Just A Little Fangirl Love

Release date: 2026 February 23 Album track list:  ROOMBADOOMBA , Self Album runtime: 5 mi nutes  That is a fascinating title for a song. It's also incredibly fun to say, and I haven't even heard the song yet. But I get to do some investigating for all of us. So, Daily:Direction is a six-member new boy group under a new company called ODDWAVE, whose CEO was the creative director of projects for LE SSERAFIM, Stray Kids, and ZEROBASEONE, so I'm cautiously optimistic. The group has two previously debuted members (Kim Joohyoung formerly of NINE.i and E-VAN formerly of MIRAE). EN-KIM, Lim Jihwan, and Lee Wonwoo were all former members of various survival shows. And then the maknae is named Jang Yoonseok, and he turns nineteen in a few weeks, so we are good on that front. The pre-debut teasers have been wild though, so I'm hoping that they continue with this oddity.  Wow, that started out a lot more mildly than I was expecting. Instead of going the high energy route, or the br...

Release date: 2026 February 26 Album track list: UNCOOL , QtoresQ, Rainbow shade, Burnaway (into the fire) Album runtime: 13 mi nutes  The debut of a new subunit is always an exciting time and considering what group this is a subunit of, I'm very interested. I haven't listened to a lot of the base group's songs, but the ones I have, I've found very interesting. The members involved in this subunit are KB, Jisung, and Nine, which is apparently a very interesting combination considering Jisung is the former leader of OnlyOneOf, who left the group in 2021. I have to say, that has me forcing down some strong excitement because there are some groups who have had members leave that I'd love to see return. So while I haven't gotten to experience this necessarily first hand, were that to happen, I'd probably spend the entire music video bawling my eyes and heart out because of how happy I was. I can empathize with those fans. And every single one of these songs is o...

Release date: 2026 February 25 Album track list: Bloom hour , Mirror Album runtime: 6 mi nutes  I'm apparently just going to keep going with the Starship thing right now. I'm not sure that I knew that they were dropping something new, but apparently they did! And it's very exciting since I have a birthday twin in the group. That was actually the first thing I learned about the group. And happy tenth anniversary, WJSN! Congrats on surviving and keeping going! This is one of those watery instrumentals, but it's less deep water and more shallow pool near a waterfall. There's a lot of splashing happening in my head, like they hiked up to the waterfall and are playing in the water now. This is of course is all metaphorical. It's got a surprisingly fast beat that's comprised almost entirely of percussion instruments. I'm not hearing any particularly low, grounding notes from bass instruments, but the song also isn't particularly saturated with high notes i...

Release date: 2026 February 23 Album track list: BLACKHOLE , BANG BANG , Hush, Stuck In Your Head, Fireworks, HOT COFFEE, 8 (Jang Wonyoung Solo), Odd (Gaeul Solo), Super ICY (Leeseo Solo), Unreal (Liz Solo), In Your Heart (Rei Solo), Force (An Yujin Solo) Album runtime: 34 mi nutes  So, they dropped a pre-release single and now the album is out. And I'm behind. As usual. It's fine, actually. At the end of last year, if you missed it, I did a Greatest Hits post on Love Dive  so if you wanted to take a look at that, you totally should. I decided to do the pre-release first because odds are good that they'll get a win on the title track, so I will likely have to do that anyway. Let's get crackin', shall we? Ooh, I was not expecting that guitar at the beginning. The shift into the street music disappointed me a little but then the guitar came back and I was fine with it. We do get a bit of variation and some interesting sound effects, which I appreciate, and generally s...

 Submission! Submission! Submission! Whoo! I thought this might be a good spot for this, so thank you for your patience! And when I'm finished with this, I'll head over to Threads and send it your way since you wonderfully left a username for me to deliver it to. I actually like ONEWE. And it's funny, after the administrative work and remodeling I did (some of it quite extensive) on almost all of these posts, I'm looking for something that hits my brain to do after this one (since I'd done some planning before I decided I temporarily hated myself). So I'm just listening to my playlists. And other people's playlists. And watching videos on YouTube looking for a sparked song. But I had another ONEWE song come up that caught my attention, and then I remembered that that would be after this one, so I couldn't. As of writing this paragraph, I'm still looking. But I just thought that was kind of funny. ONEWE is a five-member band currently under RBW that r...

