I don't know everyone's schedule, but one big group that's been missing for me so far this year is Red Velvet. And they've been on tour and were also individually involved with other things. I believe it'll be a while before they come back again as a group, but Wendy is preparing for her second solo release, and Irene is preparing for her first, so I'm really excited about that.
I wish RV came down under! BP came (though I suspect it's partly due to the Rose and Jennie connection to Australia and NZ) as did Twice but I wasn't that excited to see them and didn't try to beat the crowds for tickets.
Also if you haven't seen it yet, Fifty Fifty is suing their company. A pity given Cupid was huge for them.
Yeah, the news has been crazy about Fifty Fifty. I've been following it but don't know enough to know what's best for all parties.
It started with the company, Attrakt, saying that "external forces" were trying to poach the group from them. I think they said it was Warner Music Korea - who has denied this claim. There was also news that the company didn't have the rights to the song Cupid, the producer of the song did. The producer is now CEO of a company called The Givers and it sounds like Fifty Fifty want to stick with the person who has been producing their music. Hopefully this all shakes out in the girls' favor, but I do worry this is going to hurt them.
They have a song coming out soon for the Barbie Movie, so hopefully this doesn't put a wrench in the works for that.
Happy Throwback Thursday everyone! Before we throwback, I'm gonna talk about the latest Queendom Puzzle episode that aired a couple days ago. I hate to say 'I told you so', but as I predicted last week, Bora's strategy in assembling her team did not work out for her and the other team ended up getting more votes from the judging panel. I thought all four teams did quite well, tbh, so I encourage you to check out the videos they shot on Youtube. Jiwon's team, however, did end up winning their head-to-head competition, and the two MVPs from that round were Nana (from woo!ah!) and Hwiseo (from H1-KEY), who then went on to assign all the competitors to songs for the next round of competition. Six groups in all, doing live on stage covers of six different songs by TWICE, BlackPink, BoA, G-IDLE, ShinEE, and Seventeen. They ended up showing two of the stages before the end of the episode and they were both really good, IMO; Jihan (Weeekly) really shined during her group's cover of G-IDLE's Nxde; I'd really love to see her go all the way and end up in the final group, she really seems to have a lot more range and stage presence than she's been able to show during her time in Weeekly.
Okay, well, enough about that, it's time for #tbt. I stumbled across this song browsing through my playlists, and couldn't remember talking about this group before. Fiestar was active from 2012 to 2016, and didn't really make too big a splash tbh; I think the biggest hit they had was 'You're Pitiful' from 2015 (it's got about 20 million views on YouTube), but I actually don't really care for it that much. As far as summer jams go, I think this song is the clear winner from their catalog. Please enjoy!
Fiestar - We Don't Stop
The YENA (feat. YUQI) - Hate Rodrigo music video has been made private on YouTube yesterday. Today they are saying it is because of some copyright issues they discovered and not because of Olivia Rodrigo or her team asked them to. Yesterday there was a lot of speculation about it, considering that Olivia is releasing a new song and the hashtag #haterodrigo was trending.
Seems like the company really dropped the ball that they didn’t make sure there were no issues- especially since the song contains someone else’s name and the video contains their likeness.
New XG just dropped. It's quite short (about 1m40s), but this is meant to be a pre-release song for a mini-album and not a single (although you can buy it as such on iTunes if you like). The visuals are very striking but I think I'll wait for the mini-album; this one is not doing it for me as much as the last few singles they put out.
XG - GRL GVNG
Swan from Purple Kiss put out a solo MV today, and I think it's quite good. Her vocals are very unique and the song itself has a light, dreamy vibe with a catchy little chorus section. The vibe reminds me a bit of Fifty Fifty's 'Cupid', tbh, but I don't think it'll catch on as hard as that song did (mostly due to lack of English lyrics, comparatively). Anyway, check it out!
SWAN - Twenty
Nice.
Also, an ITZY pre-release just dropped. Title track/album will be released at the end of the month and I think there'll be one more pre-release song as well:
ITZY - Bet On Me
And another pre-release track just dropped, this time from NMIXX. Their title track will be released on the 11th.
NMIXX - Roller Coaster
I like the new NMIXX track, it feels like a new direction for them musically. I hope it is indicative of the album as a whole.
The mini-album from Kiss of Life just dropped along with the debut video, Shhh:
I like the song quite a bit; the video concept is...fine, I guess. Very much reminds me of the first couple New Jeans releases. I'm interested to see if they decide to continue the concept going forward and tell a longer story of some kind or change it up.
It's time, once again, for Throwback Thursday. I must first vent about Queendom Puzzle; I don't know what was going on with the live audience in that last episode, but some of the votes they gave for those performances were just very angering and upsetting to watch. I actually thought every performance was amazing and you should check them all out, but skip the voting/ranking parts of the show. In the end it will come down to an online vote of some sort (I assume) and at that point it will be a straight-up popularity contest with little regard for anything that happened over the course of the show. All that being said it would be nice if Yeonhee (Rocket Punch) could catch a break; it feels like she's been Mnet's punching bag throughout this whole thing and it's getting ridiculous.
Okay, #tbt time. This group came to my attention way back when I was in the height of my Girls' Generation phase, before I had really starting following other groups and was just mainlining any of their content I could find on YouTube. One of the members of SNSD, Seohyun, went on a reality TV show where two idols get fake married and then go do activities together. It sounds dumb when you say it out loud but it was very popular at the time, and the person that she "got married" to, Yonghwa, was a member of a group called CN Blue. They were a four member group that actually played instruments like a rock band, although I don't know how much of the music they played was written by the members. Most of their songs are not especially giving off summer vibes, but this one seems to fit the bill; it's also one of their most popular songs so check it out!
