Holy crap! I know they're a Japanese group, but Atarashii Gakko! did a First Take video.
(G)I-DLE - Queencard
Fun. I'm loving it but I can see this one being divisive.
well, from a straight-up musical perspective I liked Queencard better than Nxde, and then the video...I dunno, it seems like they got some stuff to say regarding one's self-esteem vis-a-vis elective cosmetic surgery and frankly I don't have a horse in that particular race so I'm gonna tap out. The song is good, so I recommend listening to it.
Well, South Korea is called the Plastic Surgery Capital of the world. 25% of Korean women 19-29 have had cosmetic surgery and that number goes up in the 30-39 bracket. There are even specific cosmetic surgery packages for getting certain jobs, like the Flight Attendant package. Maybe somebody should say something.
okay, so, I am a bit late today, but it's still Thursday here so I still have time for a #tbt. Blame Tears of the Kingdom, I guess, that game has a bit of a grip on me right now. So, to run with a theme, I was gonna throw down some amazing music from a video game soundtrack (Granblue or DFO I think - doesn't matter) but I guess it got delisted or something because it's not showing up in my playlists anywhere, which sucks. Anyway...plan B I guess!
This one is from 15&, which was a duo out of JYP consisting of Jimin (Jamie) Park and Yerin Baek. They're both soloists now, but about nine years ago they put out this song, which is jazzy and good. They have a bunch of other good songs too; we can get around to those in due time, but for now you can enjoy this one. Thanks!
15& - Sugar
For my throwback Thursday, I'm only going back 5 short years to explore UNI.T. They were formed from a survival show called The Unit and five years ago today, May 18, 2018, they debuted with the song "No More":
UNI.T - No More
Then a few months later on, Sept. 18, 2018 they released their last song before disbanding, "I Mean":
UNI.T - I MEAN
Too short of a lifespan for this group in my opinion because these were a couple of great title tracks.
After saying I'd keep an eye out for more CRAXY after they blew me away with NUGUDOM, I missed that they released a new song a couple weeks ago.
CRAXY - "NO LIMIT" Mixtape Video
It seems made to highlight what each member brings to the group, and also finally answers the question I've been wondering since discovering the group: how do you pronounce their name: "crazy" or "cracks-y"?
The solo debut of Kim Doah just dropped; she was a member of a group called Fanatics which was active from 2018 to 2021, and also she appeared in both Produce 48 and Girls Planet 999. The song is pretty good, maybe a bit generic but it's got some good energy and the beat/percussion is nice. No subs on the video yet though. 
Kim Doah - Dream Walking
New B-side MV from LE SSERAFIM:
LE SSERAFIM - 'Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard's wife'
Dreamcatcher - 'BONVOYAGE'
SECRET NUMBER - DOXA
Long time no see, all. Unfortunately, I have not been able to keep up with new Kpop this year, but a new Dreamcatcher comeback lured me out of hiding 
Bonvoyage sounds much more like their earlier stuff than recent stuff. I wasn't feeling it on first listen, but it grew on me quickly, and I'm really digging several of the B-sides from my first listen to the EP.
I hope to start catching up on other releases in the next few weeks, as I believe I'll have a lot more time for music listening soon. I will definitely use this thread as resource #1.
The only other thing I've kept up on lately is IVE. I didn't really care for the pre-release single, Kitsch, but I like the title track quite a bit, as well as most of the rest of the album. The song I've been obsessed with since first listen is Cherish:
Oh, I've also been listening to the Aespa Tetris song a lot. Sorry if it's already been linked, but I didn't see it on a quick skim, Hold on Tight:
Hey y'all, it's time for another Throwback Thursday! I'm still in the throes of TotK, but I'm trying to check out all the releases you've been posting about. New Dreamcatcher! New Secret Number! I'm digging them, perhaps the Secret Number song even more than the Dreamcatcher song, which was a surprise even to me. Just watched a Jo Yuri commercial-slash-M/V sponsored by Lipton iced tea, so...check that out if you're curious I guess.
Today I'm throwing back to a solo artist who I really loved during their window of activity. She is still working as a streamer and voice actress for Riot games, but I don't think she does any singing anymore which is a shame; her vocals are really amazing. This song was released in early 2015 and I guess I would say it's a bit of an outlier from her catalog. It's upbeat with strong pop music sensibilities and and the video is fun and lighthearted; most of her other songs are more serious and ballad-y. Anyway, check it out!
Shannon Williams - Why Why
It's the first of June, and in my neck of the woods we're expecting high temperatures of frikkin' 85+ degrees (Fahrenheit) for this whole week so I'm thinking that maybe we can bid farewell to spring and say hello to summer at this point. I normally hate summer; you can put on more warm clothes in the winter but you can't take off your skin when it's gross and hot outside. But, there's one thing I do look forward to this time of year: Kpop summer jams! And you gotta come correct out of the gate with the queens of summer; that's right folks (say it with me now) - SISTAR!!!
