Just A Little Fangirl Love

Release date: 2025 March 15 Album tracklist:  Climb Up , Turn Up, Climb Up - Instrumental ver., Turn Up - Instrumental ver. Album runtime: 14 minutes  Okay! This is going to sound a bit convoluted. They have an album coming out in December. That album will have all of their songs they've released since debut. This one came from their one-year-anniversary single released back in March,  and now has both an English version and this music video. I don't actually know which one was the title track. I'm assuming the other one because it has slightly more streams on Spotify? But I did really like the first song I reviewed for them ( found here ), and I'm bound and determined to shout about them from the rooftops. I think you may be confused as to why I'm suddenly reviewing, and championing if I'm being honest, a J-Pop group because I've been trying to keep this mostly Korean for my own sanity. That's fair. I also am a little baffled, and yet, here I am with t...

Release date: 2025 November 18 Album tracklist:  Lucky (Korean Ver.) Album runtime: 2 minutes  Welp. Okay, another mini album I didn't get to during my apparent vacation this summer. This isn't from that though. This is just a single that they performed on the KGMAs. Actually, now that I think about the timeline, this song came out after that. The Korean version anyway. Huh. Well, good for them. Because of certain choices the group has made, I'm unfortunately having to put this on Underage Protocol. I need groups to stop doing this and being unapologetic about it. The runtime isn't where I'm happy either. Disappointment across the board. This one specifically is the Korean version of their Japanese title track (I may have to watch that music video as well, out of curiosity because I'm not going to cover it most likely). So this is interestingly both very smooth and also pretty hip-hop. It's one of those things that has a lot of repetition, which isn't he...

Release date: 2025 November 20 Album tracklist: Daydream; Like Our First Snow ; Goodbye, My Friend; Still in Memory; Compass Album runtime: 19 minutes  Do I get to start on my Christmas post already? I assume so based on the fact that we have a song called "Like Our First Snow" but it's also not even the first one of the season. Such is life. You think you're prepared for something and then the unexpected happens. But here we are. And as a side note, I'm thoroughly delighted that I understand the Korean of this title! But also, there's only one song that's shorter than three-and-a-half minutes. Bless him. Are you ready for me to squeal delightedly over this instrumental? Because you should. This is absolutely gorgeous. It's soft and slow, with the occasional weighty drum to hold the song down and give it depth. The piano almost makes me want to cry a little bit from how lovely it is. The plaintive guitar. And my favorite instrument for just about anyth...

 Hello, everyone! This is the second installment of the Christmas and/or winter and/or holiday songs for the 2025 season. We're going to get this one started early because, well, I think we've already had a release for the season. I'm counting it because it's talking about snow. Also, as with 2024's, I'm going to be updating this as regularly as I find songs for it.  Minimal commentary from me! Just music! 2024 Edition The Old 10CM Winter Breath Moonbyul (MAMAMOO) A miracle 3days ago Monsta X Lonely Christmas NCT Dream JOY billlie snowy night Lee Haein Santa Lullaby (We Used To Sing) K.Will, SISTAR, BOYFRIEND Snow Candy TVXQ! Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town JUSTB I luv you Merry Christmas LUNCH Mr. Santa And here's the annual, 11th addition because it's funny if you think I'm not going to include this when MINHYUN GETS DISCHARGED AROUND CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR!!! First one to come home! Even if he technically got to stay at home most of the time becaus...

Release date: 2025 November 17 Album tracklist: ONE MORE TIME Album runtime: 3 minutes  We've got about a month before the mini album drops, but in the meantime, we've got this pre-release and  it's over three minutes long. Unfortunately, because of certain, hmm, choices that have been made, I'm putting this on Underage Protocol. Although I wanted to check the music video briefly, and there seems to be a different choice being made with regards to certain things. I'm not going to pull them off U.P. yet, but I hope that this trajectory continues so that I can. This is a very Teddy song full of synthy goodness and a skittering beat that isn't overpowering through the entire song. The variation is good. The flow of the song as a whole is good. There's also a song that this reminds me of, but I don't have enough pieces of it to figure out even what group it, but if I figure it out, I will let you know. But otherwise, I really enjoy this song. It feels famili...

Release date: 2025 November 17 Album tracklist: Beat It Up , Rush, Cold Coffee, Butterflies, Tempo, TRICKY Album runtime: 19 minutes  Okay, now that I'm done with the KGMA posts, I can get back to regularly scheduled programming. Whew! Thanks for being patient with me! Okay! So! NCT Dream! Great runtime! Love that! This is actually a fascinating blend of an instrumental. First of all, just because it's so present, I acknowledge that the "beat it up" part that is obviously part of the instrumental is...a good connecting tissue that sometimes is layered up over the other instruments and sometimes is tucked back underneath. I appreciate it for what it is and does. I just can't stand the sound of it. And because I'm so aware of it, that's basically all I can hear. Which is a problem. I think there's exactly one spot where it isn't present at all. There's another spot late in the song where that rhythm is still there, it's just taken by an instr...

