Just A Little Fangirl Love

Release date: 2025 April 19 Album tracklist: Moon Album runtime: 5 minutes  I'm going to put this under ASTRO since it is spearheaded by them/Eunwoo. There is a very long list of contributing artists, and given the nature of what this is, yes, I absolutely am going to list all of them with group members in parentheses with their group: (ASTRO: JinJin, MJ, Rocky, Eunwoo, Sanha), (VIVIZ: Eunbi, SinB, Umji), (Monsta X: Minhyuk, Kihyun, I.M), (Seventeen: Hoshi, Wonwoo, Mingyu, DK, Seungkwan), (IMFACT: HELLO GLOOM), (Weki Meki: Yoojung, Doyeon), (SF9: Chani), (Stray Kids: Bang Chan), and (Billie: Moon Sua) . It's a testament to how many people love Moonbin, really, because this is only a fraction. You can hardly go through the group pages of groups that debuted between 2014 and 2019 without finding a member or two who isn't friends with Moonbin. I genuinely don't know what form this review is going to take, but I highly doubt a lot of critical reviewing will take place. I ne...

Release date: 2025 March 18 Album track list: BA BA BYE , BA BA BYE Instrumental Album runtime: 6 mi nutes  So I'm over a week behind. This is fine. It's fine. But this is also my first Rocky review, though not the first song of his I've heard. I've got at least one in one of the bigger playlists I've made. I think I'm only missing Eunwoo now for a review. And I know Rocky's not technically with the group anymore because he left, but I haven't heard of it being a situation where he should be excised from the group because of horrible, terrible choices that were made, so I'll keep him there, because I'm inherently nostalgic and sentimental, until such a time as that changes. Also, a song that's over three minutes. Well done, Rocky and/or whoever wrote the song. I love when I get the instrumentals as tracks on their own. This is kind of a seducing nightclub kind of track with what I'm almost positive is an acoustic guitar (the electric acou...

Release date: 2025 February 23 Album track list:  Twilight Album runtime: 3 mi nutes  I'm fine with them being on hiatus. They have enlistments coming up as well as continuing to heal emotionally, but I'm taking it as a good sign that they are still releasing anniversary songs. As a side note, I was looking through the March birthdays for my birthday wall of photocards and learned that Fantagio formed this group of members whose birthdays are all in the first three months and debuted the group in the middle of those months. So by the time April hits, unless the Aroha have a birthday as well, Astro is done with the birthdays for the year. That's insane.  Starting the song out the way it does, with the sound of a cassette tape and the ticking clock, it masterfully pulls this sense of nostalgia and the past, which is fitting for an anniversary song. The instrumentals to this song are in that nebulous area where if it never has choreography, that would be fitting, but if it d...

Release date: 2024 December 27 Album tracklist:  Beat that Drum Album runtime: 3 minutes  JinJin has kept himself busy this year, and I didn't know this one was happening until the algorithm dropped it in my lap. I'm just really impressed with everything he's been putting out this year. I will be wholly unsurprised if this also doesn't have a music video, but I don't care. At this point, I'm half temped to go back and do the others, even if I don't have a place for them. And he can do what he wants with these projects. I'll just be here to support it. The majority of the song, which is rounded up to get that three minutes runtime, has a lot of synth. It's very synthy. It's so synthy that the Institute is looking to retrieve their lost property (this is a Fallout 4 joke). The instrumentals here also could have come straight out of Cyberpunk 2077 , which is a high compliment from me as there were a couple of them that ended up in my Spotify Wrappe...

Release date: 2024 November 30 Album tracklist: Runaway Album runtime: 3 minutes  Ooh, he dropped another surprise single. He's been a busy bee this year. I don't know if this was actually a surprise, and I'm sure people in the fandom could tell me if it was or wasn't, but it was a surprise to me. What a way to round off the month than with another entry into his singles series. I'd be more upset about the run time, but these are his pet projects, and he can be as experimental as he wants for them.  These instrumentals remind me of country music, which is the primary genre I listened to up until fairly recently. The vocal styling is not, but the instrumentals themselves feel familiar. This is lovely and a bit of a hug, but ultimately the instrumentals don't change too much. The only variation we get is at about the two minute mark, which means that the instrumentals are meant to take the back burner for the vocals.  I don't know what the words mean, but ther...

Release date: 2024 October 25 Album tracklist:  Here Album runtime: 3 minutes  He has been incredibly active this year with the digital singles. I finally looked into them because I had some questions. I didn't get the big one answered ("What is JIN LAB?"), but enough of the others did get answered that I have an idea as to the answer to my big question. I'm glad he's kept busy. And since I need to add more to the March releases, I may do a review of the first one in a little bit. Who knows? Not me. One thing that I really appreciate about this song is the fast-paced, skittering beat doesn't overstay its welcome. It's something that could easily overpower the rest of the instrumentals and even the vocals if the balance wasn't handled carefully, and instead there are stretches where that specific beat steps back to let others take the focus, or leaves entirely. It takes a very deft hand and ear to be this aware, and the fact that JinJin has his hands al...

  Release date: 2024 September 28 Album tracklist: Carry on Album runtime: 3 minutes I like that ASTRO has become somewhat active recently. Not as a group, necessarily, but they're doing music related stuff and I love that for them. Oh! I see his name under composer, arranger, and lyricist. Well done, JinJin! Ooh, that's a funky guitar going on there. The guitars in general seem to be hanging out in place of pride through out the entire song, which I am so into, and they never lose their funk. There are moments when they take a brief break, moments which include a siren of all things, but otherwise, they just are perfectly there. They give the entire song a very disco air.  JinJin in this song reminds me of the two songs I've heard from RM. It's a very mellow, but no less powerful, rap that does the impossible: quiets my brain. I have not a clue what he's saying. Zero clue, except for the English during the refrain that is at his chillest, but that doesn't matte...

  Release date: 2024 September 24 Album tracklist: Why so pretty? , Why so pretty? (Inst.) Album runtime: 7 minutes I didn't know this was happening! I'm excited about this. So the song starts with a very playful organ, and then snapping. The snapping makes me so happy, because it's one of those things I can just do without having to pay much attention to the song, and since I spend a lot of time just vibing and not actively listening to the music I'm listening to, . It's also very upbeat and funky, though very minimalistic compared to what it could be. I'm not hearing much bass, if any, but there are enough interesting things and instruments happening that I can forgive it for not having that grounding sound. The fact that he included the instrumental track on this single brings me joy, because the instrumental, despite being surprisingly minimalistic, is definitely vibe-worthy. Actually, this reminds me of a musical, where this is the male lead taking a song t...

Release date: 2024 August 06 Album tracklist: Yeowoobyul, Losing My Mind, BITTERSWEET MISTAKE,  Dive , Bleeding, Rain Down on Me Album runtime: 20 minutes One of the few good things about being so new to the K-Pop thing is that I don't have the emotional ties that come from longevity and deep familiarity with a subject. I just want to preface this whole thing with I do actually enjoy this song. It's very easy listening and the mellow vibes are something I am very much down for.  The melancholy guitar at the beginning sets the mood for a rainy drive down a lonely highway. And really that's this kind of song. We get little bursts of energy at the chorus, as it should, where the drums get to kick up, but the mood never leaves melancholy though, not really, even during the bridge where the drums remain and everything else leaves. The synth could grind more, bulk up the energy in spots, but I'm also sure that it would ruin The Point. Without looking at the English translatio...