[Bonus] The Late Report: June 2020

Man, these are...not getting hard to write per se, but given the record lows of investment and attention I'm giving the Kpop world, I certainly have never felt more lost while making these posts. Thus it's more refreshing than ever to dig around and find out what's been buzzing in these ecosystem every few weeks. I don't plan on retiring this series just yet so we'll see what happens over the next couple of months. If the Late Report can keep chugging along until its two year anniversary in November, I think that'd be pretty cool.

Sunmi - Pporappippam

Everyone rejoice, for she has done it again. Weird title aside, Sunmi has returned with another electrifying dance number. The instrumental is beautifully powerful without being overbearing, and Sunmi's delightful vocals continue to do work. Redditors were saying how the opening was reminiscent of a Legend of Zelda OST. For some reason when I checked out the teaser I didn't agree, but my ears have fully opened and it's definitely out of a video game soundtrack. The rest of it is - as previously advertised - brilliant and the combination of the synths and Sunmi kills it again. Now that I've looked at the lyrics, don't the Korean words translate to "Purple Light Night" or something along those lines? You figure even a slightly scuffed translation would function better as a title, but who knows how the minds of these producers and songwriters work.

[Review] Jay Park - Joah (Revisited)

Jay Park was still wearing shirts in 2013 ha! That's how you know this shit is throwback. Throw in Clara making a main appearance in the music video and that's vintage 2013 Kpop. The original review was published about a month later so let's see how it differs from some of my more reactive reviews. Also since it's from that long ago the review was segmented by category but I'll manage.

• I’ll be honest with you here. I never liked Jay’s voice. I found it higher in range, less flexible than most, and usually tend to gravitate more towards his rapping than singing. I considered Taeyang from Big Bang a better vocal substitute for pretty much all of his solo work. 

To this day I still stand by these sentiments. Not only is Jay better off in the rapping / hip-hop sphere, but Taeyang basically does what he does singing-wise, except better. Come to think of it, if you fused Taeyang's emotional softer voice with Jay's more intense rapping voice...hm.

[Review] Black Pink - How You Like That

Normally this late into the month, I'd reserve talking about a song I wrote a teaser bit for in the Late Report installment but this is something else. Black Pink are finally back so clearly they'll have something special lined up, right? Surely they wouldn't make fans wait so long just to drop another recycled turd on us, right? ...right?

[Review] Seulrene - Monster (Teaser)

We have hit peak lazy season with back-to-back teaser reviews. But hey with Twice's comeback, Black Pink's teaser, and now a Red Velvet subunit all three big names are back in full swing as summer strides into July. Gotta be honest, it's kinda weird how their title track is going by the same name as a labelmate. I know it's been four years but you'd think they'd at least not use the identical title. You'll also notice that I dubbed them "Seulrene" instead of "Red Velvet: Irene and Seulgi" because I think that's a pretty dumb subunit name. What's not dumb is that logo though. It's sleek as fuck and would look very nice on a phone case or something. The gamer in me loves these clean logos because it makes future tier lists and other artsy bullshit look much better. As for what little audio we did receive, I doubt it's part of the actual song - maybe we'll see it during the intro of the music video but not actually be from the audio itself. The wolf and dark aesthetic they have going on hints at a more mature theme which I dig. Summer is always too happy, and I'm for going against the grain. It's gotta be said that between Red Velvet and Black Pink, I'm more excited for the former. But you could probably guess that based on how much I wrote for them than Black Pink.

Anyway that's all for today. Plans for the final week of June include a retrospective, a tier list of some kind, and then of course the usual Late Report. Cheers.

[Review] Black Pink - How You Like That (Teaser)

Hoo boy, Black Pink and YG actually doing something in current year? What a timeline. "How You Like That" is the next comeback and audio-wise it sounds promising. Of course we've all been epic trolled before but it's been so long since I've paid attention to much less get invested in a new song that I'm willing to take the risk. Jisoo and Lisa walked away with both the best aesthetics and individual teasers of the bunch, while Rose isn't too far behind. Unfortunately for me they absolutely ruined Jennie, what the actual fuck. Holy shit the stylist team must have been pissed for some reason. Hopefully the rest of her outfits and designs are not this terrible, poor girl.

[Review] Girls' Generation - Run Devil Run (Throwback)

Well things have certainly been...existing. The other day a couple old SNSD songs showed up on shuffle, and I thought "hey why not look at some of their classics?" And here we are. "Run Devil Run" has aged pretty well all things considered. Originally sung by Ke$ha (does she still exist?), SNSD brought this out of the mire way back in 2010. To add to the excitement, this was released shortly after "Oh!" popped off and there was the mysterious teaser at the end of their video.

[Review] TWICE - More & More

Originally I wasn't planning on reviewing this song but surprisingly, I haven't written a full song review for Twice since 2017. And even then it was a Blitz variant, so I'd say this comeback is due for a complete diagnosis.