2023 Reviews

 As things get more filled up, this page will get more filled up. But right now, this large page for one little link is because of organization and consistency.

April

20230417 NCT DoJaeJung "Perfume"

August

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Battle of the B-Sides:: BoA: Start Over

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 This one is for my personal indulgences, because I wanted something first gen and I wanted something fairly recent. So, I'm going with Queen BoA, all hail the queen. The song does turn five this year, so it's not completely recent, but she's also got her 25th anniversary this year and I'm hoping she releases something for that. She also debuted at the age of thirteen, but we're not going to talk about that because then I'll be a little too filled with The Rage on her behalf and these are supposed to be not-rage-filled moments. This song comes from BoA's tenth studio album, Better, released in 2020 to mark her twentieth anniversary. Eleven tracks, of which Start Over is the ninth, for a total of thirty-eight minutes. Produced by SM the Dude and Marcus Andersson (who has produced for LE SSERAFIM, ILLIT, Demi Levato, and VCHA, among others) and written by Lee Seu Ran (who has written for BTS, TxT, IVE, Everglow, NCT, Super Junior, and GOT7, among others), Rosi...
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Who is this Random Person Reviewing K-Pop and Why Does Her Voice Matter in the Cacophonous Discord that is the Internet?

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Greatest Hits:: SHINee: Everybody

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 Finally a moment to breathe where I can get to this one. This was suggested to me via a Reddit comment by a user who asked me if I'd do this song because I'd mentioned it in my August wrap-up in the honorable mention category. No further details were incoming, but that's okay! In this case, I didn't need any. SHINee is the oldest group I've done so far for a Greatest Hits addition, and Everybody  is also the oldest song I've done so far because it's a month older than Hush . So, reviewer hat off, and fan hat on.  Group : SHINee Debut Date : 2008 May 25 Company : SM Entertainment Status : Active Album : Everybody Song :  Everybody Release Date : 2013 October 14 My city doesn't have a ton of K-Pop things happening, so when things happen, I want to go to them, even if it's for a group I don't know well/listen to as a show of support so we can get more and hopefully for a group I listen to. In the case of SHINee, I knew An Encore , because I heard ...
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GREATEST HITS:: NU'EST W (NU'EST): HELP ME

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 Sentimentality here. The fifteenth was their anniversary, and Baekho left Pledis on the fourteenth, and I had my car accident on the thirteenth. It has been a rough few days emotionally and while I had a plan to do another group, the car accident confirmed for me that I should just do this for their anniversary, even though typing for long periods of time (such as doing this) hurts my wrist. And I picked a NU'EST W song, because the W stands for waiting, and that's what we're doing: waiting for them to come back. And I'm not masochistic enough to do Where You At , which got them their first win at all since debut, or Deja Vu , which is so beloved that it also got performed as five later. NU'EST W is the subunit formed after their appearance on Produce 101 S2 until 2019 with the return of Minhyun to the group. The album, Wake, N, hit number on the Korean charts, and this song got a win on Music Bank, which makes it the subunit's fourth win. In 2018. In December ...
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Music Show Wins:: Week of 01/15 - 01/21

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  Most of the music shows are back on, which means the live stage performances, which I love best, are back in almost full force. We get more variety again! So, this week had another triple crown, which is exciting because once again, he got it without promoting the song other than the one performance. We got two first wins for songs, which is absolutely delightful for the groups. I'm so happy for them. On After School Club, Allen and Taeyoung rejoined as MCs with Aron for WEi, a five member boy group that debuted in 2020. There are some very cute dimples going on, some excellent English skills, more going for Taeyoung's MC job here, and some throwing the other members under the bus. That's always fun to see.  As always, the links in the chart go to my reviews. Show Champion: N/A MCountdown: BOYNEXTDOOR "If I Say, I Love You" (note: this performance is from the 250109 episode) Music Bank: BSS (Seventeen) "CBZ (Prime Time)"  Show! Music Core: G-Dragon (BI...
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Music Show Wins:: Week of 04/23 - 04/29