This one's an all-time classic and the video is pure summer vibes. Please enjoy, preferably whilst splashing around in a pool or waterskiing or, like, eating a snow-cone. Something like that.
Sistar - Touch My Body
Happy Friday everyone! Stray Kids are back doing what they do best.
Stray Kids - S-Class
Also, I need to remedy the lack of KARD in this thread buy posting two recent releases:
KARD - ICKY
KARD - Without You
Happy Monday everyone! New song from fromis_9. From their new 10-track album, Unlock My World, also out today.
fromis_9 - #menow
Happy Monday everyone! New song from fromis_9. From their new 10-track album, Unlock My World, also out today.
Happy Monday! I really like the new fromis_9 video; it definitely has a more mature feeling and message so some fans might be missing the more bubbly side of them, but I think that's befitting a group with 5+ years of activity, tbh. And those older songs/videos aren't going anywhere (yet), so those people can just chill out. I'm downloading the album now; if I find any secret bangers on it I'll report back.
It's time once again for another #tbt! I got a chance to listen all the way through that new fromis_9 album and really liked it; it's very much of a piece with the single, I would say, so if you liked that I would recommend picking up the whole album. I didn't really hear anything that jumped out at me as 'this should have been the promoted single' though. I personally liked the first track on the album quite a bit, but it's more electronica influenced and I'm partial to that stuff so your mileage may vary.
Other than that it's been a bit quiet outside of that and the new KARD release, although that new reality show Queendom Puzzle is ramping up soon so I'm hoping I'll be able to find a good subtitled source for watching it. With that, it's time for the throwback for the week. Gonna stick to the summer theme as long as I can, and I think this one qualifies. This is maybe the second-most-popular single from KARA outside of Mister, so please enjoy!
KARA - Step
This Billboard video isn't telling me anything new but it's fun to see something that praises five great groups that have made up about half of the songs in my playlists lately.
5 K-pop Girl Groups You Should Know
This Billboard video isn't telling me anything new but it's fun to see something that praises five great groups that have made up about half of the songs in my playlists lately.
and of course, the first lyric from NMIXX in the video is sung by a former member...Billboard, why you gotta rub salt in the wound?
Hi y'all, it's Thursday once again; time for #tbt! I watch the first episode of Queendom Puzzle; plenty of Mnet shenanigans going on with regards to performance order and editing, as you might expect, but there were some good performances too. Cherry Bullet's Jiwon and Bora both showed well as did Weeekly's Jihan, although I thought Jihan played it a little safe vocally. Also Rocket Punch's Suyun I thought did quite well although the ranking from the other contestants afterward seemed to be more negative. Not sure what they were hearing/seeing that I didn't.
I also liked Nana's performance (from woo!ah!) but it sounded like she skipped singing a significant portion of her lines which was not ideal but she got a lot of upvotes so it seemed like her dancing made up for it. Anyway, you can watch the whole thing here (with ads - ugh) if you are so inclined and I believe all the performances are on Mnet's Youtube page.
Now, on to the Throwback! This is not a M/V, but a stage performance from Mamamoo that was on an outdoor Music Core episode from back in summer of 2015. I really love this video because it's one of the few stages I've seen where the crowd noise is captured really perfectly, you totally get the vibe of the live performance. Also, Mamamoo is amazing (per usual) and the song is a bop. Please enjoy!
Mamamoo - Um Oh Ah Yeah (Stage Performance)
I'm waking up to the news that the final members of LOONA have won their lawsuits and now everyone is free of their company. It should be interesting to see where the 5 members who just won (Haseul, Yeojin, Yves, Olivia Hye and Go Won) sign now (if they choose to sign anywhere of course).
Hyunjin and ViVi have already signed with a new company recently. Their new CEO had worked with LOONA in the past.
HeeJin, Kim Lip, Jinsoul and Choerry are signed with the company that is currently promoting TripleS. Odd Eye Circle (Kim Lip, Jinsoul and Choerry) have started posting teaser images of a new song through their new company. In one the their videos, they implied that HeeJin is also working on something too.
Chuu has posted some teaser images too of something coming soon.
Here's hoping that someday they're able to reunite as 12 members. And wishing them good luck where ever they currently land.
Hi y'all, and happy Throwback Thursday! But first off, we got new Lapillus! It just dropped yesterday and I'm digging it; not sure if it'll make my top ten for the year (fierce competition already so far for those spots) but it's solid.
Lapillus - Who's Next?
I also watched the 2nd episode of Queendom Puzzle yesterday (I even got lucky and the app glitched out and skipped most of the commercials. Yay!) It was about what you'd expect, I suppose; some great stages and a few not-quite-so-good ones. I really liked Soojin's (from Weeekly) performance and Kei's (formerly Lovelyz) performance. Rocket Punch members Juri and Yeonhee both showed well too, and Hwiseo (from H1-Key) also did an amazing stage; her live vocals are outstanding! Once again, I think most of the performances are on Youtube so check them out!