  Well, with Seollal being this week, the music shows were a bit scarce. Still, we had Ol' Reliable (AKA Music Bank) to give us  one win. And because it wasn't actually broadcast, I don't think, I'm going to give you an older stage that I think you'll find very cool. Which also means that the extra stage is older. For the After School Club re-run, I went with TOMORROW X TOGETHER's very first appearance on ASC right after they debuted, ep. 361 from 2019! They may be global superstars now, but they had to start off being adorable and shy and just plain cutie patooties. For the The Show re-run, I went with Yena formerly of IZ*ONE back in 2022 because that song is just delightful. And then for the extra stage, I went with another The Show stage, this one from WOOAH also from 2022.  As always, the links down below in the spreadsheet go to my reviews... Well, review, in this case. It's fine. The link down with ASC goes to the full episode.  Show Champion: N/A MCou...

Release date: 2026 February 11 Album track list: Truth Album runtime: 3 mi nutes  First post-military release! I can't believe I forgot about this! I am so sorry, Minhyun! You know, considering the album artwork, this feels appropriately underwater-y. Some bits of the instrumental sound a bit like whale song or the other interesting sounds that you hear in the ocean. This is very calm and laid-back, and I'm reminded a bit of bamboo at different points as well. I know I just woke up, but it's soothing enough that my brain is like "Yeah, we can just go back to sleep. Let's do that."  I can't. But this is trying to convince me that I can. He is giving us the absolute minimum amount of vibrato. It just barely touches the ends of the lines because they're held for a beat or two, so it shows up with regularity, but at the same time, it's such a mild addition that I almost missed it on my first listen, except at the very end when the instrumental falls ou...

  Almost a full set of stages for you to watch, and almost a clean sweep for a single group too. Well done. And well done to the rookies for their win as well! Very exciting! We love to see this here.  For our extra stages, we have 82MAJOR on ep. 652 of After School Club from 2024 (complete with the MC challenge if you wanted the step-by-step instructions on how to do their challenge), Weki Meki in 2021 (this is a very cute song and I love it), and the extra stage from this week went to Yang Yoseob because I just watched his Kode he did with Minhyun and I thought it was delightful and adorable. As always, the links in the spreadsheet go to my reviews, the link on down for ASC goes to the full episode because things go a little cattywampus when I try to embed the video, and I hope you have a lovely week! Show Champion: ATEEZ "Adrenaline" MCountdown: KiiiKiii "404 (New Era)" Music Bank: ATEEZ "Adrenaline" Show! Music Core: ATEEZ "Adrenaline" Inkiga...

Release date: 2026 February 12 Album track list: CINEMA , Bloodline Album runtime: 6 mi nutes  The title track is a fantastic length. The other one has a very interesting name, but I'm squinting at that unfortunate runtime. So I'm definitely going to be taking a listen to that when I'm finished here.  This song is Drowning 2.0. Drowning the Return. Drowning 2: Electric Bugaloo . Before the song decides to kick up its heels a little, it's haunting and melancholic with the kind of quiet repetition that forces the song into this humdrum existence until that first chorus and everything changes. The cool thing is that instead of just transitioning into the chorus instrumental, the song tries to have more energy. There are tiny little stopped flickers of energy that ultimately don't go anywhere because the song holds them leashed until the chorus gives it permission to go. I really love his singing voice. This makes sense because I tend to love it when rappers sing as the...

The submissions I've got right now are all soft and lovely, and while I recognize that it's unlikely that y'all are reading these posts in the actual posted order (mostly because I don't have that literally anywhere you can find it and would require you to go through all of my posts to find them in order. And while I would be so unbelievably flattered if you did that, realistically, I know you're highly unlikely to) (ooh, I just had an idea, thanks, Tumblr writers) (a number of days later, that has been implemented and I'm glad to get back to the business , I as writer needed something emotionally very different from the last one I posted. So while this is only a few years earlier than my last one, and only a year younger in group age as a whole, I think you'll agree with me that this is a good contrast for both of them. H.U.B (Hope U Bounce) debuted as a four-member girl group under New Planet Entertainment in 2017. They've had some line-up changes betw...

Release date: 2026 February 02 Album track list:  Godsaeng , Dancing under the Stars, Godsaeng(MR), Dancing under the Stars(MR) Album runtime: 12 mi nutes  It's so nice to be able to be properly creative again instead of administrative and editorial. You have no idea. So I'm going to get some of the songs I've been majorly neglecting done. It's a substantial list unfortunately, so I'm going to get some of the ones I have a good idea that I'm going to like out of the way first to minimize the mental load. And while I couldn't tell you which member Sungmin is right now because I only recognize five on sight and he is not one of them, I'm tentatively hopeful about this. (I am actually vaguely familiar with him as a name and what happened to him, but I didn't remember that until I started digging into the song a little.) I'm very intrigued about the whole MR tracks on this single, but I'll have to take a look at them when I'm done with this. ...

