Just A Little Fangirl Love

Release date: 2026 July 22 Album tracklist: SNEAKERS , TO THE MOON, BACK, If I could Album runtime: 11  minutes  I decided to pick this song for an extra stage, since I've been so haphazard with literally everything the last little bit and I'm so far behind, so I'm going to do a review of this one. It's a good way to force me to do it. I almost was lazy and picked a song I know I did a review for, but since that song has gotten wins, I would rather point out the smaller groups. Although I will also point out how nauseating the runtime is. Less than two-and-a-half minutes. There's still something slightly pastel-like about the song, but it's kind of a daffodil yellow. This is a very bright song without too much weighing it down, but without a strong sense of playfulness that I wish that I could hear. It feels like the song wants to be playful but was forced to be a bit more constrained. The whistling and the little woops in the background help a lot, but instead...

Release date: 2026 July 16 Album tracklist:  Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter Korean ver. , Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter Japanese ver. Album runtime: 10 minutes  With DK now enlisted and Mingyu about to enlist, which tells you when I'm writing this regardless of when it actually gets posted, I'm feeling emotionally fragile, so I'm going to do this now. Since we're actually really close to getting him back. And this was for his birthday, which makes me happier. There's a violin. Instant approval. And five whole minutes of song. I love him. I love that he gave us this as a gift. The instrumental is softly cinematic with very distinct sections that allow for enough variation that it can actually move and flow. The piano is the most delicate instrument of the bunch, but it carries the weight of supporting his vocals more than any of the others. This is such a pretty instrumental, and I love that. You know how amusing it is that the deep-voiced rapper of Seventeen and their ...

Release date: 2026 August 28 Album tracklist: FALLEN ANGEL , HEAVEN, Less than a Lover Album runtime: 9  minutes  Congrats on the wins! I forgot I needed to do this one! I think this is a pre-release, which is why I'm labelling it like I am.  One of my big complaints about a lot of songs lately is that the instrumental isn't particularly distinct, because so many of them, including this one, are largely two or three beats layered together through most of the song with very little variation. This one at least has the benefit of water plunks and plops, and I cannot express how briefly excited I was about twenty seconds from the end, but it just wasn't enough to overcompensate for the repetition. Now, I'll be the first to admit that R&B doesn't really do it for me normally because a lot of the modern R&B does an excellent job of having the kind of sound that lulls me a bit too much into drowsiness. This song is no different. Between the slow beat and the amount...

Release date: 2026 July 27 Album tracklist: .exe , LOCKED IN, W.T.F(un), LIFE IN COLOR Album runtime: 10 minutes  Congrats on the wins! While this song is of a suitable length, the runtime as a whole ain't it. That averages out to about two-and-a-half minutes, and that's with one almost three. It's so nice to have a younger group that isn't on Underage Protocol because then I get to really listen to the songs. This instrumental feels like a boss fight in Nier: Automata , especially in the chorus, although there are spots where both the number and intensity of the instruments drops a bit, providing a great contrast. I love how the song doesn't start with the instrumental, because that means we get a tiny bit of a cappella. There's very little actual softness to the song though, but even in the quieter moments, there's almost a metallic quality to it.  The line "I'm an .exe" makes me snort every time I hear it because my brain goes "Executab...

Release date: 2026 July 08 Album tracklist: RUN TO YOU , Sugar High, JUST SAY YES, You're the Reason, Our Story Album runtime: 15 minutes  I can listen to AHOF like I want to December of 2028 when the maknae turns eighteen. He was fifteen at debut, which unfortunately puts the group in Underage Protocol. Although he is currently sixteen, so if you're not quite as stubborn as I am and sixteen is your only hard limit, the group is good to go for you now. The group being in Underage Protocol does not change the fact that I have several of their songs sitting waiting in the playlist I have for songs by groups I can't listen to yet.  If this instrumental was slightly more acoustic, we'd have a country song on our hands. As it is, this song is also still so "boy groups" that I'm not surprised it's gotten a win already. The beat holds the song in place while the other pieces move around it, and while there is a dramatic late song interruption with specifical...