CN Blue - Love Girl
Yet another pre-release song. This time it's NewJeans with their song New Jeans:
NewJeans - New Jeans MV
EDIT: Sorry, make that two pre-release songs from New Jeans. A second one just dropped right as I was posting:
NewJeans - Super Shy MV
I was waiting for the twist ending on Super Shy, but they played it straight this time. That opening beat tho! Very catchy. Also the video is super summer vibes; I'll be throwing back to this in about 10 years.
Just saw this morning, Fifty Fifty dropped their song from the Barbie movie on their YouTube channel. No video, but if you were curious and aren't planning see the movie here you go:
Fifty Fifty (featuring Kalii) - Barbie Dreams
It's quite a get for the group, and the movie seems to be doing well so I imagine it will garner them more attention.
NMIXX - Party O'Clock
new music from former-LOONA-but-now-ARTMS members!
Odd Eye Circle - Air Force One
Also that NMIXX track was pretty fun! I put it in my playlist right away.
Thanks for posting that. I’m at work so it’s harder to post links to YouTube on my phone. I took a quick break to listen to it twice and I’m very happy. I really can’t believe we’re getting more of Loona after all that happened. Happy to see this sub-unit back and can’t wait to see what other forms the other members take in the future.
Happy Throwback Thursday everyone. Hope you're doing well! Let's get right to it. I'm throwing back to 2013 this time with a solo artist who was active from 2010 to 2015. She had a couple pretty popular songs but for some reason never seemed to break super big; maybe because she was from Canada? I think it was harder back then for foreign artists, although I don't really know for sure. Anyway, I really like this song, so please enjoy!
G.NA - Oops!
P.S. Not much to report regarding Queendom Puzzle, everyone is doing great but Jihan in particular is still killing it up there IMO so you should check out her team's performance from this last episode at least.
MISAMO “Do not touch”
MISAMO is a Twice subunit with MIna, SAna and MOmo.
Also just released:
(G)I-DLE - I DO
I missed that this was coming out. It's an English single on the 88 Rising label.
NewJeans - 'Cool With You' Official MV (side A)
NewJeans - 'Cool With You' & 'Get Up' Official MV (side B)
I think we're a couple days from the title track.
Hey y'all, happy Throwback Thursday! But first, I wanted to say that the new song 'I Do' from G-Idle is great; scroll up and give it a listen if you haven't already. It's really strong and will certainly be a contender for my top ten this year.
Also, I saw that IChillin dropped their pre-release and single MVs since I last posted so I thought I'd put them here; I was looking forward to them but ultimately I'm not 100% on board. They're both somewhat throwbacks, actually; the single, Kick-Start, is kinda giving me Avril Lavigne vibes and the pre-release song, Meme, is very reminiscent of some older Kpop songs structurally, especially in the pre-chorus/chorus. Looking back, their last release, Alarm, was also cribbing pretty heavily from some other Kpop songs (that whistling especially) but for some reason I liked that one a bit more. Anyway, you can check them out for yourself.
IChillin - Meme
IChillin - Kick-Start
Finally, Queendom Puzzle: not much to say, this week was a dancing competition as opposed to vocals. The songs they are performing are all original, though, so you should check them out for that; maybe you might find a new favorite from the four they showcased (mine's Bad Blood). All the voting announcements got bumped to the next episode though, so there's not much to report beyond that.
Okay, on to the #tbt! Gonna go back to the nearly limitless well that is Girls' Generation; this one is a classic from their early catalog; released in 2011, it still holds up just fine IMO. Please enjoy!
Girls' Generation - Baby Baby
NewJeans - ETA
Full EP is out now as well.
ITZY - None of My Business MV
This is their second pre-release song. Title track and album will be out next week.
Oh My Girl - Summer Comes
Is this the strangest Oh My Girl MV? It's a lot of fun, and so is the song.
yeah that MV is weird; not sure if it goes with the lyrics but it's memorable, I guess? Really like the song though. It's going on the playlist for sure.
Playing a little catch up on some songs released in the past week or two but I just got around to checking out.
Sandara Park - FESTIVAL
Mamamoo+ - If I'm Left Alone on Earth (Save Me)
NewJeans - ASAP
This one is a real earworm. Now every song on their new EP has a MV (or is featured in a video, in the case of "Get Up").
SATURDAY - STAY
I wasn't sure if we'd ever get another comeback from them. This is a nice song with early Gfriend vibes.
Happy Throwback Thursday everyone! First off though, we got some new music from some former Sistar members that needs to be addressed! Hyolyn put out a new single a couple weeks back that I totally spaced on posting here, and then yesterday the main MV from Soyou's new EP dropped and it's featuring Bora! Soyou's song is especially reminiscent of classic Sistar so check them out!
Hyolyn (featuring Paul Blanco) - This Love
Soyou (featuring Bora) - Aloha
Queendom Puzzle report: the first eliminations happened. It sucked and there was barely anything worth watching; the only good part was when they got to read some fan letters and then they performed a song all as one big group. Also they revealed the name of the new group being formed at the end of the competition and it's worse than Kep1er so there you go.
Okay, so on to the #tbt business: Since we got an influx of Sistar-related content I was looking for something to contrast it with somewhat and came up with this video from 2013. We've talked them up a bunch previously but I really like this song so please enjoy!
9 Muses - Wild
ITZY - CAKE MV
Their "Kill My Doubt" EP is out now with six songs including their pre-releases, Bet On Me and None of My Business. So happy I can finally add those to my playlist.
Kwon EunBi - The Flash
I've been loving Eunbi since Glitch and this is another great comeback.
Mamamoo+ - dangdang
Solar and Moon Byul have also released a new EP, Two Rabbits.
BB Girls - One More Time
BB Girls were previously Brave Girls.
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