As with Day 1, I'm just going to let you get right into the performances, and then the winners, without too much input from me at the start. You can get all of that at the end after you watch all the things as we both know that my thoughts are not what you're here for originally. They're just a bonus. Hence why they're at the end. performances AHOF (We Ready (AHOF Ver.) + Pinocchio ) BTOB (Wind and Wish + Only one for me + Missing You + LOVE TODAY ) Close Your Eyes ( X + SOB (KGMA Ver.)) Dayoung (WJSN) ( body ) fromis_9 ( Supersonic + LIKE YOU BETTER (KGMA 2025 Ver.) Hearts2Hearts ( FOCUS ) IDID ( CHAN-RAN ) IVE ( XOXZ + GOTCHA (Baddest Eros) + REBEL HEART ) Jang Minho (Lonely Love + Play the music) KickFlip ( Band-Aid + My First Love Song ) Kiss of Life (k bye + Lucky (Korean Ver.)) Lucy (Where's Your Love + Flowering) NEXZ ( I'm Him + Beat-Boxer ) P1Harmony ( DUH!) Stray Kids (S-Class + In My Head + CEREMONY ) Suho (EXO) (Light The Fire + Who Are You) UN...

 Given my disposition, I'm sure you're already expecting me to ramble a bit here at the beginning to introduce everything and then get out of the way so you can get to what you and I both know is what you're interested in. I'm not going to. Instead, my thoughts will go down at the bottom, which you can read at your leisure after watching all the performances and then seeing the winners. See you then! performances ALLDAY PROJECT ATEEZ (HALA HALA (Hearts Awakened, Live Alive + Wonderland + The Real + BOUNCY (K-HOT CHILLI PEPPERS) + Phantom + In Your Fantasy ) BOYNEXTDOOR ( IF I SAY, I LOVE YOU + I FEEL GOOD + Hollywood Action ) THE BOYZ ( Stylish + You and I) CRAVITY (SWISH + Lemonade Fever ) FIFTY FIFTY (Pookie + Eeny Meeny Miny Moe ) INI (DOMINANCE (Korean Ver.)) KiiiKiii ( I DO ME (KGMA Ver.) Lee Chanwon (I Told You + Maybe Today ) MEOVV (BODY + BURNING UP + HANDS UP ) Park Seo Jin (Clown) Woodz ( Drowning + I'll Never Love Again ) Xdinary Heroes (ICU) xikers...

  I'm so annoyed about The Show, and I'm not even going to say it's fine. Anyway, congrats to the winners this week. MCountdown is apparently out of commission right now, so we only have the four wins. Congrats to both groups! And congrats on the Triple Crown! Whoo! For the After School Club Re-Run, we're hopping back to 2015 with Mark and Jackson of GOT7, also known as The Markson Show! Absolutely hilarious. Hosts were Eric Nam, Jamie, and Kevin Woo. Seriously, so funny. Have some funny times. The link down there goes to the episode. I don't know if I've ever outright said that. And I may share more than one performance for The Show, but for today, we're just going with one, Cravity from 2020, which is the year they debuted. And, as always, the links in the little spreadsheet directly below this go to my reviews of the songs. Show Champion: AHOF "Pinocchio" MCountdown: N/A Music Bank: AHOF "Pinocchio" Show! Music Core: NMIXX "Blue V...

Release date: 2025 November 10 Album tracklist: Focus, TUNNEL VISION , DYT, Flicker, Nocturne, 8-BT HEART Album runtime: 16 minutes   I don’t usually touch the remixes, but I figure that since one came out today, I’d take the opportunity to cover the original since I haven’t done that yet and I generally like ITZY. I worry about getting too invested in them because girl groups I like don’t seem to do too well. Disbandments. Hiatuses. It’s not good, and I don’t like it because I want to like more girl groups. Not that there aren’t hundreds of already disbanded ones I could get into, but I want some that I can actively support, you know? Funny thing about that run time, if you remove the first track, which only clocks in at around a minute-and-a-half, the average runtime goes up to three minutes. The instrumental is fairly uncomplicated, but very strongly afrobeats. I'm not sure if it's fully within the genre, but it's at minimum afrobeats-flavored. This is going to have som...

