Music Reviews

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March 2026 Wrap-Up: Time is a Soup

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 So I'm awake at 1 am for literally zero reason. And while I could continue to write the reviews to be posted tomorrow, instead I'm going to get this started because as we know, these can take a minute. You know? You know. I'm going to add some plant pictures at the bottom after the section where I talk about what I was listening to. I covered three group debuts this month: TUNEXX , SUCTION , V01D ! I also covered two solo debuts: Yuna from ITZY and Kangmin from Verivery. Those links all go to my reviews. There were two virtual idol groups that debuted that I did not cover: Skinz and Owis . Songs I was looking forward to: BTOB: They turned fourteen this year, and the gift we got was a digital single from the six of them. They're always a good time, vocally. EVERGLOW: You know, I've been listening to them more. I'm curious. And, they recently left their old company, so I'm hoping they continue on well and get recognition Woodz: He's got an amazing voic...
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Battle of the B-Sides:: Stray Kids: Pacemaker

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 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...
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Song Review:: BTS: ARIRANG- SWIM

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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...
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Music Show Wins:: Week of 03/25 - 03/31

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  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,...
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Song Review:: Kangmin (Verivery): Free Falling- Free Falling {Debut}

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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...
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Song Review:: SF9: About Love- Love Comes Slowly

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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...
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Song Review:: T.O.P (BIGBANG): TOP SPOT - ANOTHER DIMENSION- DESPERADO

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Release date: 2026 April 03 Album track list: SELF CRUCIFIXION; THE GIANT; Studio54 ; A SMALL, FILTHY SHOW WINDOW; ZERO-COKE; Another Dimension Holy Dude!!!!!!!!; SEOUL CHAOS; DESPERADO ; FOR FANS; STENDHAL SYNDROME; BE SOLID Album runtime: 37 mi nutes  There isn't a single song on here that is under three minutes. I love him. He can stay attached to the group. The other one who is no longer in the group, if he ever decides to make music again, will not, because I continue to follow the leader's cues, much like I do with BTOB. And G-Dragon seems to be deliberate in his actions. So, welcome back, T.O.P. I'm very happy to be here to review this song, even though we all know I am not the biggest fan of rap. This is a very slow, weighty instrumental with a western guitar going on (and by that I mean country western specifically). We've also going some coin sound effects but largely this is such an unhurried instrumental that even though we do later get some higher, faster b...
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Song Review:: Kep1er: CRACK CODE- KILLA (Face the other me)

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Release date: 2026 March 31 Album track list: I am Kep1, KILLA (Face the other me) , MIC CHECK, Lowkey, Addicted 2 Ya Album runtime: 14 mi nutes  This may be their first release with the new line-up, if I remember correctly. If it isn't, ignore me. Time is a soup. I feel bad for the fans having to adjust to the new line-up, but at least they didn't disband as most other survival show groups like this have. Silver lining, I guess. Wow, that's too sad to be starting this review on that note. The title track is close enough to the three minute mark that even though the average is below three, I'm okay with it. That's an interesting start to the song. Very interesting. The dichotomy of the very low notes and the much higher pitched whistling is nice. It's got almost an industrial texture to the instrumental, but not quite fully committing to it, but we've got some very fun sound effects too. Whistling, gun shots, bells, screams. But that tempo change had my head...
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Greatest Hits:: Apink: Mr. Chu

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 I was originally planning to do something out of my 1300+ song playlist for this one, so I popped into my Junk Drawer playlist (AKA the playlist that has a lot of interesting things in it, but that I'm not quite sure where to put yet and most of which I haven't listened to) to reset that playlist. This was the song that played. I thought to myself "Huh. That would be an interesting choice next anyway, because I don't think I've heard it yet. I mostly know of this group because of Dino of Seventeen's love for them." And then I shrugged and followed my original plan. Hilariously, it gave me a Baekho song, but I can't do that one in April because it doesn't turn two until May. So then I said "Well, let's see what the Roulette Wheel I made can give me." That song was also a 2024 song by a group called APEX (I thought I'd misspelled EPEX in the Roulette master list; I did not and will be coming back to this group later) and another on...
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Song Review:: Stray Kids: STAY

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Release date: 2026 March 25 Album track list:  별, 빛 (STAY) Album runtime: 3 mi nutes  How late am I with this? I've heard bits and pieces already, but I'm excited to be stabbed in the chest with the feels from the song as a whole. This is really short because for some reason I have all the attention for writing reviews right now. Why? No idea, but I'm taking advantage. I also don't know why I'm still awake at 12:30 in the morning, but here we are.  This is actually a fairly sedate instrumental, but feistier than some of their other soft fan songs (I'm looking at you, Youtiful , the song I've only just started listening to again after it was involved in both of my car accidents). There's so much piano to this song. It's really the dominant instrument, which is surprising because it's been a minute since we've gotten a song that is so heavily piano-based. I say that, but also there's kind of a sick, almost guitar solo that lets the song kic...
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