even know what | is actually called, that's how little I get to use it. It's just the fun symbol. So as a completely unrelated note while I try to distract myself from the emotions of this song, thank you for that, whichever member of SHINee named the song like this. On a more serious note, this song was written by Jonghyun, and the other members left his voice in during the bridge, so all five of them got to participate in their seventeenth annivers...

Release date: 2025 May 26 Album tracklist: FREEZE , Skip It!, Before The Sun Explodes, Electricity, Complicated!!, Code Red, How We KickFlip Album runtime: 19 minutes  When I saw on the comeback schedule who else released songs on this day, not going to lie, I flinched. Because it's unfortunate timing to get caught between SHINee's first release as a group in...two years? and on their anniversary, Seventeen's tenth anniversary, and Irene and Seulgi's first comeback in years. It's really unfortunate timing for them. Still, I wish them luck and that they get good experience and if possible, a win. I'm not exactly going to hold my breath because of the big, established fandoms with something to prove to their groups, but I could be wrong and I hope I will be. The runtime is no bueno though. Come on, JYPE. Do better. This reminds me a little of, like, Disney Channel Rock, or teen romcom rock from the 90s, early 00s. Needless to say, really enjoying it. It's got ...

Release date: 2025 May 19 Album tracklist: FREE (Intro), TEA , FACT$, PURRFECT , New Phone (Interlude), D.I.M.M , TOUCH IT, SHINE (Outro) Album runtime: 18 minutes  So apparently this group actually had their debut last month, so I'm leaving that draft in there so I remember to do it. It's the debut. Obviously I'm going to cover it now that I know it's the debut. I think this might also be the group debuting under the western producer, now that I think about it. And this song is almost four minutes long, so I am all about that, no matter what's going on in the song. Unfortunately, this is going under Underage Protocol because the maknae turns sixteen at the end of this month, which is after their debut. Shame. They were so close. Literally only about a month. Alas. There's also a boy group called VVS, and I missed one of their releases last year, so I'll have to rectify that, and also make it clear which one I'm talking about. And another also, Vanner...

Release date: 2025 May 26 Album tracklist: HBD, THUNDER , Bad Influence (Prod. by Pharrell Williams), Skyfall (The8 Solo), Fortunate Change (Joshua  Solo), 99.9% (Wonwoo  Solo), Raindrops (Seungkwan  Solo), Damage (Hoshi  Solo) (feat. Timbaland), Shake It Off (Mingyu  Solo), Happy Virus (DK Solo), Destiny (Woozi  Solo), Shining Star (Vernon  Solo), Gemini (Jun Solo), Trigger (Dino  Solo), Coincidence (Jeonghan  Solo), Jungle (SCoups  Solo) Album runtime: 49 minutes  Hopefully I can be less stressed now that Seventeen has successfully hit their ten year anniversary. They got as big and dramatic a celebration as I hoped they would, ever since I heard what NU'EST had had planned for them until... This is a happy post. Genuinely, though, this might end up being incredibly healing as an event for me, and everyone looks so good for this comeback. I'm a little sad that Jeonghan and Wonwoo weren't able to perform with the rest of the group ...

Release date: 2025 May 16 Album tracklist: Don't Say You Love Me; Nothing Without Your Love; Loser (feat. Yena); Rope It; With the Clouds; Background; To Me, Today Album runtime: 20 minutes  My mother has actually been pestering me a little about this song, which is funny because I've been working for months on her with BTS and she finally found a member she likes. Thinks his voice is gorgeous. Don't worry. I'll continue working on her. She may be a little stubborn, but I am just as stubborn and more patient. The album runtime is a lot better than I've been seeing out of HYBE, so I appreciate that even if it's under the three minute mark I want to be seeing. However, the title track song itself comes in at just three minutes, so it has successfully met my bare minimum! Had to turn up my volume a little bit for this, which is fine. It does mean that this is an inherently quiet song. There isn't a whole lot of variation to the song, but considering how much of...