Release date: 2026 February 12 Album track list:  Identity Album runtime: 5 mi nutes  SHE LIVES! I have spent the last four days (five days? Week? Time means nothing anymore) adding in some scaffolding and such to the more than 60 Greatest Hits or Battle of the B-Sides posts I've published, including extra work (some of it major remodeling) to about twenty of those to expand them. You can now start at any of those posts and follow links in chronological publishing order, rather than rely solely on the main hub pages for each set.  I'm writing this paragraph before I even know what song I'm going to do, because I have no idea what's come out recently. I didn't even do the weekly music show wins post. I think ATEEZ got some wins? I don't know. I'm so tired. TVXQ! is apparently the group that gets to be my first after that monster undertaking. There are a few others and I should probably do one for a smaller group that needs the exposure more, but, frankly, the...

Release date: 2026 February 12 Album track list: Forever Mine , Too late , Film, If you leave me, Still with you Album runtime: 18 mi nutes  Whoo! He debuted as a soloist! We get to hear this lovely voice out in the wild now! And the runtime almost makes me want to cry from joy.  Okay, you know what? I'm down with this guitar. It's very calm and comforting. It takes a bit for the drums to properly join in although we get a small burst of them earlier. But the song gets so much time with just the guitar in the instrumental that I'm intrigued and pleased by this. The contrast of the verses and the chorus is delightful, full energy shift.  He's wailing  everyone. It's part of the ad-libs at the end, but it's incredible and I'm not just saying that because his vibrato gets fully unleashed in that little section. It's been such a long time since I've heard a proper wail like that in music. They've fallen out of style, which is fine because musical tre...

 My Stay friend who is also an Aroha asked me if I'd cover this one. It's been a long time since she suggested it, but I've been trying to figure out how I want to cover it because there's a very obvious approach to this, but that wasn't part of the original context of the song. It's only context that has developed from the passage of time and Moonbin's death, which isn't something I necessarily want to focus on because of the aforementioned non-original context and also that's also a bit more recent than I like to address The Sad. So there's that. This isn't the first group that I've done a post for that has lost a member (SHINee, f(x), Ladies' Code), but this one is by far the most recent. Moonbin and Sanha are two of the three youngest members of the boy group ASTRO under Fantagio Entertainment. They debuted in ASTRO back in 2016, and debuted as a subunit together in 2020.  Ghost Town was the pre-release from their second mini albu...

Release date: 2026 February 12 Album track list:  Where Stars Grow Album runtime: 4 mi nutes  I do not know who you are, but the YouTube algorithm gave me your music video, and so here I am doing this so that I do not forget to do it. I'm hoping that Golden Child is going to find a new home and this isn't actually the d-word because I really like this group. But, we're going to focus on him for the moment, not the group. this is Golden Child's leader and part of the '93 line, along with Suga, Taemin, Aron, Peniel, and D.O. And! It's his solo debut! Congrats to him! This song starts off so softly, but it's a lovely bright soft. The song gets a little more complexity once the vocals start up, added heft and solidness but nothing particularly overpowering. If this isn't in the comfort category of songs, I'll be deeply surprised because this is hitting me right in the Seventeen vocal unit and "almost everything by BTOB" spot in my brain. While ...

Release date: 2026 January 27 Album track list: Mono (feat. ska water) Album runtime: 3 mi nutes  So, they got a music show win (actually several, but there only needs to be one), which means that I have to kick my butt into gear and get this review written. It's not that I didn't want to write this, nor that I didn't think this would get at least a win, but I also tend to follow my soul's whimsy to give songs the attention they deserve. It does mean that sometimes songs slip through the cracks (which is why I have that spot for the regular reviews in The Form, which you can always submit a song to do a regular review for, even if the song hasn't come out yet). This is a club song without being one of the whipped into a frenzy kind, which means that the beat is very solid and present, but there's also very little variation to it. It's got one spot where it goes more mystical, but it doesn't last long before the best returns. The meaningful variation is v...

Edit: So. Um. I don't know what happened to this, because I have the rest of the post saved in the doc I use to store the actual text. But that meant I had to reformat the entire thing. So, if a link doesn't work or if it sounds like there should have been a link, do let me know so I can fix it.  After a January filled with big profiled names (three of which were from the same Big 4 company), I wanted to settle a little back into the smaller companies. And after the last few posts, I wanted to shift back to something a lot brighter both lyrically and compositionally. So, while I wait for some more submissions, you're going to get this one. You know I love those underdog recovery stories, so let's talk about a well-known one. Technically, they're going by BB Girls now, but since this was what they were called when this song was released, that's how we're going to refer to them in this post. Brave Girls originally debuted in 2011 under Brave Entertainment as a...