The last part of the episode was a bit rough, the girls got moved to their new rankings and then they got divided up into two pairs of two groups to compete head-to-head on two different songs in the next episodes. It was up to the highest ranking members for each song to decide who would be in which groups and that was pretty harsh as there were definitely some choices that seemed odd to me, especially from Bora. It was clear she was gaming the system a bit; she chose (surprisingly) the more rappy of the two songs and then started moving all the members who would compete with her for the few vocal parts to the other team and hoarded all the rap-focused members onto her team. It was an interesting strategy but I don't know if it will work out, as she ended up moving a lot of the higher-rated (according to the show) members to the team competing against her. I think they'll give her team more of a fight than she expects.
Okay, that was longer than I expected to go on about Queendom Puzzle. On to the #tbt! I'll keep it brief; this song is one you almost certainly have heard before but I checked my notes and I as far as I can tell it hasn't been featured in this thread before so I'm remedying that situation here (feel free to send corrections if I somehow missed it). It's one of the few songs from Hyuna that I actually like; it's one of the first (if not THE first) of her solo songs so maybe she was still figuring out what her style was gonna be like and went more mainstream in the beginning. It's just catchy and fun, and of course it's got summer vibes out the wazoo. If somehow you've gone this long without hearing this before, please enjoy!
Hyuna - Bubble Pop
Surprise music video today from YENA. Her title track and new album release in a few days. This is a very good song and sounds to me like it could easily have been a title track itself, so I'm very curious about how the actual title track could be.
YENA - Wicked Love MV
In 2016 Stella Jang wrote and recorded a song called Colors using just her voice and tape loops. It became a bit of a viral hit.
Stella Jang - Colors
In the song she sings she could be any color you'd like, but it seems she left one color out. She's written a new song to remedy that:
Stella Jang - Orange, You're Not a Joke to Me!
And here's YENA's title track, as promised, featuring YUQI from (G)I-DLE
YENA (feat. YUQI) - Hate Rodrigo
I just stumbled across this; it seems like a new 4-member girl group called Kiss Of Life is debuting in early July from a company called S2 Entertainment and they've already put out pre-release solo videos this past week for each of the members, one of which is Natty, who you may remember as having had a solo debut herself a few years ago with Stone Music Entertainment (the same company that Yena is in, coincidentally) and before that was in JYP and participated in Sixteen, the competition show that formed Twice. Anyway, the songs and videos all seem pretty quality and I'm interested to see what their debut track will sound like. Check them out:
Kiss Of Life (Natty solo) - Sugarcoat
Kiss Of Life (Belle solo) - Countdown
Kiss Of Life (Julie solo) - Kitty Cat
Kiss Of Life (Haneul solo) - Play Love Games
----EDIT----
I posted this and literally a few minutes later they put up a new pre-release MV (all four members are in it this time). Anyway, here's that video as well:
Kiss Of Life - Bye My Neverland
Is it just me or is K-pop a little rudderless with the BTS hiatus?
BP had their album release and you had New Jeans, LS and IVE stirring fan wars over which group is better.
But I feel everything else is taking a breather. It might be due partly to the SM Entertainment and LSM dispute knocking out a lot of SM activities?
It's a little slow with releases at the moment but this first half of the year has been PHENOMENAL as far as girl group releases.
My 2023 Kpop girl group playlist is on repeat all the time- over 50 songs of greatness. Some of my favorite groups and some groups that were a surprise to me this year: Fifty Fifty, CRAXXY, TRI.BE, H1-KEY and CSR for example. Kep1er and NMIXX even fully won me over with their recent releases.
There's been some notable boy group releases too- Seventeen, Stray Kids and TXT. Plus Jimin from BTS seems to be everywhere too.
There's a definite change to the feel of some songs but I like the direction it's going. Plus we're still getting some more traditional sounding Kpop mixed in, like STAYC's Teddybear or CSR's Shining Bright.
yeah, I think some of the more established groups are trying to figure out what's next but there's still a lot of up-and-comers promoting or getting ready to do so. We also have groups we know about that haven't put out their first release yet, like Babymonster and ARTMS, not to mention the other former LOONA members who I'm sure are trying to figure out their future.
Also, when Queendom Puzzle ends there will be a new temporary group formed from the 'winners' and they'll promote for a while as well so all the groups whose members are participating in that show (Rocket Punch, Weeekly, Weki Meki, Lightsum, Cherry Bullet, Purple Kiss, woo!ah! and H1-KEY) are kind of waiting to see what happens so they can make plans accordingly.
Aren't a bunch of groups on world tours right now, as well?
Pages