Release date: 2025 May 12 Album tracklist:  I will be your flower , I will be your flower (Inst.) Album runtime: 7 minutes  My man, Changsub. I'm patiently waiting for his return to activities with BTOB. It's fine. I know this is going to be a great song. Also, fun fact that I literally just learned because after watching the music video, such as it is, for this, I found out that Changsub was on Jaefriends , and I was like "Sold. I love Jaejoong. Man is a boss." So I did that instead of my next review. And I found out something really cool about this song. So Changsub did a cover of a Roy Kim song for a concert. Roy Kim contacted Changsub and praised the cover as well as asking if it would be alright if he (Roy Kim) sent him (Changsub) a song. This is that song.  Instrumental track, so I'm happy as a clam. I'm reminded a lot of the soundtrack to the 1980 Anne of Green Gables with that intro, but it's generally so gloriously cinematic that I could cry. We...

Release date: 2025 May 13 Album tracklist: 123-78; I Feel Good ; Step By Step; Is That True?; Next Mistake; IF I SAY, I LOVE YOU ; I Feel Good (Eng Version) Album runtime: 17 minutes  Well, well, well. I've been seeing this song recommended to me all over the place and I was resisting it. (I am intending to actually sit down and watch some of those stages because I've heard some good stuff about them.) I did double check on ages because they're still fairly young, but maknae turned eighteen last year, so we're golden. Not so golden on the album runtime, bur it's a perpetual disappointment from HYBE groups for me across the board lately. Doesn't mean I'm not going to comment on it, because I'd like to make sure people are aware that HYBE has been stiffing their fans, but it is what it is. The rock elements to the song are large and in charge here, but it's also surprisingly mellow. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the song is in the vicinity of...

 Coming to you straight from The Form (located over on the left if you're looking to submit something yourself, or you can follow that link), this one has actually been sitting in The Form for a minute because I got a few of them that were all similarly vibed, and while I'm into the vibes, I want as much diversity as I can possibly get. But now that we've shifted away from the 2012 boy groups, as much as I love them, I'm happy to go back to their sound, even though I don't know this specific song. But I also got some really good notes from the submitter to include, and those notes are also the reason why I picked this one to do now over some of the others that have been suggested (although do note that if you do submit something over on The Form, the extra comments are unnecessary, just something that is helpful for me if it's not a song/group that I'm super familiar with).  VIXX LR is a subunit of VIXX for Leo and Ravi (and submitter, I want you to know th...

Release date: 2025 May 19 Album tracklist: Good Thing , Girlfriend , Love Tease, Chain, Unstoppable, If You Want Album runtime: 17 minutes  Another group to succumb to the lure of the less than three minute song. Two and a half minutes long. Shame. However, with this year being their seventh anniversary and the name change, there's probably going to be a bit of a shift in equilibrium for the group, so that's fine. I'm willing to be a little more flexible here. Also, if I reversed that so it's song title first, it becomes "Good thing we are idle", which is kind of a clever use of language. Also, I do intend to get to Girlfriend at some point. May need someone to remind me that I want to do that. The video games vibe that I'm getting off this song are making me laugh a little. It belongs in an action side-scroller, but it needs to be gothic in the literary sense of the word. One that comes to mind is Castlevania , which makes it even cool, because imagine f...

  Another week, another batch of music show wins! This week we got a full set of wins and only one repeat, so that's lots of stages I get to share with you all! Excitement! And four of these wins are first wins for the song, so that's even cooler! Whoo!  For the ASC re-run, I didn't mean to pick another debut. I picked one at random, went "Oh, Seungmin is a host. Oh! This was for NATURE's debut!" Fun times had by all. Three of the members had been in South Korea less than a year, which was cool to learn, and their 2x speed choreography was adorable. A little bit of chaos, a little bit of leggy coltish energy (yes, I know the difference between colt and filly but it's easier and less awkward to say coltish rather than fillyish, which spell check is telling me is not a word), but overall, precious. Also, them singing their debut song in a couple of different languages was cool. Show Champion: P1Harmony "DUH!" MCountdown: MEOVV "Hands Up" ...

