Just A Little Fangirl Love

  We are low on the performances this week because the only winner this week hasn't performed it on any of the music shows. Which is fair. They've been jet-setting busy bees lately on top of prepping for their tour and having an injured leader. But this is also the last of these for the first quarter of 2026! So, for the After School Club re-run, we've got ep.147 from 2015 featuring the fun 4Minute, so named because they could gain fans in the length of a single song. They're also very loud and a little unhinged, as I'd expect of a Cube group (and they also have the exact same energy as BTOB on Kingdom in this episode, which is hilarious). For the The Show re-run, we've got the girl group DIA from 2018. And for the extra stage, I grabbed AtHeart's on Show Champion  because I really liked that song. As always, the links down in the spreadsheet go to my reviews, and the link down below for ASC goes to the full episode. I'd give you the embedded version,...

Release date: 2026 March 30 Album track list: Toxic Love, Highs and Lows , Already Grown Up, Up All Night, Step by Step, Hold My Love, Piano Album runtime: 20 mi nutes  This isn't my primary streaming service, but sometimes I get a little confused about title tracks when they're in English in some plays and in Korean in other places, as is the case with this song, and Melon actually labels which song is the title track. So in the event that I do get confused, I will check Melon for confirmation that the song I think is the title track is actually the title track. It's basically the only thing I use Melon for, but I do wish more streaming services would do that. Even before I started this, I liked knowing which song I was "supposed" to listen to (and ignoring it anyway because I come from CDs and didn't understand why one song was special when the album had seven others that I loved to pieces when I was little). But can I just say how much I love that Wonpil ti...

Release date: 2026 March 26 Album track list:  Merry go round (feat. meenoi) , Merry go round (Instrumental) Album runtime: 6 mi nutes  Happy anniversary, Ilhoon! This is a fascinating instrumental. It's one part old timey, one part dreamy, and one part strongly reinforced percussive beat. I also had to listen to this a couple of times because I needed to verify if the kids screaming was out my window before they went to school or if it was in the track. Not that I mind because I too want to scream sometimes before I go to work and school is their work. The answer is, part of the instrumental. That's really cool. It's kind of the perfect, subtle addition. I am reminded a tiny bit of the Danganronpa soundtrack though, so the instrumental is stressing me out, but that's just because of the association I have and nothing actually wrong with the track. You know what? I think he might actually be singing more than he is rapping, which brings me so much joy. And once again, t...

Release date: 2026 March 25 Album track list:  X room Album runtime: 3 mi nutes  I'm doing this one now so I don't have to scramble to do it later when the actual album comes out. I'm very excited about this because Xdinary Heroes is a) a band and we know how I love those, and b) I tend to like what they've got going on. The song starts off feeling a little haunted castle, and then there's a shift before it fully commits that had me raising an eyebrow. This is largely a fairly mellow sound that just feels kind of sad, but there is a point where we get a very pointed shift that's almost aggressive, but it also softens as much the other way so we're getting an excellent range to this song. I'm getting kind of a CNBLUE vibe off this instrumental, which is a huge compliment from me.  Ah, lovely, lovely vibrato. Thank you for being a band and thus being allowed to show off the vibrato y'all have. Like with the instrumental, we've got a solid range voc...

Release date: 2026 March 25 Album track list: Hertz , DREAMER, MOMENTUM Album runtime: 7 mi nutes  Oof, that run time is not it. I'm sorry, Moonbyul. I love you. But what on earth is that? And if I were writing more casually in a different setting there would have been about five more question marks.  So I fairly recently did a GH post on Girl Gang  by H.U.B , and this is a similar genre. I'm kind of in love with this instrumental though, because we've got revving engines, which amuses me because of the title of the single album. It's also pretty appropriate because while I'm writing this, I'm watching an old livestream from my favorite video game YouTube channel while they played Dead Island 2 , and I have to say that this is singularly appropriate to the zombie slayage that is happening. Good, strong beat. Heavy electric guitar. I know exactly what playlists this song is going into. It also sounds like there's a peacock cry in the instrumental, which is ba...

Release date: 2026 March 02 Album track list:  When I think about you , Over It , Dreaming, Portrait, Answer, When I think about you (Inst.) Album runtime: 15 mi nutes  Am I finally getting around to the actual title track after having the pre-release finished for weeks? Yes. Yes, I am. But, better late than never. Also, this is four-and-a-half minutes of song and I love him for that. We have an acoustic guitar heavy in the front row of this instrumental, which we do get separately and I'm very happy about that as well. But I was in the middle of basking in the watery chimes when the violin kicked in, and my attention swiveled to wake up from the lull that the rest of this gorgeous instrumental put me into. This instrumental is magnificent and soothing and has a very clear build up to the climax of the song.  His voice is incredible. Hey, if anyone wants to submit one of his songs for a GH or BBS post, I am not going to be mad because do you hear this? Thank you, second g...

