February 2026 Wrap-Up: Requiem
Two months down! My apricot tree has started to form the blossom buds which is concerning, but maybe I'll take a picture for the March wrap-up so you can see how pretty it is.
Okay, let's take a look at these debuts, shall we? The groups that I covered were NAVILLERA, Daily:Direction. I covered two subunit debuts for QQQ (OnlyOneOf) and NCT JNJM (NCT). For soloists, I covered Jiwoo (KARD, Lee Daeyeol (Golden Child) and Lee Jiham (A.C.E)'s debuts. If I can find a better list of debuts, then I'll include the ones I missed.
Songs I was looking forward to:
- ATEEZ: I'm deeply curious about where the lore is going to go with this, and also the b-sides because they've got some b-sides that I want tattooed onto my brain
- Monsta X: I love that they're getting more active again, although I am a little sad that they now have to wait for their maknae to get discharged
- NOWZ: We've had a streak of songs that I've really liked. I'm okay now if they switch genres again and start releasing songs I'm less fond of because I've had a dose of what I like. But I'm curious about how long this streak is going to go
- Lee Jiham (A.C.E): MY DUDE FROM BUILD UP IS DEBUTING AS A SOLOIST!
- Woodz: Another one that has some songs I'd love to tattoo on my brain
- Forestella: The bass is back, the group is complete, and their voices give me life
Music show wins time! Whoo! Korean New Year was this month, so Music Bank continues to reign supreme as the music show that everyone has the best odds of getting a win from. Girl groups took the majority of the wins here, and all the groups were fourth gen or younger (ask me later about my opinions on fifth gen).
And now, it's time for my favorite time of the month! My favorite new releases! There are so many!
Top Releases of the Month:
- ATEEZ "Adrenaline": Multiple members get to use lower notes. It's almost four minutes long. There is a dance break. This is a full war anthem that they gave us.
- ZEROBASEONE "LOVEPOCALYPSE": This is the end of an era for ZEROBASEONE. While I'm glad that they decided to make the change from temporary project group to full-fledged permanent group, I'm sad about the members who left.
- NAVILLERA "NO LIMIT": This was a surprisingly solid debut for a group that reminds me of some very solid seniors in the industry. But! It also includes an EDM dance break!
- NOWZ "HOOKED": Their first English track! It's also an incredibly bright festival song, and I love that I've gotten such a good run of songs from them that I like.
- Monsta X "growing pains": This is such a soft song. It's so soft and lovely with a lovely, soft music video.
- Yang Yoseob (Highlight/Beast) "Fade Away": I'm so in love with his vibrato in this song, it's not even funny.
- Lee Jiham (A.C.E) "Too Late": It has been so long since I've heard a male soloist properly wail like that in a song that even if the rest of the song wasn't great and vocally incredibly, this would have been included solely for that reason.
- TVXQ! "IDENTITY" {Japanese}: I almost feel like I like their Japanese releases better than their Korean ones, and I'm not the only one considering how big they are in Japan. But this is jazzy goodness with enough vibrato to shake a cat at.
- Sungmin (Super Junior) "Godsaeng": I've decided I really like trot, and he's got such a good voice. I can see why he debuted in Super Junior.
- Woodz (UNIQ/X1) "CINEMA": This song is the sister to Drowning and I'm so here for this, it's not even funny.
- Minhyun (NU'EST/Wanna One) "Truth": Minhyun's first release post-military! He's got such a lullaby voice, and it's so lovely to hear again.
- WJSN "Bloom hour": It's a tenth anniversary song and I absolutely adore the music video.
- QQQ (OnlyOneOf) "UNCOOL": The music video is what tipped this over into this list. The song itself is pretty good but that music video has metaphors and story and so many awesome pieces to it.
- Daily:Direction "ROOMBADOOMBA": I'm going to be completely honest. The only reason it's included here is because of the music video. I still have no idea what's going on with it. My best friend doesn't know what to do with it. But despite that, that music video is a great time. 10/10 recommend
- ASC2NT "Still Rose": This is a gorgeous song. It's gorgeous and beautiful and just about everything I want from this group. And the music video? Using the rose petals to look like confetti?
- Jiwoo (KARD) "Home Sweet Home": Oof. This was a hard hitter for me to be reviewing at the tail end of the month. For a solo debut, this was incredibly bold of her.
