Song Review:: Kang Daniel (Wanna One): NO DAY

-

  • Release date: 2025 September 03

  • Album tracklist: NO DAY, NO DAY - Instrumental

  • Album runtime: 7 minutes

  Like with many of the artists releasing things right now, I've got at least one song he released this summer that I need to do. I'd be more caught up right now if so many hadn't released songs on Monday, the first. Hence why I'm only just getting to this one now. I'm working on it. It's fine. However, I'm also going to say up front that I'm feeling a little bit...emotionally spiky, which perhaps is not the best headspace for this, so I'll attempt to buffer, but I don't know how well I'll succeed.

I'm hoping his voice makes up for this because this is so background music-esque that I completely turned it out after the first forty-five seconds or so. I was initially pretty excited about the clapping, but the consistency of this instrumental track is not something I'm enjoying as a song like this. I'd probably be fine if this was in a video game because there would be other things for me to be doing, and I could just sort of tune this out. As just the track where I have to sit here? Not my flavor of tea.

Well. His voice sounds really good. I love some of the things he's doing with his voice. But it's too similar to the instrumental track. I wish this could be longer, but I don't want to listen to the instrumental track anymore. That being said, I think this is steady enough that someone is going to really love it. Like, head over heels love it because of the consistency. I'm not that person.

No music video. That's fine. Again, this is not the song for me. But if you really like background music or elevator music, I think you'll really like this song. And that's fine, you know? It's just not what my brain is wired to like.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Battle of the B-Sides:: Stray Kids: MEGAVERSE

-
Image
 Yeah, I'm still continuing this. Needed some mental motivation and then I got a nice little boost, so here we are, here you are, and here this is. This comes to you from The Form , so if you've got a song you want me to highlight, go for it. Throw as many or as few as you want. For the person who submitted this, I hope it finds you. And also for the dance practice you want me to highlight. I too am very much into the dance practices, so I'm deeply looking forward to this. This is my second Stray Kids post for either a GH or a BBS, the first being My Pace , so it'll be fun to do one that is a lot more recent. (I have another one on the list suggested by my Stay friend, so that'll happen eventually) Before I begin with the chatting about the cool bits of the song, if any of you get hit by the Felix Effect, do let me know. If you don't want to let me know here, you can find me over on Tumblr (or wherever else you happen to have found this, I post them in places). ...
Read more

August 2025 Wrap-Up: The Witch is Back!

-
Image
 Okay, everyone. Welcome back!!! It's been a hot minute since I've written one of these, but considering how many songs I didn't review over the course of the last three months, I didn't feel like I had enough done to warrant a wrap-up. Still, let's get to it! And yes, the title is a reference to the movie Hocus Pocus , but also, I absolutely adore Nina Simone's . High Priestess of Soul, indeed. Back to K-Pop, first up, our lovely debuts. Now, to be clear, I do have a couple that I'm still planning on covering and once I do, this will be updated, but still. The debuts I covered were N. Top , idntt , AtHeart , Cortis, and soloist ZZONE (cignature/Good Day) . Debuts I'm still planning on covering are Rainbow18 and ZOONIZINI (ASTRO). Other debuts include MADEIN S , OFF EQUALS , IXIA , LIPSTICKERZ , and iii . (I may actually consider LIPSTICKERZ as well because that's a whole mini album and an intriguing concept.) Next section is for the songs I was loo...
Read more

Song Review:: Monsta X: THE X- N the Front

-
Image
Release date: 2025 September 01 Album tracklist:  Do What I Want , N the Front , Savior, Tuscan Leather, Catch Me Now, Fire & Ice Album runtime: 18 minutes  Happy tenth anniversary, Monsta X! Everyone but Mr. Maknae I.M has returned from the military, and I'm pretty sure he needs to go this year. But! This is also my first review for September, which means that I have now, officially, been doing this for over a year. Whoo! I did have to round that up, mostly because the first and the last tracks on the album are under 2:45, and while I'm a little surprised that they didn't drop something longer for their tenth anniversary, the fact that they've been rereleasing their older songs both re-recorded in Korean and newly released in Japanese, clearly specifically for their tenth anniversary makes the mini album a few months later better. Do What I Want , despite my already having done the review for it, dropped as a pre-release so it technically doesn't count as the ...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: Stray Kids: My Pace

-
Image
 I tossed some potentials at Tumblr in a poll and this was what came back in first place, so here we go! Yes, I've gone back to the wasteland that is Tumblr, discovered that I'm considered ancient and decrepit for how long I've HAD a Tumblr account, and had to relearn how to Tumblr. But, that's fine! My Pace is one of the songs that had to be rerecorded following the departure of the former ninth member, so I'm not quite sure how to navigate the differences. I really want to be respectful of the situation and try to find as many post-departure performances and events as I can, but it may not be especially possible in all cases. In any case, I won't mention his name, because I'm aware that there are feelings surrounding his departure on all sides, and I follow the direction of Chan, who prefers that material of the nine of them not be used anymore. So all of that to say, I'm going to focus on the eight members as they are now and not mention the former ni...
Read more