 So I realized while I was writing the previous post (link down at the bottom) that their anniversary was actually on a Wednesday, which is one of the two days that I try to post on. But I had a plan and I wanted to follow the plan, and while I was making said plan, I temporarily forgot what day they debuted, which is silly because it's ten days after NU'EST. Also, this was a request from my Stay friend...quite a bit ago, but because of MEGAVERSE , I wanted to spread out the Stray Kids posts a bit, which is why this has taken me so long (I apologized when we went to Hannah's concert together). I feel like I've heard this song before, but I can't recall what it sounds like by the name. Also, I'm taking a break from the planning and going wild and random for April, so unless someone has a time specific post for me to do (like an anniversary or birthday or other celebration of some sort), I have no idea what you're getting for April nor what I get to do. It...

Release date: 2026 March 26 Album tracklist: Intro : small, fragile, and still here; Free Falling ; in the mirror Album runtime: 8 minutes  The Verivery maknae has debuted as a soloist! Some of you may remember him from Boys Planet 2 (and I've got a soft spot for him a mile wide because Baekho talked to him and gave him some very specific advice), and while I'm sad that he didn't make it into the final group, I don't mind it as much because he's back with his group and they have released music since Boys Planet 2. They need to release more, but for now, it's okay. And this is his solo debut! I'm disappointed by the runtime for this song though. Especially for a debut, it's far too short. Ooh, that sounds like a maraca we've got going on here. That's fun. The skittering beat that pops in, especially during the chorus, feels like it's too much for the style of the vocals and it creates an uncomfortable disconnect, especially when the song is ca...

 I waffled back an forth on what song I wanted to do here a lot. I thought I'd made a decision, and then I decided against it. Then I'd made another decision, and decided against it. Then, I went back to my original thought, and here we are. I have, like, three songs that I keep circling that I want to talk about, but that also means putting them in a spot where they support the songs to either side (in this case BTOB and Stray Kids) and also stand out well on their own. I feel for the people who decide the order to put songs in an album or for a setlist. It's not easy. And I know that the group recently-ish had a bit of negative attention, but if anything, that painted the company in a worse light than the group members, and this isn't the first time that a group under that company has had issues with mistreatment.  woo!ah! debuted as a six member group under NV Entertainment (now H Entertainment and also formerly SSQ Entertainment) in 2020. They are currently a five m...

Release date: 2026 March 25 Album tracklist: Love Comes Slowly , Fade Into Memories, You Think Too Much, Last of Us, Hurt & Hollow, By Your Side, Broken Way Album runtime: 21 minutes  I was very happy to be able to pull Dawon's photocard off my Enlistment Wall a couple of months ago, so I'm hoping that he was involved in this comeback. There are a couple of track names on this album that I'm definitely interested in, and so I'll be listening to the whole thing after I'm done with this. "So" is apparently my word for today. This song would be very easy to turn into an acoustic version. I mean, we are talking laughably easy. I haven't heard a song where I could hear the non-existent acoustic version this strongly. Anyway, there's actually a pretty big chunk of this song that has effects to make it sound like it's a 40s lacquer disc, particularly with the piano. I'm in love with the sound of this instrumental, by the way. It's wonderfu...

Release date: 2026 March 24 Album tracklist: Mama I'm Alright, Bittersweet , Shapeshifter, Moves Like Ciara, Tears On My Pillow Album runtime: 15 minutes  I apparently missed their debut last year. Oops. And since their album recently came out and I missed their pre-release, I'm going to do the pre-release and then the title track in fairly quick succession. And, in case anyone cares, the maknae turns 18 this year and was 16 at debut (December birthday). I'm going to give them a slight pass on the other qualifier for Underage Protocol (>50% of members eighteen at debut) only because the middle two debuted at seventeen, but turned eighteen fairly shortly after debut, and the eldest was over eighteen. I don't like it. But. Considering this is my first review of theirs, they were borderline to begin with, and they're all but the maknae at least eighteen as of this moment, I will give them that pass. The company better not make me regret it. The average runtime is a...

Release date: 2026 March 11 Album tracklist:  Butterfly Doors Album runtime: 3 minutes  I did actually want to do this one. It's been staring at me for a while and I remember being curious about this group, though prior to going back over my review for their debut song , I didn't remember why I was curious. But I checked to see if I'd mentioned Underage Protocol or not, and I did, so while the youngest member is sixteen now, she was not at debut, so I have to wait until next year when she's eighteen. Still, I'm not writing the group off as one I won't listen to; one song is not enough for me to do that, and I'm glad this release bothered me enough to remind myself that I thought there was potential even if they need to have longer songs, which is just an issue across the board I will continue to call out. This one is better. It's close to three minutes. Okay, I'm intrigued by this intro (haunted music box vibes) and then the skittering beat that gets...

