Just A Little Fangirl Love

 I wanted my last "normal" (ish) post of the year to be a Battle of the B-Sides, before I start hitting the December wrap-up and the year recap hard, to be appropriate for going into the new year. There were a couple of things I was thinking about for it. For my last Greatest Hits of 2025, I did a big hitter in the form of IVE from The Form and that had me thinking about this last post. Do I do one of my top three groups? Do I do an old group? Do I match it in energy? Do I soften it a bit? Higher energy? Do I do a more obscure group or do I do one of the big hitters? Do I grab something from The Form as well, or do I do something that I pick? The answer to all of these questions: my drafts. I've got twenty-four of these things in my drafts, ten of which are Battle of the B-Sides posts waiting for me to actually do them. So, those went into the wheel. What came out was a fourth gen boy group, because I have a couple of those drafts that are simply designations to narrow t...

  There was exactly one win this week, and it wasn't one I was expecting to see as a name. That's delightful though. Good for them. So I compensated for the lack of videos by bringing three different songs for you with the extra stages. The lone link down there sends you directly to the review I did on this song. See you in the new year!! Show Champion: N/A MCountdown: N/A Music Bank: fromis_9 "White Memories" Show! Music Core: N/A Inkigayo: N/A ASC Performance: N/A The Show: N/A The Extra Stage: 20080920 2PM "10 out of 10" 20190215 Hwasa (MAMAMOO) "TWIT" 20241026 ITZY "GOLD"

 I was so busy this month. Y'all. I didn't do a ton of the reviews, which is coming back to bite me in the butt now that I'm trying to get my year end post worked on. It's fine. Past Fangirl hates Future Fangirl, and it's completely fine.  July debuts! I only did a single review for a debut group this month, and it was for AHOF , who has been doing quite well for a rookie group. I may get 1verse reviewed because I still feel guilty about not reviewing them. Debuts I didn't cover: CrazAngel (girl group), Tomatomat (girl group), 1verse (boy group), 4X4 (girl group) and SEVENTOEIGHT  (boy group).   Big Ocean JJ (subunit of Big Ocean) also debuted. And Kang Yuchan , the lovely maknae of A.C.E, debuted as a soloist! Songs I was looking forward to: BLACKPINK: Look, this was their first release as a group since I started listening to K-Pop. Even if I don't listen to the group a lot (though I do have a few songs I really like, which is unfortunately a high perc...

Release date: 2025 December 30 Album tracklist: Bad Idea, UFO (ATTENT!ION) , Delulu Solulu, Hard to Love, SAY MY NAME Album runtime: 14 minutes  This set of song titles brings me so much joy. First of all, the title track? I think that's actually a password, and I love that. I also am wholly in love with the song title "Delulu Solulu". Plus, this feels like an important note, we've had a new member added to the group since the last time I wrote something for this group, and  she is not a minor. I still can't listen to them because the maknae is fifteen, but, you know. One day she won't be and hopefully the company won't debut someone that young again. But in the meantime, their reviews are on Underage Review, and I have a playlist just for songs I can't listen to yet but that I like. That opening has no business going as hard as it does. They're ending the year with rock, and it's glorious. I'm actually kind of sad that I can't listen t...

  As of right now, June has the fewest number of reviews that I managed this year. Not that it was a particularly slow month, I was just very inconsistent.  So debuts for the month of June in the year 2025! The I covered BE BOYS  and  ALLDAY PROJECT . Funny story, according to YouTube Music, because of how I write these, apparently I was one of the top listeners of "FAMOUS". Which is a little unfortunate. The groups I did not cover were USPEER ,  Re:Hearts (a co-ed band), KIIRAS , aoen , Double One ,  XONIK (which is already on hiatus and may be disbanded), DIVA-X , OX:N (Omega X subunit), Baby DONT Cry , and X-UNIT (XODIAC subunit). Nina, a new soloist, also debuted !  Songs I was looking forward to (even if I didn't actually cover them): ITZY: I'm really starting to like their sound. They've had some stunning songs izna: They haven't dropped a ton of songs yet, but I've been deeply enjoying all of what they've given us so far. QWER: I'm not s...

Release date: 2025 December 22 Album tracklist:  The Moment My Heart , The Moment My Heart (Inst.) Album runtime: 8 minutes  Well, I completely missed this one, and this one is going to be incredibly short because it was the song that played after Hyolyn's, and I liked it well enough to check when it came out, which was about a week ago. And I need everyone else to hear it because it's incredible. But honestly, for this one, I'd rather you all just listen to it yourselves without my input, because it's incredible enough to stand on its own feet without my needing to convince anyone that it is good. We've got the strings, the guitar, and the piano making up the backbone of the song in a very soft way, and the drums are almost an afterthought, but they're all an after thought for the vocals. I have no idea who she is, but she's got the voice of an angel and this is a beautiful, beautiful ballad to close out the year with. Anything I have to say about it will j...

