Just A Little Fangirl Love

 Okay, everyone! Back to my September of groups that deserve more attention because they shouldn't be forgotten! This isn't even the newest group that we're going to be talking about this month because the next one is even younger, but I think they have survived technically longer. I've actually got a couple of HOT ISSUE's songs in one of my playlists already, though this is not one of them. I just decided that I wanted something a lot more upbeat than what I was going to get from S#arp. So. The reality is the group lasted less than a year, which is even worse than the three year average for girl groups. But the song doesn't know that. HOT ISSUE debuted in 2021 as a seven-member group under S2 Entertainment, a company that was set up by one of the founders of Cube Entertainment, which automatically tells me that this group has some vocals on them. It also makes sense that I found them and added songs to playlists despite their less than a year of official activi...

 The final song of my little triptych of Sober songs to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of BIGBANG's debut, and I went with a contemporary soloist. Girls' Generation is only a year younger than BIGBANG and occupies much the same role as BIGBANG does in the canon, just on the girl group side. So it really worked out that there is a soloist from Girls' Generation that has a song with the same name as Sober because that also gives us a different texture to look at. Plus, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the impact Girls' Generation and its members have had on the industry cannot be hyped enough, especially when their activity has slowed down a little and I've seen younger or newer fans mistakenly dismiss them just because they're not pulling the streaming or release numbers like the streaming farms for some of the other groups. But that's why I do the research and hand y'all the results: to make the context around the last 30...

 This was not the next one on my schedule, but in order to preserve my mini arc in the middle of August that I wanted, I'm going to have to find time later. Luckily, that post should be faster to do because there isn't a music video and I don't think it's been performed often by the group. It's still an event. To be clear. But this one is part of my little mini arc. I have an idea for a month where I do all songs that have the same title, but I haven't finalized when I'm going to do it or what song title to do. In the meantime, this is a lovely little taste to switch things up a little this month. DKB debuted in 2020 under Brave Entertainment as a nine-member group, though they're down to eight now. At the time this song was released, they were still nine. They haven't released anything in about a year, which is starting to get concerning, but Brave Entertainment is going to need money eventually since they've only got two active groups right now...

 I have changed which song I want to do for Jeonghan's discharge song three times now. I considered Pretty U, because I love the bit of the choreography where he does the cheek tapping move. And I would consider it for Joshua because of his iconic mistake, but since he's an LA native born and raised, he won't be getting discharged. And I have the cheek tapping move attached to Jeonghan. It's very cute. Then I thought about doing one of the Japanese releases because he learned Japanese to talk to the Japanese Carats because English and Chinese were already covered. My second favorite Seventeen song is a Japanese release, but I also feel like I want to hold onto Ima for a different occasion. So then I switched to Power of Love , because I liked the symbolism of that and up until a couple of days ago, I had Power of Love locked. Until I suddenly decided, literally the day I finished my post for Something for Ren's discharge, that Power of Love was in fact wrong, and ...

 It's not that I delayed this on purpose, but I needed to settle from the 3/10 star weekend I had at the beginning of the month. Sixty hours of stress, anxiety, and frustration. I will also never be going back to El Paso. NU'EST could literally come back and do a single concert, only in El Paso, and I would not go back. I would be begging Aron to add literally any other stop, but I would not be going back to El Paso. The city hates me. The people are lovely, but like I said. 3/10 stars. One of those stars was the pizza I got, because wow that was delicious. Okay, debut time. Group debuts I covered: KEYVITUP , hertz.wav , MODYSSEY , UNCHILD . Soloists who debuted that I covered: Somin (APRIL/KARD) , ALL'N , Kangin (Super Junior) , Vari (NINE.i) . Songs I was looking forward to: TOP (BIGBANG): TOP IS BACK, BABY! KickFlip: I was a little shaky with them on debut, but they have since won me over strongly. I like these kids. TOMORROW X TOGETHER: Do they get songs of a decent len...

Release date: 2026 May 11 Album tracklist: Crescendo, Heavy Serenade , IDERSERVEIT, Different Girl, Superior, LOUD Album runtime: 16 minutes  Well, the album is out and I'm doing the pre-release first. It's fine. Again, it's a weird mental thing where because I've spent so much time with this group lately because of an Expanded Offerings post, I feel like I've already done this, even though for NMIXX it's been literal years since Tank was released. But I'm not overly worried because I'm going to be heading to Vegas this weekend, where I'll be confined with many kpop songs to cover and hours to spend them on. Ugh, two-and-a-half minutes. I'm so tired of this.  There's a particular grindy, clangy quality to the instrumental that has a flair for the dramatic to prevent the song from being too far on the side of noise. It's got kind of a heavy-handed rhythm to it, but the speed, despite the skittering beat we've got through part of the 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...

Release date: 2026 April 07 Album tracklist: Paradise of Rumors ; Spring of Colors; Paid With Bugs; Joy, Sorrow, A Beautiful Heart; Sunshine Bless You; Tent; Young and Married; The Right Person; Graceful Breakfast; Festival of Refugees; Stains Album runtime: 37 minutes  I thought I was done with the April reviews mostly, but they got a music show win! So, here we are! And this is a full album with nine of the eleven songs over three minutes, including a title track that does technically round up to four minutes. I love them. Have I mentioned that I love them? And specifically that I love Chanhyuk because he's the songwriter for giving us these gifts in the world of two-minute title tracks? I wish I was joking, but one of the songs I reviewed in the last few weeks was literally two minutes and three seconds. I take back what I said about Vari's song. Somewhat.  This  is country music. This is 90s country music to be specific. I was a little bit anxious for various reasons,...

Release date: 2026 April 30 Album tracklist: MY DEAREST , YESTERDAY, MY DEAREST Instrumental Album runtime: 13 minutes  Happy debut! I'm still holding out hope for your group! Hope springs eternal! I love him for the runtime alone. I love that we got the instrumental. It reminds me a lot of something that I would have heard when I was young. It also almost feels like country music of the Garth Brooks variety rather than the George Strait variety, which is a very specific reference that I know a lot of people aren't going to get, but it's the higher, pinballing-energy-on-stage kind of country song rather than a man and his guitar on a stool. And the more I listen to it, the more it's starting to settle into my brain and read like country music. It didn't have that immediate recognition in my gut, but between the prominence of the melodic guitar and the violin, there was a specific stretch of time from like 2006-2008 where this instrumental could have fit in well.  Th...