  Wooo! We got a first win for a song this week! Congrats! I did have to use some older (comparatively because they didn't actually perform it this week I don't think) stages for Hearts2Hearts, but the P1Harmony stages are from this week. Again, wooooooo! Yes! For the extras and the re-runs, we have ep. 59 from After School Club , featuring the boy group Boys Republic from 2014! I know I've got a soft spot for leaders because they're always who my bias ends up being, but how he introduced himself won me over a lot faster than I expected. Also, some of them are much better at girl group dances than others, and it was adorable (which is why you get to see it separately, in case you didn't want to see the whole episode, though you should). For the The Show re-run, I went with ASTRO because I love that song and I love that particular performance. And lastly, for the extra stage that was performed this week, I went with H1-KEY on Show Champion . As always, the links in ...

Release date: 2026 March 23 Album tracklist: Ice Cream , B-Boy, Blue Maze, Hyper Dream Album runtime: 11 minutes  ITZY's maknae has debuted as a soloist! I mean, I really like ITZY (I'm trying not to love them too much because girl groups I really like go on hiatus or disband, so it's safest if I only like the already disbanded ones) so I'm very excited about this one, but I have a feeling that this is going to be more second-gen, which I'm desperately hoping for as well. Anyway, congrats again, Yuna! You share a name with the main character from my favorite video game! The horns in this instrumental give me instant joy, especially at the beginning. There are so many fun instruments throughout the instrumental though, that when the song gets soft and dreamy during the chorus, it doesn't feel like a deflate. I like that instrumentals are getting a little weird again, but I don't think we've gone fully with that as the dominant trend, so her doing this wit...

Release date: 2026 March 23 Album tracklist: Good Girls (Louis), Boo Thang (Woojin), Summer Eyes (Ohyul), For Us (Ryul), Vanilla Days Album runtime: 14 minutes  Ooh, I was not aware that they were dropping a mini album (single?). I don't love the group yet, but I'm still curious and I did like their debut song a bit. So I'm still hoping for a song that will make me absolutely fall in love. Will it be this one? I have no idea. I can't listen to the group yet either, because they're under Underage Protocol, but I'm happy to hold onto groups and wait for them if they fully catch my attention. Time passes whether I want it to or not. This does make sense why I suddenly started getting clips from them though. I found out that Jay Park is about as hard on pronunciation as JYPark is, which makes sense having heard from both g.o.d members and 2PM members how relentless the JYPE founder is on pronunciation. You know, the song starts off smooth and a little sultry, and th...

Release date: 2026 March 23 Album tracklist: Friends to Lovers Album runtime: 3 minutes  Wow, I was so not expecting this. We love B.D.U here in this blog and their releases have been quite thin in terms of both frequency and quantity. So I'm delighted to be seeing this one. It also means that going through the horror of a survival show wasn't entirely wasted if they're still releasing music ( Build Up gave me some of my absolute favorite covers, in case anyone cares). And the song itself is close enough to three minutes that I'm okay with it.  We've got a fun and lovely instrumental, a little bit funky, a little bit bright, and just generally a supportive base for their vocals. I'm a big fan of the guitar specifically because it does a great job of popping in precisely when the song needs a bit of depth. It gets its own little solo support section, which is nice to hear. It's just a cute little burst of energy.  I'm so amused that the group specificall...

 Happy anniversary, BTOB! I'm doubly excited about this because it's the first time we get all six of you since you left Cube. Not going to lie. Y'all scared me a little because I specifically picked y'all to be my emotional support group with one of the criteria being that my emotional support group was unlikely to be disbanded any time soon. And then after a couple of days of panicking, I was reminded to trust Eunkwang because the members do, and I try to follow the lead of the group where I am able to. Which is why I'm not going to pretend Ilhoon was not there for this song. I almost cried when he said he was BTOB's Ilhoon and that he spent Peniel's birthday with him last week. He's not supposed to do that, and the rest of them aren't supposed to mention him at all, let alone hang out with him. So, he gets to stay with the group here. I'd be inclined to leave him in the group anyway, but it's nice how things are currently going right now....

