Music Reviews

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Song Review:: Seventeen: SPILL THE FEELS- Eyes on You

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Release date: 2024 October 14 Album tracklist: Eyes on You,  Love, Fame, Money (feat. DJ Khalid) , 1 to 13, Candy, Rain, Water Album runtime: 18 minutes As excited as I am to see them in about two weeks, I really wish their schedule wasn't as packed as it currently is so they could give some time to their second promoted track. Well, and so they could properly promote their first  title track, but I think I've accepted that part of the unfortunate circumstance. Hopefully they get a little bit of a break at the start of the year. I don't remember if I said this on LFM's review, but I had to round out to get to the 18 minutes. Some of these songs are worryingly short. I'd really like Woozi and Bumzu to not be following that  specific trend. There's a specific b-side from NU'EST that honestly was the first thing I thought of when I first heard this song when it came out, because while this is very  reminiscent of early NU'EST,  it's actually BLACK  fro...
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Music Show Wins:: Week of 04/22 - 04/28

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  The BigHit domination continues, with the one to follow BTS being their very own little brothers. It feels a bit like they were passing on the torch, which makes me smile. There was also a Grand Slam (still have not looked that up and no one is correcting me so we're assuming that I'm correct) this week, so congrats! Surprise! We got three extra stages this time: two from Show Champion and one from Show! Music Core . Obviously because TXT won, I had to add on an ALL'N performance (please refer to last week's wins if you're unfamiliar with their adorable meet-cute in the elevator). And interestingly, that performance has a surprisingly high number of views for a freshly debuted soloist not in a decently sized company or from a group, more so than some of the other stages I shared. The other two extras I shared, because I can share what I want, were Donghae and Be Boys. (Just to make it obvious what I'm doing in case you're new here and missed the irritati...
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Song Review:: Wonpil (DAY6): Unpiltered- Highs and Lows

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Release date: 2026 March 30 Album track list: Toxic Love, Highs and Lows , Already Grown Up, Up All Night, Step by Step, Hold My Love, Piano Album runtime: 20 mi nutes  This isn't my primary streaming service, but sometimes I get a little confused about title tracks when they're in English in some plays and in Korean in other places, as is the case with this song, and Melon actually labels which song is the title track. So in the event that I do get confused, I will check Melon for confirmation that the song I think is the title track is actually the title track. It's basically the only thing I use Melon for, but I do wish more streaming services would do that. Even before I started this, I liked knowing which song I was "supposed" to listen to (and ignoring it anyway because I come from CDs and didn't understand why one song was special when the album had seven others that I loved to pieces when I was little). But can I just say how much I love that Wonpil ti...
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Song Review:: Kang Daniel (Wanna One): Mess

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Release date: 2025 April 9 Album tracklist: Mess , Mess - Instrumental Album runtime: 5 minutes  Do I have to do the title track for his new mini album? Yes. Will I get to it soon? Yes, because Episode  has been getting wins on music shows! Yay! I'm slowly getting my backlog worked on, and I wanted to do this one. However, I'm deeply disappointed by the runtime. I mean, look at that. But this is Kang Daniel, and I've come to realize how good his voice is.  There's something very old about the instrumental track. I can't decide if it's the plink of the high notes on the piano or if it's from the slightly staticky overlay to most of the song, or maybe it's both, as both of those elements are found in music from the thirties. Although, to be fair, the one isn't necessarily on purpose but rather from the degradation of the recordings. The rest of the instrumentals aren't from the thirties. We've got the underwater echo that I love so much, but it...
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Battle of the B-Sides:: MAMAMOO: Destiny

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 I went back to the roulette wheel for this one because I figure that I can stray again from what I'm familiar with, and instead it gave me the first song I started listening to by MAMAMOO and the reason I continued listening to them. 6000 songs, at least a third of which I've never heard before. And yet, ironically, it's a song called "Destiny" that chaos decided for me. What's even funnier about this is the last song I did was by their younger brothers, who debuted the year this came out. Ah, I'm excited for you to hear this one if you haven't already. MAMAMOO is a four member girl group that debuted in 2014 under RBW. They're known for industry defying behavior (especially when told not to do something), insane vocals, and a level of chaos that has caused them to be called the female BTOB (and BTOB gets called the male MAMAMOO, which is accurate and funny). Also, Changsub and Solar are besties and she's about two days older. Or a day older. ...
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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:: MODYSSEY: 1.Got Hooked : An Addictive Symphony- HOOK {Debut}

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Release date: 2026 April 13 Album tracklist: HOOK , REVENANT, HOOK Chinese ver., HOOK Inst. Album runtime: 12 minutes  MY OTHER BOY STORY BOY GOT TO DEBUT THIS TIME! YOU GO, LI ZIHAO! Sorry for the capitals. Ahem. Let me try that again. MODYSSEY is the boy group consisting of the Planet C members from Boys Planet 2, the paired group to Alpha Drive One. As should have happened originally, but I digress. Our maknae turned 20 this year, so we're completely fine on that end, and I'm actually really pleased about this line-up. A lot of the ones I wanted that shot at debuting managed to this time around. And, very cool for them, Stray Kids's 3Racha wrote the this song, so I'm anticipating this to sound a lot like a Stray Kids song. And it turns out that Li Zihao, who is at JYP with Stray Kids and 3Racha while in Boy Story, said that this was intended to be a Stray Kids song, according to I.N. If there were a Stray Kids instrumental that this was going to sound like, it would ...
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Song Review:: Wooseok (PENTAGON): ROMANCE

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Release date: 2025 February 10 Album track list:  ROMANCE Album runtime: 3 mi nutes  The PENTAGON maknae has dropped his first solo music of the year! Whoo! I'm curious about when he's going to release a mini album, because so far I think he's only released singles, but that's still okay. My volume was up much too high for this song. Rock. Okay. Heavy electric guitar and drums here. There are moments where the instrumentals back off, which allows the lyrics to seem a lot softer, which shows that this is actually a really good show of technical skill, so kudos to the writers. But, otherwise, a solid entry into the genre. His voice suits this genre astonishingly well. Put this man in a rock band pronto. That's it. That's all I've got. I'm kind of half in love with his voice now, so this is something that I have to process. Normally, because he doesn't have a very strong variation going on in this song, though there are bursts of power, I'd be whini...
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Song Review:: Wheein: adagio- The Symphony of Fxxkboys

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Release date: 2026 April 16 Album tracklist: The Symphony of Fxxkboys , Truth Hurts  Album runtime: 6 minutes  I think she was the last one to release a solo song (I'll get to Solar's, I promise) leading up to their twelfth anniversary, which is so impressive. And I know I don't talk about her quite as much as I do Moonbyul and Hwasa, but I still love her voice and I think she's so pretty. And she's also really funny. Whole package. And the title of this song sends me back to high school, which was the last time I had to deal with any of them. Ooh, she's giving us a bit of a rock song. Having that during the chorus is a good choice because it helps strengthen the vocal build, but then during the build where it's just a piano, then slamming into the rock again changes the mood of the song from just being pissed to more of a declaration. I also love how the rock has an interrupted rhythm because it strengthens the power of the vocal punch. And you have all of ...
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Song Review:: Daesung (BIGBANG): Falling Slowly

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  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...
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