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Song Review:: Moonbyul (MAMAMOO): REV- Hertz

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Release date: 2026 March 25 Album track list: Hertz , DREAMER, MOMENTUM Album runtime: 7 mi nutes  Oof, that run time is not it. I'm sorry, Moonbyul. I love you. But what on earth is that? And if I were writing more casually in a different setting there would have been about five more question marks.  So I fairly recently did a GH post on Girl Gang  by H.U.B , and this is a similar genre. I'm kind of in love with this instrumental though, because we've got revving engines, which amuses me because of the title of the single album. It's also pretty appropriate because while I'm writing this, I'm watching an old livestream from my favorite video game YouTube channel while they played Dead Island 2 , and I have to say that this is singularly appropriate to the zombie slayage that is happening. Good, strong beat. Heavy electric guitar. I know exactly what playlists this song is going into. It also sounds like there's a peacock cry in the instrumental, which is ba...

November 2025 Wrap-Up: Happy Burstday To You

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 By the time you read this, there will be less than a month left in 2025, which is crazy because it feels like January was simultaneously two months ago and also eighteen years ago.  First up, we have the debuts. Technically one of these that I covered was in fact posted in December, but I am counting it because it was a November debut, though not for a group. The group I covered was AM8IC , a boy group made up entirely of Chinese members that is based in South Korea and debuting in South Korea in K-Pop. I wanted to be very specific about this. The only other group I can think of that's this interesting in terms of demographics, starting location, and target audience is 1verse, which also doesn't have a South Korean in the group. Anyway, they debuted this month. And for the solo debut that I covered, that would be Jungwoo of NCT , right before his impending military enlistment. This means that all three members of the NCT subunit DoJaeJung will be in the military within the we...

Song Review:: Moonbyul (MAMAMOO): laundri- Goodbyes and Sad Eyes

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Release date: 2025 August 19 Album tracklist: Cotton, Goodbyes and Sad Eyes , Da Capo, Chocolate Tea, DRIP, Over You, ICY BBY , Take-off Album runtime: 3 minutes  We have a four and a half minute song, everyone! Alert! This is not a drill! The title track is even three-and-a-half minutes long. I love her just a little bit more for restoring my faith in K-Pop song lengths, because we are over a three minute average. Happy, happy, joy, joy. Y'all, she has been so active as a soloist the last little bit. I am waiting somewhat impatiently for the next MAMAMOO comeback, but Moonbyul is doing well to be active while I and their MOOMOOS wait.  Twenty seconds was all I needed. Done. Sold. This actually reminds me a lot of the rock-country music I grew up. It also feels pretty 00s alt-rock, so it feels really familiar. The only way that this could feel more targeted directly for me to drag me back to my childhood is if this had been a proper country song. It doesn't go hard the en...

Song Review:: Moonbyul (MAMAMOO): laundri- ICY BABY {Pre-Release}

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Release date: 2025 August 19 Album tracklist: Cotton, Goodbyes and Sad Eyes , Da Capo, Chocolate Tea, DRIP, Over You,  ICY BBY , Take-off Album runtime: 3 minutes  My girl, Moonbyul! I didn't actually see that this was being released until a few days before it was, and then finding out it's a pre-release caused all the emotions. I fear I still haven't actually moved on from Is This Love? , so I'm worried about my acceptance of the new album. But, you know what? It's good for me to have to accept a new song, and if MAMAMOO isn't releasing new music as a group right now, then I'll be looking forward to their new music as soloists. We've got some retro video game vibes to the instrumental, which is interesting to be hearing. I like the vibes. I just wish the different sections were a little more strongly distinct. With the exception of the intro and the first verse immediately following it, the skittering beat goes through the entire song and kind of takes ...

Song Review:: Moonbyul (MAMAMOO): Aurora- Hoshiakari {Japanese Debut}

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Release date: 2025 February 05 Album tracklist: Hoshiakari , Because of you, Is This Love? (Japanese Ver) Album runtime: 10 minutes  Japanese Debut incoming! I obviously don't do a lot of the Japanese releases, but this is Moobyul and  it's her Japanese debut, so obviously, I have to review this one. Obviously. She's stunning and phenomenal. She went for somethin gloriously soft for her debut. The guitar is quiet and sentimental, and even when the energy starts to spark up, the beats of rest that act as a reset for the song do a phenomenal job of specifically delineating the different sections and allowing the softness of the verses to come to the forefront without making it too jarring. Really, even when the energy has increased, this is just such a soft song that I'm delighted by this. Strictly speaking, debuts are how to announce what form the artist's career will be like, at least for a little bit, so with Moonbyul's being just so soft, it makes me genuinely...

November 2024 Wrap Up: Awards Season Is Upon Us!

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 ðŸŽ‰ðŸŽˆðŸŽ¶ Happy birthday to meee! And also my best friend! She's amazing and smart and talented, and I love her.  Thank you all to everyone who has read any of the posts or offered suggestions for my GH or BBS posts! I really appreciate it. And, excitingly for me, I've got a couple more regulars, so I'd like to personally thank y'all for finding my posts before I get them either on Tumblr or Reddit.  This post is always so long. Oof. But it's also thirty days to cover, and I still have to leave things out.  The debuts that happened this month that I covered:  Yuta (NCT)  as a soloist and with his Japanese debut,  Sungjin (DAY6)  as a soloist,  Jin (BTS)  as a soloist, Irene (Red Velvet) as a soloist, The CrewOne , ODD YOUTH , LOVEONE , and izna . Some debuts that happened this month that I've mentioned:  ToTh6y ,  13Found ,  KELT9b , and  KJRGL . Some debuts that happened that I didn't know about: UN1CON , W!TCHX , and...

August 2024 Wrap-Up: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

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 This is going to be the least filled out of these. In the future, I'll be more on top of releases, but considering I started this near the end of the month, I'm going to give myself a pass. Top Releases of the Month : Moonbyul's Is This Love? - I'm really not joking when I say that if this song isn't one of my top listens of the year, I'm going to be really sad. It's basically perfect and...I want more of this. Give me more interesting musical techniques, I beg of the industry. B.A.P's Gone - I just want to wrap myself up in the song and pretend like everything is okay. Is it? I don't know, but what I do know is the fact that they managed to come back together after all the trauma they went through together, even if they aren't fully back together yet, gives me hope for all the groups that didn't deserve what happened to them (and the handful of my small groups that are struggling right now). Honorable Mentions : xikers's Tsuki (Lunatic)...

Song Review:: Moonbyul (Mamamoo): Starlight of Twinkle : REPACKAGE- Is This Love?

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  Release date: 2024 August 21 Album tracklist: Backpack, Is This Love? , Dear., TOUCHIN&MOVIN (English Ver.), Is This Love? (Sped Up Ver.) Album runtime: 16 minutes As soon as I heard this song, I fell in love with it. First time. That was all it took to tumble head over heels with it. I'm going to be very sad if it doesn't end up being a top listen of the year for me. I love it so much. If it doesn't, that means that the competition was very stiff. I'm a simple girl. Songs that brighten my mood immediately upon hearing them always end up being my favorites, especially if they also just make the brain happy because there are delicious things going on with them. The background instrumentals do some amazing things with the variability of the sections and playing alongside the vocals. Sometimes rests are added where there hadn't been earlier. There are some cool slides and stutters and skids.  I think one of my favorites parts of the melody is the inverse word pai...