Release date: 2026 July 24 Album tracklist: Ain't No Party Album runtime: 2 minutes  I know you all enjoy getting random updates about K-Pop in these introduction paragraphs. Or at least no one tells me they hate them (saying that would not make me stop doing this, by the way). Good news is that Spotify is getting better about telling me when the groups are releasing new music. The algorithm is finally figuring this out. Unfortunately, a lot of the "new songs" are AI and don't actually belong to the group. Ghost9, for instance, had 33 of them uploaded over a single weekend, and the weekend I started this review, I saw AI tracks that need to be reported for HotShot, LABOUM, BAE173, TIOT, and TFN. That just makes it harder for the legitimate songs and releases to get attention, especially with the older groups because if I was trying to get into K-Pop now, I'd be so confused and I might be a bit turned off from K-Pop as a whole. (Notice that I've also done a Gre...

Release date: 2026 July 19 Album tracklist:  I made a mistake , I made a mistake - instrumental Album runtime: 8 minutes  We just got DK and Vernon's military enlistment announcement. I have to do something to take my mind off it, even though logically I know the sooner they leave, the sooner they come back, and so far I'm 2/2 in my prediction that they'd be enlisting after Dino debuted. I'm also happy to note that the big worry I had, that they'd have to do birthday lives separately, is not a concern because if the math is mathing correctly, DK should get back in March and Vernon in May. So I'm going to hope that V.O.S, as a first gen group very removed from all of that, can distract me. It's a tall order, but if anyone can, it's first gen vocals. I may have made a miscalculation, looking at the title of the song, but it's fine. We've got my beloved strings and the guitar is soft, beautiful, and non-obtrusive, even when it's more noticeably ...

Release date: 2026 July 21 Album tracklist: Stagefright , 8PM Album runtime: 5 minutes  I'm so excited that they're coming back to my city. They put on a pretty good concert, even with how small that venue was, and I like a lot of their music. EXCEL is still my favorite song of theirs, but even then, they've released a few other songs I like nearly as well. I'm just happy that they're still active. I really am. There is a specific level of sultry drama in the instrumental. While the instrumental has the slow beat that lets the ong have a little bit of an inherent weight, the actual instruments being used are largely light and high. The instrumental uses the heavy weight of a lone percussion as punctuation for the song instead of letting the ong ahve a swagger weight through the whole thing. I imagine that we're going to get some very smooth choreography with this song. I also mostly love how the instrumental falls out from underneath the rapping to let him stan...

Release date: 2026 July 24 Album tracklist: Summer Night 2026 , Summer Night 2026 - Instrumental Album runtime: 3 minutes  Okay. So. I'm sure you're all aware that I try to pay specific attention to the first Gen groups when they drop new music. And this isn't technically new music in the way we might think, but it is a new edition, so to speak, from their 2017 song. Oh, and they're a co-ed group. We need the co-ed groups to stay active because there are so few of them. Ah, listen to that saxophone at the beginning. I wish it lingered a little bit more throughout the song, but it pops up enough that I'm okay with it not being present throughout. Funnily enough, when the saxophone isn't around, it sounds like video game menu music for something that's brightly colored with cute animals. It's kind of Viva Pinata, you know? The saxophone ages it up a little and turns it into easy listening, and it's really nice, and then it goes back to the menu music. ...

Release date: 2026 July 08 Album tracklist:  Pretty Girl Album runtime: 3 minutes  We are on Underage Protocol for this group until November, so they're so close to being taken off the list. Also, congrats on the win! Edit: Also, this is actually a remake of a KARA song, which I just discovered. It did not take long for me to add this song to the playlist I keep to keep track of which song get released this year that I really enjoy. There's a bright intensity to the instrumental that is slow enough that it doesn't feel aggressive or frenetic. Most of this is due to the electric guitar and the drums being as steady and present as they are, and honestly, even though there isn't a lot of variation going on in the instrumental, it's not gratingly repetitive in a way that makes me twitchy, which is a good thing. I'm loving the rock. I wish that there was either a big uptick in energy or a very soft downturn, but what's here is still good. What flow in energy that...