 What is up! I completely spaced out needing to do this, and time both has no meaning and is soup. Little nerdy D&D reference there for you. Warm you up for the fun times. So, first up, as always, we have the lovely debuts. I covered none of them, and I feel bad about that. So I'll probably snag one or two and do a later review for them. Still, even without that, I'm still going to hand them over to you lovely readers so that you can take a listen and decide if you like any of them. BE:MIN , the subunit of the boy group XEED, now called XD. LUVITA , virtual girl group made up of V-Tuber. Global girl group NWH:I . Girl group ARVVY (who debuted with everyone over twenty, by the way). Girl group E11iVYN (which is only a four-member group, and you pronounce that as "eleven"). &TEAM had their Korean debut (with three accompanying music show wins, and now they have their very own younger brother group, aoen who is going to get a review from me in a couple of days...

Release date: 2025 November 14 Album tracklist: baby blue Album runtime: 3 minutes   Is this secretly a pre-release? I have no idea anymore, so I’m not going to tag it as such until I get the definitive proof: it showing up in an album in the future. Still, I wasn’t expecting to drop something so soon from them. I’ve heard a tiny bit about this song from the Monbebes that wander around my various feeds, but I stayed away because I knew I was going to be reviewing it and didn’t want too much of it spoiled yet.  This instrumental could be out of Stranger Things . I’ve started my rewatch of that so that I’m ready for the final season, which is probably why I have it on the brain, but at the same time, I don’t think I’m wrong. The beat takes up the majority of the sound of the instrumental, but we’ve got rests and good movements within the song. It supports when it needs to, it highlights when it needs to, and it stays out of the vocals way, which is 75% of what I ask of instrumen...

Release date: 2025 November 14 Album tracklist: D.D.D.D, BANG BANG! , BANG BANG! (Inst.) Album runtime: 9 minutes   So, I couldn’t remember this group, but I thought I had done a review for them. The answer is no. I didn’t hit their debut song. So that’s back on my list a little bit higher. I do have to check on ages because this is a pretty freshly debuted group, and I need to know if they’re on Underage Protocol or not. Which, they are for both having too many underage members and also for having their maknae being thirteen at debut. She just turned fourteen last month. That’s even younger than BoA and Taemin. That’s so not okay. She’s not even through puberty yet. It’s just horrifying. Okay, moving on because if I think about it too long, I’m going to want to cry for her. At least the song is over three minutes. I have to find the silver lining. And we have an instrumental only track. Which is good, and also we have a return of a cowbell. This is such a vibe of a song. So many d...

Release date: 2025 November 11 Album tracklist: Fallen Superstar Album runtime: 2 minutes   Woozi: I want you to forget me. Hoshi: I’ll make sure you won’t be able to. I love the way the instrumental builds through the song. Starting off the way it does with just the acoustic guitar, then adding the percussion for a beat, then adding another instrument to it to help smooth out the slight disjointedness that is there when it’s only the guitar and the percussion is brilliant. That pattern resets a couple of times, and we get a couple of really nice moments of rest.  This sounds like something The8 would do, and I kind of love it. Performance unit vibes. Especially with Skyfall . (Also, I forgot to put this on repeat twice because I wasn’t paying attention. First time, the first song after was his English OST. The second was Tiger by The Boyz. It amused me,) I’m not overly fond of the sound of autotune as an artistic choice, which isn’t a Hoshi-specific preference, but I do prefe...

Release date: 2025 November 11 Album tracklist: Eight Eleven Album runtime: 2 minutes    Oh, that reminds me. I still need to hit BOYtude from their debut mini album. The eight member unit is still at seven, but, again, I’m glad that the company is taking its time to figure out the truth of the matter instead of just tossing him out the door like happens so often (LE SSERAFIM, The Boyz, WayV, Monsta X, etc.). Still, here we are. I’m curious about this one because of the two songs I’ve listened to, one I really like and one…less so. So this could in fact go either way, and I like that uncertainty. What I don’t like is the less than two-and-a-half minute runtime, but it is what it is. This is a good hip-hop beat. It’s very steady and relatively uncomplicated. The instrumental is basically comprised of three different beats that happen at various times and various configurations, so there’s some variation within those limitations. The most different part of the instrumental is w...

 Good news, everyone! I asked for some spooky songs in The Form , and I got a couple! You guys all rock! I mean it! Also, Purple Kiss are some of the queens of spooky, and I love that about them. I man, I just generally love them, so I'm excited that I got this one. Love Is Dead  is their fifth song from their fourth mini album, Geekyland. The number of cooks in the kitchen for this one is actually pretty small: two lyricists and two composers. First up, we have Kang Jiwon, who has done quite a few of Purple Kiss's songs, but also a few for MAMAMOO, TWICE, BEAST, and B.A.P (two notable ones are 1004 and One Shot ). Next up for the solo composer, we have someone named Davve, who seems to have almost exclusively worked on Purple Kiss songs. Still, that's very cool. And last up, we have the solo lyricist, who is none other than Purple Kiss's own Yuki! Whoo! This is such a good song. Thank you for introducing me to it.  I recently described another, much more recent, song a...