Release date: 2025 December 23 Album tracklist:  Standing On The Edge Album runtime: 4 minutes  I like it when she drops music, even if I don't get to it right away. First of all, her voice is a work of beauty. Second of all, I'll always support the older idols continuing with music as it exceedingly helps with the musical ecosystem, you know? The experience they have is just as vital as the fresh energy and hunger of the younger ones. This is a good song to end the year with. There's a soft weight to the instrumental that knows when to stay out of the way of the vocals, but also never lets the song move to far away from a very grounded sound. There's a peacefulness and a sort of accepted release to the song that can only function because of the spots where the instrumental is basically just the piano. Her dance heavy tracks are very nice, but this one is where her voice just shines uncomplicated by messy extras. This is something where she can just sing her heart out, ...

 I was honestly wondering when I was going to get a submission for a group that has been getting awards specifically because they've been getting awards. Well, that has finally happened. I'm assuming it was a DIVE that dropped this submission for me, although I've also never had a submission specifically asking me for other kpop groups covering the song in question. So this one took a little bit more time in that I had to hunt down some covers. It was an intriguing request. I appreciate it. I'm also combining it with an earlier submission that I got for this song, but hadn't gotten around to doing yet. That  submission wanted me to make sure that I included a specific performance from the 2022 Gayo Daejeon, so the timing for it is actually perfect. Two submissions for the same song, everyone! This is exciting for me. Love Dive is the first of two tracks on their second single. Because this song was submitted with comments on the awards, we're going to start wit...

Release date: 2025 December 24 Album tracklist: Credit,  Credit - inst. Album runtime: 7 minutes  So every month for the last six months, they've dropped a single. Sometimes it's only one of them. Sometimes it's all three. This one is one of the all-three ones. I haven't been super great about reviewing all of them, but I do listen to all of them because this is another one of my rookie boy groups that I love, even if the members themselves aren't necessarily rookies in the industry.  That opening definitely had me thinking the song was going to go in a different way. It's got kind of the same Powerpuff Girls vibe that Ima by Seventeen also has, which is fantastic because that's my second favorite Seventeen song. I love it when songs remind me of other songs I love. And thankfully, we get this in the form of an instrumental as well, so I got to bask in this before we added their gorgeous voices. It also reminds me a bit of Daesung's Universe , so that...

Release date: 2025 December 23 Album tracklist: Replay Album runtime: 3 minutes  It's been a hot minute since I've done a review from them because apparently I didn't notice that they did a July release, otherwise I would have made sure to do it. I like these guys. I like these guys a lot. And I like that runtime. Oh, that's a fantastic instrumental. It's also, surprisingly, definitely a winter song so that's going to be labeled appropriately. Huh. It starts off pretty mellow, and I was into it basically from the start. Then the energy kicked up a little bit, the bells started in and the entire song just brightened. The flow of the song is lovely.  Even the rapping in this song is lovely and lyrical. This is a great example of why I like them. The rapping and the singing styles flow so nicely into each other that the song sounds so cohesive, and that's ignoring the vocals layered over the rapping and the ad-libs and whoo-ing. You shouldn't ignore those b...

Release date: 2025 December 23 Album tracklist: nanana Album runtime: 3 minutes  I've gotten lazy the last couple of days and missed quite a few reviews. This one, I didn't even know about, but I'm always curious about his songs because he's got such a good voice with a gorgeous tone. I'm not cool with the song length, but I did round it up to three minutes because I'm feeling generous. The bass guitar is actually kind of cute, and that's a weird reaction to be having to it, but it is what it is. This is a very low, masculine song with only the occasional higher chirp or flutter from one of a few instruments, not that the song has a lot of room to have a lot.to have the variety I normally want. But the weight is so satisfying. Did I mention that I love his voice? Rapping or singing, it really makes no difference to me and every song I hear of his just affirms that because it just kind of settles into my bones. And when he gets soft? That's very nice. Thi...

Release date: 2026 January 05 Album tracklist: Gwang, Fear,  STING (feat. Muhammed Ali) ,  Push (feat. Rei (IVE)) , Bite, Touch the sky (feat. Tiger JK), NO BRAIN NO PAIN Album runtime: 18 minutes  So far so good with this song. It is shorter than three minutes, but barely, which does bode well for the album as a whole if the pre-release is already this long. Fingers crossed. It's a weird kind of stress doing a pre-release for an album that will be released in the new year, but I'm excited it's for him. From what I understand, he's one of those artists that is really good in just about every position you can have them in, and he's a resident hype man for the group.  I hit play on this song and almost immediately froze. It was of course accompanied by a disbelieving smile. We've got the bed springs sound effect, which is a bold choice and honestly tells me what I need to know about a song in a language I'm not even close to being fluent in. Other notable elem...

