Just A Little Fangirl Love

Release date: 2026 September 30 Album tracklist: Pulse, LOUDER , Lucky Charm, LOVE ME, Seize The Night, Fantasy, Odd One Out Album runtime: 20  minutes  I feel really bad for the groups that debuted either right before or during the Covid shutdown. They've had an uphill battle from the start, even more so than the normal uphill battle every group has. I wish Cravity could get more attention because they turn seven next year. The start of this instrumental immediately reminded of The Avengers (the theme song from the movie), and then it went a little bit harder and grindier than the start of the song implies. It's appropriately titled because this is a loud instrumental and rather metallic in places. This will make a great workout song, but I think it's a bit too much for me right now. The stages of this song are probably great though. We've got an excellent range of the voices in this song. A lot of the singing is quite high, and then there's the much lower, more s...

Release date: 2026 April 29 Album tracklist: Hello-Goodbye; AWAKE ; FEVER; Adore; Love Me Like You Do; Spring, with You Album runtime: 18 minutes      Okay, this is the last of the new songs I downloaded for the productive captivity I’m in on the plane. After that, it’s time to head over to the BBS post that I’ve already started, thank goodness, and start yapping about that. I’m not what it is about this song that makes me think of cold and ice, but I’m picking up on a very particular coolness to the song. There’s a range in the pitches and tones of the instruments we’re hearing, from the low buzz that make for an almost EDM nightclub situation to a skittering beat. The song also uses the stereo system well, though it’s subtle enough that I didn’t catch it until after my half hour nap and I let everything get a bit of a recharge on my end. I feel like this may be a yearning and pining song, which I cannot tell you how much I am here for it. Maybe more yearning than pinin...

  So many first wins for songs, and, I think we may have a first win for a group? I think so? If that's the case, then an even bigger congrats!  I miss back when After School Club was active (yes, I'm still in denial) because then I didn't have to pick an artist. And then I didn't miss seeing those three every week. It was nice getting to see what Aron is up to. Sigh. Don't let my melancholy stop you from enjoying Ep. 576 from back in 2023, featuring ATBO, though! For The Show, I went with Cravity (and it was actually my first time hearing that song; whoever is doing the ad-libs there at the end, yowza) in 2020. I grabbed three extra stages for y'all this week. First up, I went with 82MAJOR, then ILLIT, then Xnghan&Xoul, so I hope you enjoy those as much as I did.  As always, any links in the spreadsheet go to my reviews, and then down with the ASC episode, that link goes to the entire episode, which gets a bit wonky when I try to embed it, so I don't tr...

 So, as with the other award show posts, my comments will be found down below, after the performances and the winners. I know. It's me, and I like to ramble, but for these, I'm giving you the stuff you're more likely to be interested in first, and then if you want my rambles, they're at the bottom.  Anyway, enjoy the performances and congrats to the winners! I'm only listing the music related winners, with two exceptions. performances AHOF ( Rendezvous ) ALLDAY PROJECT ( FAMOUS + ONE MORE TIME ) ASH ISLAND (Don't go + OST) ATEEZ (Man on Fire + Dance Break + In Your Fantasy ) Cortis ( GO! + What You Want ) Cravity (Intro + Lemonade Fever ) IVE ( XOXZ + ATTTUDE + 삐빅 (♥beats) + REBEL HEART ) JJ Lin (Bedroom + 修煉愛情+背對背擁抱 (with WOODZ)) KickFlip (Intro (특이점) + My First Love Song ) KiiiKiii (Intro + I DO ME ) Kiss of Life (Maestro of My Heart + Lucky ) Leejunyoung (BOUNCE + BACK) LE SSERAFIM (Born Fire + Ash + HOT ) MEOVV ( BURNING UP + HANDS UP ) Monsta X (Tress...

  Okay, first up. We got another Triple Crown, and this should be the last win for this song if my math is correct between the age of the song and the number of wins already. Y'all, I have had NMIXX tagged in here four out of the last five weeks. That's kind of impressive. Also, this was ITZY's first win in almost two years. Girl group power this week for the win, with three of the four slots taken by them. Nice. And I'd really like MCountdown to start doing shows again, but it's award season. Okay. So, funny thing about the After School Club episode (episode 334) this time around. So, the group is 100%, a 2012 debut group (you know how I love 2012 groups and this was around their 6th anniversary), and currently sort of reformed as the group FAVE1 (who I just realized dropped a Christmas single last year, so I'm updating last year's Christmas Caroling post with it because that was adorable). The four of them were so much fun to watch and that album had a l...

 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...

  I'm so annoyed about The Show, and I'm not even going to say it's fine. Anyway, congrats to the winners this week. MCountdown is apparently out of commission right now, so we only have the four wins. Congrats to both groups! And congrats on the Triple Crown! Whoo! For the After School Club Re-Run, we're hopping back to 2015 with Mark and Jackson of GOT7, also known as The Markson Show! Absolutely hilarious. Hosts were Eric Nam, Jamie, and Kevin Woo. Seriously, so funny. Have some funny times. The link down there goes to the episode. I don't know if I've ever outright said that. And I may share more than one performance for The Show, but for today, we're just going with one, Cravity from 2020, which is the year they debuted. And, as always, the links in the little spreadsheet directly below this go to my reviews of the songs. Show Champion: AHOF "Pinocchio" MCountdown: N/A Music Bank: AHOF "Pinocchio" Show! Music Core: NMIXX "Blue V...