Release date: 2025 May 12 Album tracklist: @% (Alpha Percent), 깨어 (Are You Alive) , 추리소설 (Detective Soseol), 어제 우리 불꼭놀이 (Firework Diary), Love Child, Persona, Too Hot, Diablo, Friend Zone, Love2Love Album runtime: 30 minutes  This is the second of their full group releases, correct? I don't think I actually listened to the first one last year, although I heard pretty good things about it. It's also incredibly ambitious for the company, and I applaud that. However, especially with how many members they have, I'm diametrically opposed to the age of the youngest members because at that point the company is being ridiculous. They clearly had enough trainees. They didn't need to debut any of them under the age of sixteen. So the group as a whole is going under Underage Protocol until 2028, unless they get another maknae, but the subunits will be on a case-by-case basis. I think that's the most fair way to do things. Also! This song got a win on The Show , so I'm very...

Release date: 2023 April 26 Album tracklist: Deep Deep Sleep, Journey , Drowning , Busted, Who Knows, Ready to Fight, ABYSS Album runtime: 21 minutes  Not me just now learning that this wasn't even the title track for the album. (Also, shout out to Melon for making this so easy for me AND it gives the debut dates, which I also just realized). Woodz is a member of UNIQ, a boy group originally meant to be a YG boy group but ended up debuting under Yuehua. UNIQ is on indefinite hiatus right now, so I can't say he's a former member of the group, but I can say that he's a former member of X1, the short lived debuting team from Produce X 101. MNET sucks. But, Woodz is incredibly talented, I love his voice, and I couldn't be happier that the reason that I'm doing a normal review for this song is that it got a win on Inkigayo in the last little bit. This made it his second win overall, all the more impressive because he's in the military right now. So, huge congratu...

  One of those wins is not like the others. I saw the article the other day talking about its surprise climb up the charts since last October, but what's so impressive about this is the song is over a year old and Woodz is in the military (also, this was his second win ever, which makes me so genuinely happy for him). He gets out in July, which is now something else for me to look forward to while I wait for Minhyun to get out. We're down to about seven months for him, about ten for JR, and about thirteen for Jeonghan and Ren (I think). Little micro-goals to focus on instead of the inevitable creep of time resulting in more idols enlisting. The discharges is a much less stressful thing to focus on. I also apologize for the lack of reviews the last few days, so I'll move these necessary reviews up to the top of the list for me to do, and add Woodz in. Not that this is a hardship because I love Drowning , but whatever. (This is a hint that if someone else also loves this song...

Release date: 2025 April 28 Album tracklist:  Chains , Endless Ending , Good Day to You, Follow Me Album runtime: 13 minutes  Y'all, when I say how excited I am that the second gen groups are still getting wins, that's not even the half of it. As a side note, as I was setting up this review, Fiction  by B2ST started playing, specifically the Orchestra Version, which is hands down an unbelievably gorgeous song and I have it in like seven playlists between the regular and the orchestra version. Congrats, Highlight! Whoo! Jazzy. If you're new to my reviews, I very much love it when songs have certain instruments. The violin is one of the top frequent flyers for me in that way, but woodwinds, brass, and/or other various stringed instruments also bring me a lot of joy because they add a delicious texture to what would otherwise be a standard affair. They trigger my love of big orchestras and cinematic drama. In other words, I love movie soundtracks. This doesn't go that far ...

Release date: 2025 May 12 Album tracklist: HANDS UP, DROP TOP , MEOW , BODY, TOXIC , LIT RIGHT NOW Album runtime: 17 minutes  Congrats on the win! We're on Underage Protocol until Ms. Ella turns 18 in December of 2026! I don't have a lot to say here other than this is part of the April batch I wasn't getting to yet, but it's fine! I'm curious about this song! I like that it's three minutes long! Sorry about the shouting! There's a distinctly Indian vibe going on here with some of the instruments, which I don't know how SoPoEc approved it is, but I like the sound. The song has a good, quick pace that's quite solid and avoids the current trend of languidity. Reminds me a bit of Bang  by After School with the kind of beat way that the . Its method of softening is to remove some of the instrumentals rather than slowing down or changing what you're actually hearing. It's remarkably stable that way. I'm a little annoyed that this has to be unde...