Release date: 2025 December 22 Album tracklist:  Saucin' Album runtime: 3 minutes  Well, well, well. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this group given that I'd never seen the name before (not that it really matters because there are at minimum hundreds of groups I'm still not familiar with even by name) until I saw a post about Jay Park debuting his first group. At which point my eyebrows raised, and I decided I needed to make sure I got this reviewed since they'll be one of the first debuts of 2026. That's right, I'm already worrying about the debuts in 2026. Unfortunately, even if I wanted to be really excited about the group, I can't, because even with only four members, the maknae won't be sixteen until a few months after they're supposed to debut. He's a May birthday. Not going to lie, I'm a little bit disappointed in Mr. Jay Park for this. So, Underage Protocol it is. What a shame. This is actually kind of an interesting instrume...

   I'm not sure there was an actual live performance this week, so you're getting old performances for the winners. Except for Doyoung. I don't think he ever performed this live because I think it came out after his enlistment. Either way, there are still some performances for your perusal. Because there were no live performances, at least not that I could find, I couldn't give you an extra stage. Sorry. I can give you a couple of re-runs though. For After School Club re-run, it's Royal Pirates, also known as RP. We had some stunning covers this episode, but I highly recommend that you check out their music if you liked them here. I discovered them a couple of months ago, but didn't know that they'd been on ASC until the choosing of the re-run for this week. For the The Show performance re-run, I grabbed another group that I've recently discovered. Most of their discography seems to have vanished from a lot of the streaming services, which saddens me be...

Release date: 2025 December 22 Album tracklist: Bitter Sweet Album runtime: 3 minutes  This one was not on my schedule of releases, but it's here and I'm very curious about it. But they have now released two songs this year, so that's better than it has been and a little bit of a relief, not enough of one for me to consider them safe but they're releasing music again. You know, this song has a little bit of a traditional vibe to it, especially during the dance break, but that lingers through most of the song. It's all down to instrument choice. I'm not hearing the normal trip of drums/piano/guitar, but what I am hearing are instruments that I swear I've heard in historical dramas, which is my only frame of reference for many of them because unfortunately, my English literature background doesn't give me a lot of historical range, and annoyingly, Asian history for most of my history classes was largely glossed over (except for a few very specific time per...

Release date: 2025 December 20 Album tracklist: FOOTSTEPS , FOOTSTEPS (Inst.) Album runtime: 8 minutes  I was wondering when we were going to be getting something else from them. I was hoping we'd get something for their second anniversary, but we didn't. Still, I'm curious about this one because it's just as possible for this to be a seasonal song as not. Also, it's over four minutes long, and I love that for them. And us. This is another case of my irritating loyalty because on November 2nd, 2023, I found out the company that JR had gone to after Pledis (Evermore) and found out that they had debuted, literally the day before, a new band, one of whom had helped write DOOM DOOM , JR's solo from NU'EST's second album, Romanticize. I was going to support them no matter what because of that, but thankfully, so far I've just enjoyed everything they've put out.  This is such a classic and wonderful example of a tension and energy build that even just ...

 So, as with the other award show posts, my comments will be found down below, after the performances and the winners. I know. It's me, and I like to ramble, but for these, I'm giving you the stuff you're more likely to be interested in first, and then if you want my rambles, they're at the bottom.  Anyway, enjoy the performances and congrats to the winners! I'm only listing the music related winners, with two exceptions. performances AHOF ( Rendezvous ) ALLDAY PROJECT ( FAMOUS + ONE MORE TIME ) ASH ISLAND (Don't go + OST) ATEEZ (Man on Fire + Dance Break + In Your Fantasy ) Cortis ( GO! + What You Want ) Cravity (Intro + Lemonade Fever ) IVE ( XOXZ + ATTTUDE + 삐빅 (♥beats) + REBEL HEART ) JJ Lin (Bedroom + 修煉愛情+背對背擁抱 (with WOODZ)) KickFlip (Intro (특이점) + My First Love Song ) KiiiKiii (Intro + I DO ME ) Kiss of Life (Maestro of My Heart + Lucky ) Leejunyoung (BOUNCE + BACK) LE SSERAFIM (Born Fire + Ash + HOT ) MEOVV ( BURNING UP + HANDS UP ) Monsta X (Tress...