Music Reviews

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The World of K-Pop in 2025

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 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...
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Greatest Hits:: VIXX: VOODOO DOLL

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 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 ...
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Battle of the B-Sides:: ONEWE: AuRoRa

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 Submission! Submission! Submission! Whoo! I thought this might be a good spot for this, so thank you for your patience! And when I'm finished with this, I'll head over to Threads and send it your way since you wonderfully left a username for me to deliver it to. I actually like ONEWE. And it's funny, after the administrative work and remodeling I did (some of it quite extensive) on almost all of these posts, I'm looking for something that hits my brain to do after this one (since I'd done some planning before I decided I temporarily hated myself). So I'm just listening to my playlists. And other people's playlists. And watching videos on YouTube looking for a sparked song. But I had another ONEWE song come up that caught my attention, and then I remembered that that would be after this one, so I couldn't. As of writing this paragraph, I'm still looking. But I just thought that was kind of funny. ONEWE is a five-member band currently under RBW that r...
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Battle of the B-Sides:: xikers: Rockstar

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 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...
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Song Review:: AM8IC: LUKOIE- Link Up {Debut}

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Release date: 2025 November 10 Album tracklist: Paracosm, Link Up , Escher, Buzzin' , LUKOIE, Black Moon Album runtime: 15 minutes   There are two pre-debut songs I have to cover, because with The Show vanishing and ASC being canceled, the rookies and the smaller groups need more active attention than ever if they want to have a shot at surviving. If they’re good, I want to help introduce more people to them. The whole lot of them are twenty-one or older, which is great. All of them are also Chinese, which is kind of cool. One of them is a Carat, so I automatically like him. Fingers crossed. I did get up early to vote on The Show and heard them perform. Live vocals, which was good. Supported some of my grumping, which is less good. And now that I’m awake again (for good this time, and properly awake), I don’t remember what they sounded like other than some breathing in the mics. That’s no shade to them; I fell back asleep after my alarm and the only reason that I woke up to even...
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Song Review:: EPITHYMiA: UP- Turn Up {Japanese}

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Release date: 2025 March 15 Album tracklist:  Climb Up , Turn Up, Climb Up - Instrumental ver., Turn Up - Instrumental ver. Album runtime: 14 minutes  Okay! This is going to sound a bit convoluted. They have an album coming out in December. That album will have all of their songs they've released since debut. This one came from their one-year-anniversary single released back in March,  and now has both an English version and this music video. I don't actually know which one was the title track. I'm assuming the other one because it has slightly more streams on Spotify? But I did really like the first song I reviewed for them ( found here ), and I'm bound and determined to shout about them from the rooftops. I think you may be confused as to why I'm suddenly reviewing, and championing if I'm being honest, a J-Pop group because I've been trying to keep this mostly Korean for my own sanity. That's fair. I also am a little baffled, and yet, here I am with t...
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Greatest Hits:: TraxX: Oh! My Goddess

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 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...
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Battle of the B-Sides:: NewJeans: Super Shy

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 Before anyone comes at me with pitchforks and torches and chases me up a rickety windmill before setting fire to it for me to dramatically fall in a blaze of heartrending glory (I've been thinking a lot about the end of Frankenstein 1932 if you cannot tell), I'm labeling this as a b-side because it was a pre-release of an album, not the actual title track. You may also be wondering why, at this point in the year, I'm covering a NewJeans song when according to my own rules, I won't listen to groups if they had too many members debut underage or if they had members debut too young, both of which actually still apply to this group for a few more months but will soon be removed from the U.P list so that I can actually dig into their discography. To which I say, Underage Protocol does not apply to the Greatest Hits or the Battle of the B-Sides. If you're also curious about the timing, it has been almost two years, two very long, stressful years. No matter what I or any...
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Battle of the B-Sides:: KOYOTE: 웃자 (Let's Laugh)

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 Okay, so, Koyote is a co-ed group that originally debuted in 1998, and since has had line-up changes like they're one of the Doctors. The current line-up is Kim Jongim, Shinji, and Bbaekga. Also, I just learned that they did a Killing Voice a year and a half ago (2023) so I recommend you all go check that out. They're there to have fun, and also sing. First gen idols are just built different, you guys. Also also, if you look into their history, there's a really good reason for all the line-up changes. It's a miracle the group has made it this long, even with these members, because it has just been one thing after another, so I'm really happy that we have a current line-up that is stable, long-lasting, and a lot less problematic. And I know I said on the review for Four Seasons  that I'd be doing a GH post for this group, and I still intend to do so (so let me know if there's a title track you really like), but I'm doing one of these instead. 웃자 comes f...
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Music Show Wins:: Week of 03/26 - 04/01

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  Another Triple Crown can go on the books! I want to confirm who won on The Show  before I add that on here. We've got a first win for a song here, as well as some familiar faces. As I said last week, After School Club would be going on hiatus at the end of its twelve-year first season, which means I have a lot of groups and a lot of performances to be able to look back on and share with you all. So I decided to go back to episode 410 and Weki Meki. The MCs were Jimin (Jamie Park of 15&), Heejun (of American Idol and K-Pop Star fame), and Yuri (of JxR and of almost NCT).It happened to be Yuri's first time as MC on ASC, and we also got a proto-MC Challenge with one of the members of Weki Meki teaching Yuri the point dance for Dazzle Dazzle. I also shared with you their sped up dance they did for that episode of ASC. I've got a special fondness for dances at 2x speed. Show Champion: NMIXX "Know About Me" MCountdown: Jennie (BLACKPINK) "Like Jennie" Mu...
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