Release date: 2025 May 07 Album tracklist:  Crazy Train , Gotham, Emergency, Drive, Misery Album runtime: 15 minutes  Spotify keeps throwing their previous songs at me, which I'm not going to complain about because some of them? Yowza. Literally everything I could want in a song. Big. Dramatic. Heavily saturated in a multitude of colors.  So when I saw E'LAST on the comeback schedule, I was super excited. Dark Dream  is legitimately one of my favorite songs that I've heard since starting this little K-Pop journey of mine. It can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. So, yeah. Tentatively high expectations for this mini album. Also, I love the titles of the songs. Those are flavorful titles. I'm also horribly peeved that they haven't gotten a win yet. Maybe this comeback. That would be cool.  I'm so satisfied. This is a comfortably dark rock song, as expected. Probably my favorite part is the end with the vocal flairs happening and the bass guitar just doing i...

Release date: 2025 May 07 Album tracklist:  DUH! , Pretty Boy, Murmur, Flashy, Over and Over, Work Album runtime: 19 minutes  This is a genuinely fun group, y'all. I just want you all to know this. Also, they got their first wins last year, which is so, so exciting for them. Took a little over three years for them, but better late than never. Also, I'm hoping to see this one get another win at least for my peace of mind and likely the company's as well. This is very 90s hip-hop in places. We've got sirens going on, we've got that very specific sharp beat, and we've got that grounding, low bass to give a strong consistency. When the song opens up to the more melodic sections, everything softens, but turns into a siren in the second half of each of the sections, a different siren than the whoops that we hear in the hip-hop sections.  Slight rant incoming. So G.O.A.T literally stands for "greatest of all time". The first time I heard it, I believe it was ...

Release date: 2025 May 07 Album tracklist: Maybe Tomorrow , game over Album runtime: 6 minutes  DAY6 has had a lovely resurgence that I'm delighted to have been able to witness. Fun fact, they actually got their first win the same year that NU'EST as a full group did. So I'm just going to say that 2019 was an excellent year. I call it the good year for a reason. Then they didn't get another win until last year, but they got five in a row, and two of those on a song that was, what, five months old? And I don't think it was the title track either, which makes it slightly funnier. I know that at one point Welcome To The Show was eligible for wins again around the same time, but didn't get any. Still, five within about a month across two songs is nothing to sneeze at, and the My Days should be proud of their fandom and their band. I hope I got the name of the fandom correct. This is a relatively mild song. Comforting. Fairly gentle. It's not a soft rock ballad,...

Release date: 2025 May 07 Album tracklist:  Live, Love, Laugh ; W.House; Live, Love, Laugh (Inst.) Album runtime: 10 minutes  I recognize that choices on the part of the group have been happening recently, making some people disinclined to listen to them. I am going to be putting this song on Underage Protocol to limit the amount of my impact, but this review is generally for anyone but specifically for those who would normally listen to it, but are as aforementioned disinclined to because of choices that have been made, but also are curious about what the song entails so I will go in as much detail as possible for that group of people. As a reminder, Underage Protocol is one listen for the instrumental paragraph, one for the vocals, and then a maximum of two views on the available music video. The irony of the title is not lost on me, but it is what it is. Opening piano and what sounds like a brass instrument being played very out of tune, obviously deliberately. Or maybe it'...

 Last of the girl group submissions for the moment, then I get to move on to some of the boy groups, but it's not just boy groups. There's a co-ed submission in there, which is such a yay from me. I'm excited for that. But! I'm also very excited for this, because she is a second gen heavy weight, reigning champion of an artist. Award-winning. Best-selling. Chart topping. And that's just her as a soloist, that's not even counting the years before that as the leader of Girls' Generation, which is one of the most well-known groups to come out of K-Pop. I admire her a lot, as you can tell, and I also think she's really cool. And funny. I don't know if she's generally known for her humor, but I think she's hilarious. She's also fairly out-spoken which is something else that I admire about her, but the group turns eighteen this year. If anyone has earned the right to pass judgement on the industry, someone who has been as active as she has the ...