Release date: 2026 March 11 Album tracklist: Who do you love?, Broken Doll , I Need You Album runtime: 9 minutes  I'm surprised but also delighted by the number of streams this music video has gotten so far. Good for them. This is one of those smaller groups that I've been keeping an eye on since they debuted.  We have a key change. It doesn't matter what else is going on in this song, and there are some interesting things happening, but key changes are annoyingly elusive and I love them. I don't put them on the list of things I look for because that's just the ultimate bonus. But we also get audience participation clapping and an a cappella section, so there's actually a pretty decent range in what we're actually listening to. A lot of the instrumental is taken up by the drums and the guitar, and I'm okay with that, although that opening chord reminds me of a Doctor Who fan song that I love listening to. Like I said, we've got a key change. I'm ...

Release date: 2026 March 21 Album tracklist: We Together , We Together (Inst.) Album runtime: 7 minutes First full group song since they left Cube! I'm calling this as the companion song to Be Together , which is a genuine masterpiece and if you haven't heard it, I highly and deeply recommend it. Can't wait to see what gift BTOB has for the Melodies for their fourteenth anniversary. And bless them, but they also gave us more than three minutes. Have I mentioned that I love them? But you want to know what makes me love them more? This was released on March 21. Their anniversary is March 21. The runtime for the song is 3:21. We have an instrumental, so I get to hang out with that part of the song on its own before I hear their lovely voices. I'm going to guess that this is a Hyunsik-composed song based on the amount of guitar that's prevalent in the instrumental (spoilers, I was correct). But there is a beautiful little melody (pun not intended), in this instrumental ...

Release date: 2026 March 15 Album tracklist:  Shining Star , Only One Album runtime: 5 minutes  Can we take a minute and enjoy the fact that the title of the album is styled exactly  like I format these posts? I'm curious about this because I enjoyed the debut track they had a lot. And! And!  Good news! On YouTube Music, this song currently has more streams than their debut song, which is exactly the growth we want to be seeing. This is good. This is amazing news. I don't even care that both songs are under three minutes for a moment because for a small group for a small company like that, this growth is extravagant and I love to see it. This scratches the exact same itch as my second favorite Seventeen song (Ima). Same ballpark. The guitar is on fire here and it's very present throughout most of the song. Also, the way the vocals and the instrumental work together on the "shining star" part to mimic each other's emphasis is very nice. This is one of those son...

Release date: 2026 March 20 Album tracklist: Body to Body, Hooligan , Aliens, FYA, 2.0 , No. 29, SWIM , Merry Go Round, NORMAL, Like Animals, they don't know 'bout us, One More Night, Please, Into the Sun Album runtime: 41 minutes  Well, here we are, folks. A much awaited comeback. Let's just get to it. I did take note of the runtime and we're just shy of a three minute runtime average for the album, and the title track is less than three, which I'm not as pleased about, but that's par for the course with HYBE title tracks lately. At least it's over two-and-a-half minutes, so I'm not going to whine too much. Also, I took off the NU'EST nail polish of two of my nails and painted one of them purple in honor of this comeback. I'm very curious to see what they've got for us and I'll be taking a listen to the whole album to find the song I like best, which is likely to be a b-side given my track record. Parts of this instrumental remind me a l...

Release date: 2026 March 18 Album track list: SAY LOVE, LATENCY , MALIBU, IT WAS LOVE , STARRY NIGHT,  Album runtime: 15 mi nutes  Ah, right. This band is stacked with idols and a well-known guitarist. I really liked their debut song, which may have been the first debut of 2026, and that makes me tentatively excited for the rest of the mini album. Also, fun times had by all, there is only one song on here that is under three minutes and it is not the title track. Score. This one has an interestingly "anime intro" vibe to the instrumental for one of those heart-warming, friendship triumphs over evil sorts. There's a lot of sunlight and bright colors, the wind blows through to ruffle the main female lead's skirt as she tucks her long hair behind her ear and some leaves get caught to swirl past her as she stands on a green, grassy cliff overlooking a town or a lake. You know the scene.  That's the kind of anime that this feels like. There's a really good flow of ...

 Happy fourteenth anniversary, NU'EST! Happy discharge, JR! One of those has already happened, and the other will be happening in a few days! I cannot even tell you how much I am vibrating with excitement over JR's discharge. But as much as I love both NU'EST and JR, not everyone does, so I elected to do a post between the two events, rather than do one for both. I could have. I had a JR solo song selected for his discharge, although I might hold onto it for his birthday now that he'll be out. (Here's your friendly reminder right up here at the front that will be repeated further down at the end that I love doing posts for anniversaries and special events and I also love it when y'all give me songs to do for them). But this is a first for a couple of reasons: this is a fictional band, and it's also an OST. What does this have to do with JR? He was the bassist in the drama! So funny story about this drama. I watched it because of JR. I loved it. A couple of m...