Song Review:: Ilhoon (BTOB): Merry go round

-

  • Release date: 2026 March 26
  • Album tracklist: Merry go round (feat. meenoi), Merry go round (Instrumental)
  • Album runtime: 6 minutes

 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, this song is soothing enough that I kind of want to go to sleep. I don't know how he manages it. The contrast between him and meenoi is lovely, especially when they're singing together. It creates such a nice contrast for their little duet.

Oh, my gosh, it's a cute little love song! The video is just a visualizer, but it's very cute and chill.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The World of K-Pop in 2025

-
Image
 Come one, come all to the 2025 recap from your 15th favorite Fangirl! We had a lot of very fun and special moments throughout the year and some absolutely killer albums dropped. This is going to be a beast of a post, so please buckle up. I will attempt to be entertaining, but that means there may be puns and quips involved. I'm also going to scatter random stages from this year throughout the post, just to break things up, and so you can have some music, although I did include that big playlist that I was forming throughout the year. I also included the pet tax, because I talk about them often across all sorts of posts, so you can look forward to that.  Here's your first brain break! Make sure that you've got something to drink! Reading is thirsty work! I'm going to break this up into sections so you can Ctrl+F your way through to each section depending on your interests and how much time you have. And I'll give you a table of contents, because I love table of cont...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: VIXX: VOODOO DOLL

-
Image
 This comes from my submission form, and it's the first one I'm doing from there! Whoo! I was going to put this off a little because I just did a 2012 debut for a Battle of the B-Sides post, but oh, well! I have a feeling that this one isn't like that song either, so I'm less worried about doing too much of the same. Variety, yes, but I can do what I want and the few songs I've already heard of theirs ( Chained Up is in many of my playlists) I've liked already. How much of that is because I know they're in the 2012 debut club, which automatically enters them into my category of groups I look upon favorably, I don't know. But I do know that even without that, what I've heard is very good. I've also heard some interesting and hilarious things about the group, and am curious to know if they're true or not. But! This submission came with the note that the submitter was pretty sure this song was VIXX's first win and that was why it was being ...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: IVE: Love Dive

-
Image
 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...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: xikers: Rockstar

-
Image
 I've done a good batch of submissions. I've done my remodeling on the older posts. And now I'm ready for some energy. Not that the previous one didn't have energy, but this is full youthful energy rather than melancholic energy. This group also has the distinction of being my first baby group and my first K-Pop concert because I decided to go on a total whim and have an adventure for my birthday since they were performing near then. My cousin and I were concerned that we were going to get stuck in San Francisco but it was fine! Also, remember how at some point I said that the first five groups I got into were all March debuts (the first three K-Pop groups I saw were also all March debuts...I don't know why either)? These guys were number three behind NU'EST and BTOB, even though I saw NINE.i perform first (also a March debut for anyone keeping track). And because the end of the month (with their debut) is going to be taken up by a different group's annivers...
Read more

Song Review:: NEXZ: Beat-Boxer- Beat-Boxer

-
Image
Release date: 2025 October 27 Album tracklist: Legacy, Beat-Boxer , I'm Him , Co-Star, Next To Me Album runtime: 14 minutes  Okay, time for the title track. I'm looking at the title runtime and just being a little disappointed in it, although there is a song that's over three minutes so after I write this, I'm going to be taking a look at that one in hope that one specifically is really good. Not that I'm not also hoping to really like Beat-Boxer, but it's the length, you know? This is a surprisingly sparce instrumental for a lot of the song. It's got moments where it gets a bit more energetic and full, but for the most part, it's at most a quiet beat behind the vocals, which is a lot of rapping. There are also some interesting science fiction warbles and what sounds faintly like alarm sirens. It's an interesting combination, I'm not going to lie, but at the same time, as much as this would probably make a great workout song (ignoring the title f...
Read more

Song Review:: ITZY: TUNNEL VISION- TUNNEL VISION

-
Image
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...
Read more

Greatest Hits:: TraxX: Oh! My Goddess

-
Image
 Yes, this is the name that the group turned into, but when the song was released, they were just going by "TRAX", which is how I'm going to refer to them throughout this post. The only reason I know that this band exists is because of the band 20th Century Boys, because one of them  started out as a member of TRAX. So this is going to be interesting because I haven't heard of any of their songs. Got this suggestion from someone sending me a message on Tumblr, which was a delight because the band is older than almost every new idol that has debuted in the last two years. Not all of them, but most of them, and it makes me happy to run into a fan of an older group and also for introducing me and a lot of other people to this band. I am very much looking forward to this. So TRAX is a band that debuted under SM back in 2004, and they've had a bit of a tumultuous history. This song is the title track of their second mini album after they went down to two. Released in 2...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides:: LE SSERAFIM- Impurities

-
Image
 Well, well. Considering what time of year this is (less than a week before Halloween), I was looking through my To Do playlist, looking for something a little spooky, and while this isn't my favorite song from the album, I did recognize the album artwork and took a listen out of curiosity. It was not a suggestion on The Form , which is fine, but it was a message on Tumblr. So, as soon as this is finished, I'll be forwarding that to you. I hope you enjoy it! Impurities  is the third track on their second mini album, released in October of 2022. So, hilariously, that's actually suitable for this as well. It's a really long list of people given writing credit, so I'll worry about them in a moment, but who is recognized as the producer is really interesting: 13. 13 is a producer team comprised of Score (who spent a lot of time at SM for Taemin and Jonghyun, but also for LE SSERAFIM in general), Megatone (also quite a bit of time with Score for SM, Block B, and also LE ...
Read more

Korea Grand Music Awards 2025: Day 2

-
Image
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...
Read more

Song Review:: Cravity: Dare to Crave:Epilogue- Lemonade Fever

-
Image
Release date: 2025 November 10 Album tracklist: Lemonade Fever;  OXYGEN; Everyday;  On My Way; SWISH;  SET NET GO?! ; Rendez-vous; PARANOIA; Straight Up To Heaven (Sung by Jungmo, Woobin, Seungmin); Stadium (Sung by Allen, Wonjin, Hyeongjun); Marionette (Sung by Serim, Minhee, Taeyoung); Underdog; Click, Flash, Pow; Love Me Again; Wish Upon A Star Album runtime: 45 minutes   Okay, Cravity. Let’s see what you have for us this time. The album is just shy of a three-minute average, and would actually have been achieved if this song had been three minutes long. Interestingly, I've done reviews for at least a couple of the songs on the album, so when I finish this up by putting in all of the above information that you’ve already seen because I have it first even if I write it last, I’ll have to compare album tracklists. We’ve also got some partial unit songs. I’m not going to call them official units, because I don’t know if they are or not, but it’s nice to see them spli...
Read more