Release date: 2025 November 10 Album tracklist: Lemonade Fever;  OXYGEN; Everyday;  On My Way; SWISH;  SET NET GO?! ; Rendez-vous; PARANOIA; Straight Up To Heaven (Sung by Jungmo, Woobin, Seungmin); Stadium (Sung by Allen, Wonjin, Hyeongjun); Marionette (Sung by Serim, Minhee, Taeyoung); Underdog; Click, Flash, Pow; Love Me Again; Wish Upon A Star Album runtime: 45 minutes   Okay, Cravity. Let’s see what you have for us this time. The album is just shy of a three-minute average, and would actually have been achieved if this song had been three minutes long. Interestingly, I've done reviews for at least a couple of the songs on the album, so when I finish this up by putting in all of the above information that you’ve already seen because I have it first even if I write it last, I’ll have to compare album tracklists. We’ve also got some partial unit songs. I’m not going to call them official units, because I don’t know if they are or not, but it’s nice to see them spli...

  Welcome to the third quarter of 2025, everyone! I almost typed 2015, so if anyone wants to know how I'm doing, that's how I'm doing. Hilariously, this week also features a whole bunch of first wins for songs (and possibly two first wins for groups), as well as three of the four categories of K-Pop artists. We've got boy group covered. We've got girl group covered. But you know what I find the most delightful? A co-ed group is covered. They used to be a lot more common, so any new ones, I'm generally supportive of on principle, though restrictions may apply. With After School Club still on hiatus, and I'm still being patient because they went twelve years in a single season, here's your weekly rerun! Now, I know that the video says the group is called "Elris", but this was their last release under the name Elris. Following this one, they'd spend roughly the next two years or so on hiatus, before returning rebranded as Alice! This is why I ...

  You know what's kind of cool? This week's music show wins cover three of the four categories I classify K-Pop under. The only one missing is a co-ed group. Boy group? Check. Girl group? Check? Soloist? Double check.  Nice. The ecosystem is flourishing. With After School Club still on hiatus, I'm still giving a rerun. This one comes from a boy group that debuted back in 2011. Episode 20, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals! And you know what's really cool? They're having their first comeback since 2018 this month! I'm really excited about this even though I previously had no previous knowledge of the group! Now, granted this is their first Japanese mini album and not a new Korean mini album, but you know what? I'm just happy to see them releasing new music. But, back in 2013, they were young and cute, and I think I really like this song. As always, the links to my reviews for these songs are found in the graph below. Show Champion: Kang Daniel "Episode...

Release date: 2025 June 23 Album tracklist: On My Way; SWISH; SET NET GO?! ; Rendez-vous; PARANOIA; Straight Up To Heaven (Sung by Jungmo, Woobin, Seungmin); Stadium (Sung by Allen, Wonjin, Hyeongjun); Marionette (Sung by Serim, Minhee, Taeyoung); Underdog; Click, Flash, Pow; Love Me Again; Wish Upon A Star Album runtime: 35 minutes  I don't know how similar Kingdom 2 will be to Kingdom , but I'm going to guess that this is their "We're going to release a song and promote it on Kingdom before we have to do the new one" song. Congrats once again on winning Ace of Ace ! It's very exciting for the lot of them. Genuinely looking forward to that when it decides to get announced. I am also a teeny bit annoyed about the runtime.  So I don't know about you, but I kind of love the specific flavor of songs that feel sporty, specifically basketball flavored songs. This one may have a sample in there with the wooden blocks, but I don't actually know the name of...

Release date: 2025 February 10 Album tracklist: Jelly Bean Album runtime: 3 minutes  You know, this is likely a contributing factor to why Allen and Taeyoung weren't on ASC this last week. Huh. I'm glad that I have an explanation now, even if it's not the correct one. I don't like not knowing things. I love things like whistles in songs. They bring me a lot of joy because they add an element of audience participation to the songs, and I love places where that occurs. And, honestly, I'd slotted this song into being representative of the genre, despite those lovely whistles, but then the big, dramatic bursts of instrumental happened. That's exactly the kind of music I particularly like, even though I know that not all music can and should be like that because diversity and variation is good in any ecosystem. But that part is so much in my wheelhouse that I was immediately reevaluating. So there is quite a bit of bias here.  We've got some interesting vocal lay...

End of the year, I'm assuming we're having fewer music shows because of end of the year shows, which is fine. I anticipated this happening, but we've still had a couple, and this week were some surprises! TWICE got a their first win for Strategy  and G-Dragon got a win on Inkigayo. ASC had Cravity on, which is always entertaining. That phrasing feels like it was a little British, but in my defense, I like to watch my British video gamers while I work on these kinds of posts. It also was apparently "gang up on Taeyoung" day, which was entertaining. At one point, his embarrassment bypassed his ears and went straight to his whole face. Show Champion: N/A MCountdown: N/A Music Bank: TWICE "Strategy" (note: this is from 20241206) Show! Music Core: N/A Inkigayo: G-Dragon "Home Sweet Home" (note: I would be surprised if he actually performed this on a music show, so this is the MAMA performance) ASC Performance: Cravity "Now or Never"   (not...

Release date: 2024 December 05 Album tracklist:  Now or Never , Secret, Horizon Album runtime: 9 minutes  Post-survival show is always one of my favorite things to watch with groups as they deal with going back to their normal lives, hopefully with a few more fans. With their win on Ace of Ace , I hope that it works well for them, as with the other groups that competed, and things work out better than as hoped. Plus, I've got a special fondness for them because of ASC. This is a hard driving song where really the only soft place to the song is the very start. The rest of the song is flung forward by the guitar and the drums, and even when neither of those instrument is actually present, the ticking clock does a great job of increasing at least the tension, because I don't know many people for whom that sound doesn't immediately bring stress. The quiet is used well to make the loud louder. This is just a really good rock song. Even without their voices, I'd be tempted to...