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  I am super late with posting this, but in my defense, I GOT TO SEE 8TURN THIS WEEK AND THEY'RE AWESOME AND VERY PRETTY. And very funny. And very, very good dancers. And their vocals? Took my earplugs out a couple of times just to hear some of those notes better. Myungho has a set of pipes on him, let me tell you. Color me impressed. Anyway, we got some first song wins this week, which is delightful. There are only three groups that got wins this week, and all three of them debuted last year, funnily enough, so that's good news for the kids. I say kids. They range from roughly 23 to 14. Big spread of ages. I'm not entirely pleased with all of those ages, but regardless of that, I wish the groups' continued success as they continue to learn and grow and become better artists and hopefully well-rounded people. For the ASC performance as After School Club is still on hiatus, I just scrolled randomly and landed on Cross Gene, which was interesting because the episode was f...
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Battle of the B-Sides:: Fin.K.L: To My Boyfriend

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 Let's go back in time a little bit to May of 1998, before a lot of newer idols were born. And by newer, I mean, this song was released about two weeks before SinB of GFriend/VIVIZ was born. Fin.K.L is one of those groups which had the Korean name decided first, with the English name to follow, which is why the English meaning is a little confusing (Fin Killing Liberty). Still, they'd end up being one of the greats of the first generation of K-Pop and an act to help break ground for future girl groups and soloists to move further into various markets.  Welcome, Fin.K.L. Their name in Hangeul is the only reason I have any idea of how to pronounce their group name (핑클). This was also the group that saw the start of Lee Hyori, now an accomplished soloist in her own right, as well as Ock Joo-hyun, a celebrated musical theatre actress; Lee Jin of the drama and variety acting persuasion; and Sung Yuri of the drama and film acting persuasion. They've all done very well for themsel...
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Song Review:: Taemin (SHINee): Eternal- Sexy in the Air

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Release date: 2024 August 19 Album tracklist: G.O.A.T, Sexy in the Air , Horizon , The Unknown Sea, Crush, Deja Vu, Say Less Album runtime: 21 minutes      As the inaugural review for this new blog, I had to go with Taemin. I know this is a few weeks late, but better late than never and it's at least still in August. Hello, and welcome!      As his first album under the new company, I'm sure most fans approached it with mild or moderate hesitation.       Luckily, I don't necessarily think we need have worried too much.       The song opens with some grindy electric guitar, an element I have to admit I'm a fan of in general. It reminds me of a science fiction dystopia film at night in the rain during a chase, which is a specific image for me that isn't at odds with the music video.      The verses lose that guitar, turning into more of a generic trap sound that unfortunately loses my attention, but turns...
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Kai (EXO): Wait On Me- Walls Don't Talk {Pre-Release}

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Release date: 2025 April 21 Album tracklist: Wait On Me, Walls Don't Talk, Pressure, Ridin', Off and Away, Adult Swim, Flight to Paris Album runtime: 19 minutes  Yes, I know it's been a hot minute since this was released, but that's fine! I'm actually curious about this one. I'll get to title track, and I'll bump it up when he gets a win on a music show. In the meantime, I'm curious to see about this one. At least the run time is better on this one, but I really don't like the runtime of the album. This song is at least better. You know how when you're playing with a dog and they put teeth on you, not enough to hurt or even leave indents, but just so that you know that they have teeth and they're choosing not to use them on you? I wish this song would actually bite, not just warn. It's got obvious teeth with the instrumentals, not that it even threatens to use them, but it does have them, so I cannot be too miffed with the situation. It f...
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Greatest Hits:: MBLAQ: Stay

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 Summoned for you directly from The Form, it's ironically a song from the same album that I've already done a BBS post from. I chose to do Darling  because of the roulette wheel and shuffle, so that one's on me. But apparently someone out there in the world really likes this album to slide the title track my way as well.  So, I was technically focusing on the repackage album of this for Darling , so you get sort of new information. Released in 2011, this was their first full album. Containing a grand total of thirteen tracks and a runtime of 43 minutes, which averages out to a little more than three minutes a song, it's at a good length, even with the first track dropping the average. It did pretty well on the charts, peaking at second on the Gaon weekly chart and third on the Gaon monthly chart. No music show wins with it, but that doesn't matter because music show wins are not the final dictator of love for a song.  Flashing Lights warning for the music video. Gro...
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