Release date: 2026 August 03 Album tracklist: ZZAN, Party Rock Rock (prod. Hitchhiker) , Sincerely (prod. Lee Hyun Do of DEUX) , Micheo Micheo , Love Sick (narr. Lee Moon Sae) , For JEONG and LOVE, LIKE IT Album runtime: 20 minutes  I genuinely don't even know how to title this. Congrats, Dino! And also, congrats to one of possibly the most successful inside jokes to come out of any group! It's a bit odd, but at the same time, knowing Seventeen, Dino debuting as his old man character before he debuts as Dino properly (listen to Wait , y'all) is very on brand for them. The "S" in SVT stands for "strange." Ah, drama. Ah, saxophone. This instrumental is a hot cup of chowder on a cold day. I'm struggling so hard to not actually listen to his voice here for this section. I hope you all appreciate the effort. But that saxophone, y'all. I'm a little surprised at the audio balancing, because there are a couple of spots where the instrumental almost o...

Release date: 2026 July 21 Album tracklist: ETERNAL, Vitamin ME , Pocket Treat, Blue Heart, Screen Time, Teacher, Cold Blood, Why do I cry?, Day 1, Wonderland Album runtime: 29 minutes  Y'all are probably going to get sick of me saying that I don't care that they left Pledis, that they were at Pledis, which means I will continue to love and support my girls. But I am nothing if not loyal and it takes very little to trigger my sense of loyalty at all. Also, the title track is over three minutes long. I told you I loved them. We've got a very Latin summer sound going on for this, which is perfect for a July release. This is fun. There's a little bit of a cowbell in places and the Spanish guitar is a lovely combination I wasn't expecting. This is so laid-back and chill even though there's a little bit of a disco energy going on with the strings. It's very pretty, and almost a little flirtatious. I love their voices, and we get a beautiful belt that leads into t...

Release date: 2026 July 20 Album tracklist:  Time's Tickin' , An Ordinary Story Album runtime: 7 minutes  I've actually already seen the music video because I let YouTube just play music videos for about an hour and this was one of them. Also, I was mildly surprised to see him so active on Weverse this last weekend, but when I saw he'd dropped a new song, it suddenly all made sense. Those two usually aren't very active unless they've got something going on. During SM Town last year, Changmin was commenting on posts for about five minutes right before TVXQ! was performing. Literally stopped as the group ahead of them finished. This song is oddly clangy, and it sounds like there's a cowbell involved, which I'm always surprised by, though to be fair, I think it's been several months at minimum since the last time I heard a cowbell, or something that sounds like one in a song I was reviewing. Everything else going on in the song is oddly dramatic in a wa...

Release date: 2026 July 21 Album tracklist: Answer, Don't Wake Me Up! , Can't Get Enough, Summer Blue, Down, Test Drive, Promises (feat. BrotherSu) Album runtime: 20 minutes So I don't get insanely behind, I try to do at least one July release a day right now. I've been not doing so well with this goal, but here we are. I have jumped both times that I've hit play on this song. That's such an aggressive start. We've got a strong dance tack for the instrumental with a skittering beat that drives the song like a war chariot. Underneath the skittering is a heavy bass drum of some sort and a grungy electric guitar. This honestly feels very movie soundtrack, but it has to be a movie like Rocky . There needs to be high intensity with the action.  Vocally, this reminds me a bit of the Twilight soundtrack, which is strange for two reasons that are closely related but not the same thing in my head: 1) I cannot actively recall any of the songs from that soundtrack and ...

Release date: 2026 July 06 Album tracklist: CHEESE , SEXY BACK Album runtime: 5 minutes  Not even five minutes for the single. It's fine. I'm fine. The title track is almost acceptable, but overall? What is that? Also, even though vol. 2 is sitting in my notebook waiting for me to do it because of how painfully behind I am, I wanted to do at least one review from this month today. So, CHEESE gets that spot. Well done, CHEESE . The electric guitar is being used as punctuation, which I am here for. It's a nice use of the instrument and one we haven't gotten quite this aggressive in a while. The slightly odd rhythm of some of the instruments, especially considering most of them aren't getting a legato set of notes for a melody. We get a lot of chords, which is fun, but it's only the pre-chorus and to a lesser extent the chorus that get a proper melody going on in the instrumental. I like the use of the camera flash sound effect as well as what sounds like a dispos...