Full list of February reviews: here
Reviews for other months:
- ALL(H)OURS "My Spring, My Light, My Breath" {Pre-Release} (January 2026)
- Lee Hyori (Fin.K.L) "My Heart, Like Ice, Hardened" (January 2026)
- Lee Jiham (A.C.E) "Forever Mine" {Pre-Debut} (January 2026)
- i-dle "Mono" (January 2026)
We had additions to the Greatest Hits list and the Battle of the B-Sides list! But! First of all, I spent much of Seollal when I could have been working on reviews instead going back through the entirety of the 60+ posts I have and adding in links to each post so that you can start at one end or the other or in the middle and read those posts in the order I wrote and posted them. On both of their respective hub pages, they're in order by artist. If you wanted to be able to go through all of the songs in order, settle in with a nice cup of tea to read the post and watch the videos, you now can.
The other thing I did was I went back through some of the earlier posts and put over twenty of them through some remodeling, some of which was quite extensive. I spent probably a day and a half of my free-time updating and expanding Hush specifically, for instance.
But that means you've got the easy part now! All you have to do is follow one link after the other.
So, there were three Greatest Hits I got through. First, a submission from someone who attended the Las Vegas concert: Taemin (SHINee) "Advice". Second gen soloist from a group known as the Princes of K-Pop, and while this isn't my favorite of his solo songs, it is probably in my top three and I enjoyed the slight indulgence of getting to show off how amazing of an artist he is (either his music video reaction with Minho or the recording behind would have been enough to confirm that if I didn't have other video evidence of it from other moments of his long career). The second one was Brave Girls "Rollin'". I had a lot of fun with this song, hunting down various stages, getting to watch the music video, finding a bunch of the military performances. I wish I could write something as incredible as the story of this song. And lastly, H.U.B "Girl Gang", a girl group that lasted barely two years before disbanding and had such a small company that they choreographed the song themselves and supposedly wrote it as well.
On the Battle of the B-Sides part, we had four posts! First up, we have a song that I'd actually had sitting in my drafts as a song I wanted to cover, but decided that now was a good time: Country Kkokko "Copacabana". This duo debuted two days after Seonghwa from ATEEZ was born, solidly marking them as late first gen artists, and while the post itself is short, this song is packed full of dramatic flair that I wish I could see performed live. The next one, AKMU "Whale", was a submission from The Form that has been sitting in my submissions list for a while, but I really wanted it to posted in a good spot and I felt that the contrast between this and Copacabana was the right contrast to highlight how beautiful of a song this is. The next one was a suggestion from my Stay Friend, whom you've heard me mention regularly on here, and it was Moonbin & Sanha (ASTRO) "Ghost Town". It's a lovely song that I found some great fancams for, and the contrast in some of those stages styling-wise is phenomenal. The last one was ONEWE "AuRoRa", a submission on The Form. Evidently, this song is beloved by the fans and given how amazing this is, I can see why. The band is very talented, and it's just a really good song. Seriously. It's so good.
If you've got a song you'd like me to cover, either as a regular review or one of the Greatest Hits or Battle of the B-Sides posts, feel free to leave a comment or you can submit it to The Form. I love submissions, even if it takes me a while to get to them because I wait for the right spot for them, unless you give me a specific day you'd like it posted.
Happy Seollal, everyone!
Honorable Mentions:
- TVXQ! "Rising Sun": This is the month of the second gen kpop for me apparently. There aren't many songs more iconic than this one, but it deserves that.
- SHINee "Sherlock (Clue + Note)": The choreography for this song is only one of the deeply impressive things about it. It's such a good song.
- BTS "Moon": I'm going to guess that this song has a good chance in being in my list of songs I was listening to this year.
- 2PM "Heartbeat": If you're unfamiliar with these guys, they're GOT7's just as loud and chaotic elder brothers. This one makes me think of Changbin every time I hear it.
- BSS (Seventeen) "Happy Alone": This entire little single is amazing.
- Kassy "Aching" {OST}: I don't often have OSTs on here, but this one is for Alchemy of Souls and one of the reasons why you are reading these words right now.
- Girls' Generation "The Boys": This rounds out the Big 3 second gen dominance I had going on this month (just missing something from YGE). Big song. Big vocals. Strong choreography.
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