Release date: 2025 May 05 Album tracklist:  Theory of Happiness Album runtime: 4 minutes  I've actually got a Greatest Hits submission for this group awaiting my attention (so look forward to that), which really isn't a hardship because one of their songs was one of the first kpop songs I started listening to. Hello Hello  is also in my workout playlist, which I haven't been listening to as much as I'd like because my shoulder is not up to my normal workouts right now. Recent issues aside, which all feels like a mess and I'm waiting to hear the result of that whole thing, I really like this band. Granted, as I've mentioned before, I really like rock bands in general. They tend to vibe on a frequency that settles my brain really well. I also have a soft spot for this band because my second kdrama, Korean Odyssey (AKA the final nail in the coffin that would eventually lead you to be reading these words right now), has the main vocalist in it as one of my favorite...

  This is what we call a clean sweep. It's also not the first one this year, but it is the first one from a group/artist that is less than five years old, so that's very impressive for a rookie group. Congrats to the fans for this one, and well done for the kids! They're almost all eighteen or older, so I really probably shouldn't call them the kids anymore, but I'll stop once they get their own dongsaeng group at Pledis. For the random ASC episode as they're still on hiatus, I realized that I'm essentially giving you reruns and not in order because I'm a frustrating person like that. This time we're only going back about two years (and the song is about old enough for me to do a Greatest Hits post on it so that's available if someone wants to submit that). The sexy dance by one of the members had the hosts (Aron, Allen, and Taeyoung) shooketh, and the fans, and me, and I was deeply impressed by their 2x speed dance. It was good. It was fun. I le...

Release date: 2025 May 06 Album tracklist: Lie , Lie - Instrumental Album runtime: 8 minutes  Yes, I did the two songs from the BTOB babies together like this on purpose. Not in delaying the other one to put with this one, but it just happened that I decided to do the other one today and couldn't pass up the opportunity to put the two next to each other. So funny story. I have my wall of military enlistment photocards surrounded by some larger posters and things of Sungjae, JR, Jeonghan, SCoups, and all NU'EST from their Nocturne album, right? I actually have an Ilhoon photocard up there too, not with the enlistments exactly because he did his time in the military, but I have it perched right next to Sungjae's poster and above JR's poster. Because I'm sentimental like that. Going back to my dude Sungjae, I've been getting notifications for a teaser on YouTube and was a little confused as to what that was, but then getting on Spotify this morning (which I am not ...

Release date: 2025 April 30 Album tracklist: MIND, Thoughts in hands, Lullaby , jamesdean , Dance, eve, Long way, MICHAELANGELO , INVITATION, OASIS, moonwalk , The Adam Album runtime: 36 minutes  Fine. Yes. I've put this off long enough. Average runtime is at the three minute mark, which means some of those songs are very long indeed considered moonwalk , jamesdean , and Lullaby are not long and are in fact below the average. The title track is not one of them. Strings. This instrumental is kind of a wall of sound, but quietly intense about it. There are a lot of different elements to it, but it doesn't try to fling you onto a bullet train going at speed. It's in enough Korean that I can't quite tell what it's about, and I'm also not actively trying to see what I can understand, but it feels like a quiet plea with grasped hands and wide eyes brimming with unshed tears. It takes a bit to get going, staying with the drum set for a good thirty seconds before Ilhoo...

Release date: 2025 April 25 Album tracklist: Drama Queen, Dreamin', Drama Queen (Inst.) Album runtime: 6 minutes  I covered their debut song, FUNNY HONEY , back in November and even then, I was excited to see a girl group that had all the members be eighteen or older. I also remember thinking that none of them had a strongly arresting charisma, but that they could simply not have been used to being in front of the cameras yet. But their name on the comeback schedule did catch my attention because I really want them to do well. With the release of this song, it brings the total number of songs released by this group up to a massive...three. Sample size is still not great, so I'll probably make a comment or two on Dreamin' as well, but I also recognize that it is very expensive to debut a group, especially when you don't have another, bigger group to pick up slack until the new group can get their feet underneath them. Ooh, this is very much up my wheelhouse with the ins...