Release date: 2026 July 10 Album tracklist: Vanilla, Ice Cream , Baby Wassup? No More Disco, Fxxking Star, Long Way Long Ride Album runtime: 16 minutes  I don't think I ever did his solo album back in November, but I'm still willing and happy to do it if someone would like to suggest I do it. A simple "Can you review Talk to You by Yeonjun please?" comment on literally any post would do it. You don't need to submit it with The Form , although you can. Also, congrats on the wins! This is apparently just my day to do boy group soloists with the more sensual choreography. I haven't seen his choreography yet, of course, but with the low bass and the grinding instrumental, I can guess what it's going to be. There are a couple of spots where we get a little more variation to the instrumental than I expected, when we've got a spot right in the middle where most of the instrumental gets stripped out and then the grungy guitar  gets more prominent again. That s...

Release date: 2026 July 15 Album tracklist:  Icy & Spicy , KO, KO (Rush ver) Album runtime: 8 minutes  I've already gotten a slight spoiler of this. Everyone, be prepared for muscles on display. Funny thing about this is, my mom mentioned to me a bit ago that he said he'd been dieting since May. I said, "He's releasing something soon." The next day: announcement. My mother and I discuss K-Pop often as one of our shared interests along with D&D, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ASOIF, etc.  Minhyuk. This song is too short. This man really likes his brass instruments, doesn't he? I'd be a lot happier if we got more of that, but being placed where it is in the song (intro and chorus) is a good second. Otherwise, most of the song is taken up by a very strong dance beat that is likely to have a lot of body rolls and strutting of some sort. This is not one of his soft and sentimental song' this is one of his swaggery songs that's truly Huta, not BTOB...

Release date: 2026 July 04 Album tracklist: The road that shaped me , The road that shaped me - instrumental Album runtime: 6 minutes  The process that led me to discovering this group is as follows: for July in my Expanded Offerings, I'm only doing Battle of the B-Sides posts by artists I haven't yet covered there, so I was looking for some soloists to add to the Roulette Wheel I'm using. I looked up one (Son Yeji, or as I had to find her, 손 예지) and she has a song called "Ghost" which I decided to listen to even though it's a title track and thus can't do it this month, but I was curious about it for October potentiality. In my queue, I saw a song by something called "MOVNING" and I liked the title of the song. Turns out MOVNING is a band and this came out this month. SO I'm going to pause what I was doing to cover this. That piano. The piano i the reason I looked up the band because I was really hoping this was a real song and not an AI art...

Release date: 2026 July 13 Album tracklist: Promise , SOLOVE, Bad Name (sung by Leeteuk), GODOGNAM (sung by Heechul), ONSAGMIRO, More Than Love Album runtime: 21 minutes  I love it when yearlings get their own subunits (looking at you, 90TAN). This one, I think, has been at least a decade in the making, although to be fair, I'm not super familiar with Super Junior dynamics other than their rather infamous fights they used to have back in the day. Still, I'm excited about this one and very curious to see what these two will give us. I'm always curious when the second gen idols do something. The instrumental sounds like either a children's nature show theme song or a really cheesy sitcom theme song from the 70s or 80s. It's fitting considering they're doing their subunit because they're the same age and they were born during the 80s, but it's just kind of amusing. The brightness of this instrumental is almost blinding in the most summery lemon-yellow kind ...

Release date: 2026 July 13 Album tracklist: Twenty, Kids Return , Run It Up, Lovestruck, Trainspotting , It's Not Over, Boys Gonna Dive Album runtime: 18 minutes  Okay, the next subunit for this group has debuted, but because the groups current overall maknae is currently fifteen (debuted at fifteen, turns sixteen next month as of writing this), I will have to check every subunit until he turns eighteen in 2028. The maknae of this particular subunit is seventeen, turning eighteen in a few months. He's also the leader and while I'll accept the maknae debuting at seventeen, I did have to check for the second thing that would qualify a group, or in this case a subunit, for Underage Protocol, which is the number of underage members. There are only two in total of the five, which is within acceptable limits percentage wise, and they both turn eighteen before Joshua and V turn thirty-one. And, best part, is that even though there are some short songs lurking amongst the b-sides, ...