Music Reviews

 Welcome to the Hub Page for the Reviews! 

To the left, you can find reviews from the past. To the right, you may find the current year's reviews.






PREVIOUS                                                      CURRENT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

October 2025 Wrap-Up: A New Nightmare

Image
 What is up! I completely spaced out needing to do this, and time both has no meaning and is soup. Little nerdy D&D reference there for you. Warm you up for the fun times. So, first up, as always, we have the lovely debuts. I covered none of them, and I feel bad about that. So I'll probably snag one or two and do a later review for them. Still, even without that, I'm still going to hand them over to you lovely readers so that you can take a listen and decide if you like any of them. BE:MIN , the subunit of the boy group XEED, now called XD. LUVITA , virtual girl group made up of V-Tuber. Global girl group NWH:I . Girl group ARVVY (who debuted with everyone over twenty, by the way). Girl group E11iVYN (which is only a four-member group, and you pronounce that as "eleven"). &TEAM had their Korean debut (with three accompanying music show wins, and now they have their very own younger brother group, aoen who is going to get a review from me in a couple of days...
Read more

September 2025 Wrap-Up: School's Back From Summer

Image
 Hello, everyone! At some point, I'm going to feel confident enough in my Korean skills to have part of this in Korean, but today and this month is not that point.  So the fabulous, amazing debuts for the month. The ones I covered were AxMxP and IDID for the groups, CxM for the Seventeen subunit, and soloists Haechan of NCT , Jinny of Secret Number , Junhee of A.C.E , and Nana of After School . The only group I didn't cover was DNA , which is a co-ed group. Songs I was looking forward to: CxM- You mean my Seventeen bias is debuting in an official subunit? You're expecting me not to be excited about this? Junhee- I've been looking forward to his solo debut since he dropped the Your Idol cover.  Woodz- First release post-military service I've covered because I was very lazy over the summer? Yes, please. izna- These are my girls, y'all. Strong rappers. Vocals that are consistently supported. Exactly what I'm always looking for. Catch the Young- Y'all, I ...
Read more

Song Review:: Chanyeol (EXO): Upside Down - Happy Accident {Pre-Release}

Image
Release date: 2025 August 25 Album tracklist: Upside Down , Back & Forth, Ocean Drive, High & Dry, Happy Accident (feat. Sole) , 123 Dance  Album runtime: 18 minutes  Yes, the album is already out, but I wanted to get to this one first because if he gets a win for the album, a win on this one will likely come first. Also, I thought the present he got from Kai, I think, was so sweet. I love that. Wholesome support from the members. Ooh, that's some smooth and swanky R&B. That's actually really nice. It's slow and mellow, but it's not flimsy. The beat is really pronounced, though unhurried. This is an early Sunday morning kind of song, or perhaps a Tuesday night kind of song. Slow dancing in the kitchen to a song only the two of you can hear. Domestic and comfortable, but at the same time the amount of sheer, undiluted love wafting off this moment could probably power the room.  Chanyeol has such a good voice. I mean, the entire group is incredibly skilled and...
Read more

Song Review:: Yesung (Super Junior): It's Complicated- It's Complicated

Image
  Release date: 2024 November 05 Album tracklist: It's Complicated , There She Goes Again, Easy, Beautiful Paradox, Curtain Album runtime: 16 minutes  So, I find it kind of cute, actually, that Yesung had a comeback on their 19th anniversary. Happy 19th! Happy 6th Mini Album! And the average song length is more than three minutes. This is the second ballad-esque release from a soloist in a group today, but the two are not the same. There's a sense of showy drama to this one that also takes advantage of my exhaustion and lulls me into wanting to sleep to it, despite the fierce energy that is pulsing even from the start of the song. How does that work? Not a clue. But it's weirdly soothing.  Not a huge fan of his tone at the beginning of the song, even though he reminds me of a lower version of Taemin (and also a little bit of JYP the dude), but when he lets his voice loose, it clarifies into something amazing. I don't care how many voices I hear for these. I'm still ...
Read more

Song Review:: Solar (MAMAMOO): Solar Gamsung Part 8.- First Love

Image
Release date: 2024 October 29 Album tracklist: First Love , Love Letter Album runtime: 7 minutes  Solar, the queen you are. The word 감성 in Korean apparently translates to "sensitivity", and I'd be willing to bet that because she has eight of these now, she uses them to release songs she wants to do, instead of ones that match the concept or whatever of the albums. And if the two songs on this one are any indication, she may use them to do her ballads that require no choreography. It doesn't go quite as hard as a Phil Collins song, but this is a full 80s soft rock ballad. This is a slow dance at prom song. This is also an ending credits song for a Disney movie. If this was a Western song, this would be a waving lighter song. You could use the phone flashlight, but realistically, this song vibes with a lighter being used instead. It's the flickering vibe.  Her voice is so unbelievably gorgeous. Even though she keeps the tone of her voice so soft, she doesn't kee...
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

