Mixtapes are all the rage for K-pop acts looking to build street cred. The thing is, “street cred” doesn’t really exist in K-pop and mixtapes function essentially the same way any other release would. Girl group Keyveatz debuted earlier this year with an abrasive hip-hop sound and double down on that with their mixtape A1 … Continue reading
With their new album, Close Your Eyes have taken the unlikely move of fusing jazz with K-pop. It’s not that this has never been done before, but it’s certainly outside of current trends. So far, this approach resulted in the very strong Open Your Eyes, which really leaned into the concept. Title track Drop That! … Continue reading
It’s been great fun to watch CRAVITY grow into their sound. While their first few years were very hit and miss, they’ve recently found a way to mature their output without falling into the traps and tropes that often come with “maturation” in K-pop. To put it bluntly, their music ain’t boring. This statement is … Continue reading
Earlier this year, XngHan&Xoul released a big dance banger as part of a successful mini album that traversed the breadth of this exciting genre. For me, this set him up as an artist to watch and someone who might bring back some of the high-octane sounds I used to love in K-pop. Now, it’s time … Continue reading
Before their early-November comeback, xikers have divided into two sub-units to deliver pre-releases of vastly different genres. I really enjoyed the breakneck pace and energy of Just For Fun a few weeks ago. Now, it’s time for the remaining members to take us to the rock club with Runners High. xikers’ music has often played … Continue reading
There are a number of acts who have debuted in the past few decades and have dozens of song ratings on this blog. I thought it would be fun to lay these ratings out in chronological order, line-graph style, and take a macro view of their careers so far. Then, similar to my “Underrated K-pop” … Continue reading
WOOAH have spent their year blitzing the market with digital singles, hoping something will stick. Thus far, we’ve gotten spring and summer tracks and judging by its title you might assume Voodoo Doll is targeted to the Halloween season. Instead, the girls have delivered a bright house track promoted with a seemingly random AI music … Continue reading
There are a number of acts who have debuted in the past few decades and have dozens of song ratings on this blog. I thought it would be fun to lay these ratings out in chronological order, line-graph style, and take a macro view of their careers so far. Then, similar to my “Underrated K-pop” … Continue reading
Late last night (US Pacific Time), Seventeen’s Jun released a digital EP in his native Chinese. Unlike J-pop, I don’t have a dedicated place on this blog for C-pop releases, but I wanted to briefly touch on this one because I think the song is quite good. I like Seventeen and its members best when … Continue reading
I’m not sure current K-pop acts even know how much they owe to 2NE1’s influence. For girl groups especially, 2NE1 practically invented many of the tropes so popular today. They also did a more compelling job deploying them, but that’s beside the point. This is all to say, it’s always nice hearing from one of … Continue reading
JYP’s NiziU have straddled the line between Japanese and Korean promotions, finding the most success in the former market. In this way, they’re almost the opposite of fellow Nizi Project winners NEXZ. Title track Sour Grapes is their latest Korean work, spearheading a new mini album. This song repaints NiziU with a chic aura, easily … Continue reading
When covering ALLDAY PROJECT’s godawful pre-releases last week, I compared them to scratch cards. Both songs turned out to be “not a winner, try again” scratches, but now we’ve finally arrived at their album’s proper title track. Crash doesn’t need to do much to clear its train wreck predecessors and it passes that extremely low … Continue reading
Repackage Albums are a lost art in K-pop and are more likely to be called “deluxes” if they happen at all. BOYNEXTDOOR are bringing the form back with an expanded edition of their June album Home. I really liked that album’s three promoted tracks but didn’t care much for the b-sides. New title track Animal … Continue reading
KickFlip have developed a pattern of dropping a pre-release before each new album. These are often more sentimental rock tracks before the title track hits us with a bombastic burst of fun. They’ve also been uniformly excellent. From Band-Aid to Twenty, their pre-releases have almost done more to make me a fan than their heavily … Continue reading
There are a number of acts who have debuted in the past few decades and have dozens of song ratings on this blog. I thought it would be fun to lay these ratings out in chronological order, line-graph style, and take a macro view of their careers so far. Then, similar to my “Underrated K-pop” … Continue reading
At the end of each month, I compile my top three K-pop title tracks and list a ton of honorable mentions. But each Sunday, I’ll offer a compendium of the week’s new releases featured on the blog. And even more than that, I’ll attempt to rank them from my least-to-most-liked. I invite you to share … Continue reading
There are a number of acts who have debuted in the past few decades and have dozens of song ratings on this blog. I thought it would be fun to lay these ratings out in chronological order, line-graph style, and take a macro view of their careers so far. Then, similar to my “Underrated K-pop” … Continue reading
Rather than contain my “Risers and Fallers” feature to a single post in June, I’m going to share a bite-sized version at the end of each month. This will let me account for more songs and make a nice lead-in to the monthly round-up post. I anticipate most of these ratings adjustments will be negligible: … Continue reading
File UNIS under: groups who never really got a chance. They debuted in March of 2024 after the group was formed on survival series Universe Ticket. Like most groups of their nature, they had a finite promotional period from the beginning, which would lead you to believe their agency would promote the hell out of … Continue reading
Over the past few months, BTS have released music videos exclusive to Spotify premium. I haven’t covered these on the blog because I don’t have a premium account and many others don’t either, so the music videos remained paywalled. Today, they’ve uploaded the mv for Merry Go Round to YouTube, so this probably deserves a … Continue reading