Song Review:: GIRLSET: Commas {Debut}

-
Image
Release date: 2025 August 29 Album tracklist: Commas Album runtime: 2 minutes  Welp. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that JYPE didn't toss the whole group out with the bathwater, but I suppose either the remaining members are more willing to stick out what are industry wide conditions, mostly, or JYPE sees potential for the remaining members to still do something with what's left of their careers. So, here we are with a re-debut. You'll notice I don't always hit the Katseye releases (and I've been entirely ignoring the British group from SM whose name I do not remember, but I'm also still very angry with SM over the Seunghan situation, and that reminds me, I need to do his solo debut) because they're not K-Pop and my backlog is currently so massive that I'm not going to cover them too much, especially when I'm peeved over things about that group (mostly HYBE related, as you can guess) and I don't particularly like their sound to begin with. ...
Read more

Song Review:: TREASURE: LOVE PULSE- PARADISE

-
Image
Release date: 2025 September 01 Album tracklist: EVERYTHING, PARADISE , NOW FOREVER, BETTER THAN ME Album runtime: 12 minutes  I did watch the YG announcement for TREASURE, BABYMONSTER, and BLACKPINK. That is a lot of capitalizations. So I knew this was coming and this was on my list of releases I was curious about for this month. I haven't listened to them a lot, much like I haven't actually listened to a lot of BIGBANG, WINNER, or iKON (again, so many capital letters), but when I like one of their songs, I tend to really, really like it. Plus, the members of TREASURE are all adults now, and that's important because at debut, I couldn't have listened to them (maknae was fifteen). So I came it at a good time. The album doesn't quite hit the desired three minute average, but each song is at least in the 2:50 range, so it could be a lot worse. The title track is the shortest of the bunch, but it could be worse. I'd prefer if all the songs got an extra ten seconds,...
Read more

Song Review:: NCT Wish (NCT): COLOR- COLOR

-
Image
Release date: 2025 September 01 Album tracklist: COLOR , Baby Blue, Surf , Cheat Code, Videohood, WICHU, Reel-ationship Album runtime: 21 minutes  Apparently there's another NCT Wish song that dropped ahead of this that I didn't know about. Mildly peeved. It's fine. I may not get to it though if it doesn't get a win anywhere. Apologies for that. I feel like I've heard the beginning of this song somewhere, and I feel like it's a first Gen song. I mean, SM had three groups: H.O.T, S.E.S, and Shinhwa. It wouldn't be out of the picture to borrow a snip of instrumental from one of them. After that slightly more mystical introduction, things get a little more industrial with the clanging and the street performance music vibe. We get the mystical back, which I appreciate as that means that the introduction isn't a one-and-done, and we get some interesting instruments that spice up the song a little.  SM songs just sound like SM songs, and I get why if you like...
Read more

Song Review:: ZZONE (cignature/Good Day): Devil's Jam {Debut}

-
Image
Release date: 2025 August 25 Album tracklist:  Devil's Jam , Devil's Jam(Inst) Album runtime: 7 minutes  Okay, so if you're a fan of cignature, you might be confused about that name because none of the cignature members went by that name. This is Jeewon! Whoo! Apparently this is her official solo debut, although she did release a solo song earlier than this. I also can say that I do occasionally listen to cignature. They're not one of my groups that make super excited to see music or content from, but I do have some of their songs in some of my playlists. So I am looking forward to seeing what she'll give us with this digital single. It's interesting that there have been a couple of songs released in the last month or so that have sort of an Indian vibe or overlay or something of the sort. It does make me wonder if something was prompting this the last couple of years for songwriters and for the companies to pick these songs. There are some synth effects that ki...
Read more

Song Review:: ZEROBASEONE: NEVER SAY NEVER- ICONIK

-
Image
Release date: 2025 September 01 Album tracklist: ICONIK , SLAM DUNK , Lovesick Game, Goosebumps, Dumb, NOW OR NEVER (Korean ver.), EXTRA, Long Way Back, Star Eyes, I KNow U Know Album runtime: 32 minutes  It feels like Slam Dunk came out absolutely ages ago, but I guess it only came out the end of July. Which, again, to be fair, feels like it was absolutely ages ago. Time is a soup. We have an excellent run time on this album, with an average of over three minutes per song, which is impressive because 40% of the songs are under three minutes and one of them is barely two-and-a-half (I'm really looking forward to that one, though, because it's not a title track and I'm very curious about its title). And shout out to the four-minute song! The pre-release was energetic and sporty. This one is smooth and a little noir. It's not full noir, but if they were wearing suspenders and fedoras, doing whatever else, it would make a lot of sense. I'm also reminded a little bit of...
Read more

Song Review:: IVE: IVE SECRET- XOXZ

-
Image
Release date: 2025 August 25 Album tracklist: XOXZ ; Wild Bird; Dear, My Feelings; GOTCHA (Baddest Eros); 비삑 (♥️beats); Midnight Kiss Album runtime: 17 minutes  There are two songs that are reasonable lengths on this. That's it. I feel like I should be grateful that any of them are over three minutes, but I don't understand why I should have to accept crumbs when other than those two reasonably lengthed, not a single one is over 2:45. Sigh. As a side note, I was actually rather impressed with them at KCon, and not just because I thought they exhibited good professionalism with the mic collision and loss incident. I'm actually pretty pleased with this instrumental, but there is an asterisk to that statement. It would have been really easy to have this song go fully the route of the milquetoast, and I think there may still be some residual from that trend within the song, but there's enough of a bite that the sound has moved on from the trend. Which I appreciate, hence wh...
Read more