Korea Grand Music Awards 2025: Day 1

Image
 Given my disposition, I'm sure you're already expecting me to ramble a bit here at the beginning to introduce everything and then get out of the way so you can get to what you and I both know is what you're interested in. I'm not going to. Instead, my thoughts will go down at the bottom, which you can read at your leisure after watching all the performances and then seeing the winners. See you then! performances ALLDAY PROJECT ATEEZ (HALA HALA (Hearts Awakened, Live Alive + Wonderland + The Real + BOUNCY (K-HOT CHILLI PEPPERS) + Phantom + In Your Fantasy ) BOYNEXTDOOR ( IF I SAY, I LOVE YOU + I FEEL GOOD + Hollywood Action ) THE BOYZ ( Stylish + You and I) CRAVITY (SWISH + Lemonade Fever ) FIFTY FIFTY (Pookie + Eeny Meeny Miny Moe ) INI (DOMINANCE (Korean Ver.)) KiiiKiii ( I DO ME (KGMA Ver.) Lee Chanwon (I Told You + Maybe Today ) MEOVV (BODY + BURNING UP + HANDS UP ) Park Seo Jin (Clown) Woodz ( Drowning + I'll Never Love Again ) Xdinary Heroes (ICU) xikers...
Read more

Halloween Spookening: 2025 Edition

Image
 It's the most wonderful time of the year!  I'm back with a new selection of Halloween themed or generally spooky songs for you all! Have I spent the year looking for new songs for my playlist? Yes. Yes, yes I have, so if you have anymore suggestions for me, give me the creepy doll songs, the predatory wolfy songs, the haunting and the eerie. I love my Halloween playlist and I listen to it all year long, but October is the official start of when I don't get weird looks from people for listening to it. I am so excited. I get to pull out my Halloween nail polish and the glow in the dark stickers. It's a good time to be me, and also hopefully you as well. So the Halloween recs for you for the year 2025 are: Welcome To The Other Side by DPR Ian (C-Clown) Yes, he's Australian, but he was in the K-Pop group C-Clown, which is one of my beloved 2012s, so I'm counting him. Also, this song is super spooky with dramatic strings at the beginning and artistically applied au...
Read more

Song Review:: Daesung (BIGBANG): Falling Slowly

Image
  Release date: 2024 March 05 Album tracklist: Falling Slowly , Light Album runtime: 7 minutes Ah, a proper song length. I'm writing this before the frantic rush of the next few days in terms of releases, because competition there will be fierce. And also to start to pad out the March releases because somebody had to get a win on a music show months later. I joke. I'm actually very happy for them. And I picked this one because I scrolled randomly, and his was the one my cursor was on when I stopped. I feel like Daesung needs very little introduction. He is the maknae of BIGBANG after all.  The instrumentals for this song are absolutely gorgeous with a lovely acoustic guitar that gets to spend time at the front of the song, before it hands over the reigns to an electric for very strategic sections. But seriously, that beginning is one of the most soothing things. There's a sense of the bittersweet to it, because at no point is there a strong bass driving the song, and the ho...
Read more

Battle of the B-Sides: LABOUM: 빛이 되어쥐 (Be the Light)

Image
 Unless I do The Roulette Wheel, I obviously can pick which of the suggestions I've gotten that I'll write posts for. I also have a spreadsheet where I have my posts organized by generation and boy group, girl group, and co-ed. The co-ed groups definitely need more attention, but I'm taking these last few Specialty posts to focus on the girl groups because they're not my natural inclination, and while the Roulette Wheel is weighted equally, I don't like that it's uneven. So, I ignored my normal addition of the B/G/Co-Ed Wheel spin and just did it for a girl group, and I ended up with LABOUM. I'm not sure I've heard of them, so this will be exciting.  LABOUM is a third gen girl group that are younger sisters to U-KISS and Brown Eyed Girls, which is wildly hilarious considering the last GH post I did was in fact for BEG's song Abracadabra . So, that was unintended. 빛이 되어쥐 , or Be the Light  as I will be calling it through this because while it would be...
Read more