April 2024 kpop~

🌟🌟🌟 Liked all songs
ONF - Beautiful Shadow
ViV - Bomb

☀️☀️☀️ Liked some/most songs
Catch the Young - Fragments of Odyssey
Drippin - Beautiful Maze
Epex - Youth Days
Ive - Love Switch
Nchive - Drive
Onewe - Planet Nine: Isotropy
QWER - Manito
Riize - Riizing

🌷🌷🌷 Singles
ILY:1 - I My Me Mine
Kiss of Life - Midas Touch
Mirae - Running Up
woo!ah! - Blush

🌸🌸🌸 OSTs
Jaehan - Monologue [A Shoulder to Cry On]
Punch - Run Far Away [Nothing Uncovered]

🍃🍃🍃 indie
UNXL - What If
Xavii ft. seoseo - I just wanna love

I missed QWER's debut last year, around the same time as Catch the Young, but I was happy to discover them this month! Are we entering a new era of kpop bands?

edit: I missed The KingDom - Realize released on 4/30 but I found some good songs on that album too 😊

finished watching In Blossom - i didn't rate it very highly, basically it was good enough that I finished it, but that's it. the reason I picked it up initially was someone saying it has gothic cinematography - and yeah, there are a lot of nice shots that have a kind of gothic aesthetic to them, so that was probably the most enjoyable part. But I didn't really ship the couples (more an issue with how the characters were written than the acting), didn't like the way pan yue's relationship with his father was handled, and found the ending unsatisfying (main couple is fine but everyone else is left hanging).

I am kinda imagining an alt version where Pan Yue initially pursued Caiwei out of a confused sense of duty but falls in love with Lanjiang while investigating the murder, and Caiwei eventually ends up with Shangguan Lan (cmon I did like him but wasn't he weirdly obsessed with his sister) 😂😂😂 hmm should I write this up and put it on AO3 hahaha

today's episode of music bank~🧁☁️

there were several stages I bailed on halfway today but I won't name names... uhh anyway Doyoung's voice is pretty 🩵 Wooah were really cute - I wasn't into the song at first but it's slowly growing on me 🧁 I was excited to see ViV because I really liked all the songs on their debut EP - they were cool, their main strength is their vocals which are really pleasant to listen to, I think they have a lot of potential 🪻

so the two best stage contenders for me were Riize and Drippin - Riize's dance skills are insane but they kinda suffered today from shit camerawork, also Drippin have much better facial expressions which makes the performance more engaging. in addition, changuk is back and the stylist finally pulled their head out of their ass and put together some decent outfits and I think all this deserves to be celebrated so congrats once again to ✨🌟✨🌟 Drippin 🌟✨🌟✨

so I haven't been doing the mastodon music hashtags for a few weeks - except for #kpopmonday i was feeling like a lot of the themes didn't work well with kpop, and I want to focus more on posting my own playlist ideas

so here's the first mini playlist in a while! Supersonic ☄️

🏁 B1A4 - Super Sonic
🏁 TAN - Hypertonic
🏁 Boa - Hurricane Venus (lyrics: electronic manic supersonic bionic)
🏁 Bvndit - Dramatic
🏁 Just B - Damage (panic)

it turned out there was no music bank on friday~ and it's a good thing because i didn't actually check, it was a gorgeous day and i spent time reading a book outside instead ^^ 🍃☀️ but today it is cool and rainy, perfect time to watch Inkigayo ☁️🌧️☁️🌧️☁️

on today's episode~
I loved Cravity's outfits, very ghostly 👻 Kiss of Life seemed particularly badass today, I really enjoyed their stage 🌺 Onewe's new song is really nice 🔮 I've been loving Epex's new album too 🩷 Riize showed off impressive dance skills 🌈 Drippin were great as usual 🩵

but ONF! ONF! ONF!!!!!!!!!!!! Dominated yet again!!!!!!!! the choreo is too perfect!!! they are too perfect!!! 🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤

Chinese music mid-month update~ so I don't have so much at the end of the month ^^

Pop/EDM
🌸 袁小葳 Yuán Xiǎowēi - 揉碎的雪 (crushed snow)
on the album cover the character 雪 (xuě, snow) is flattened and the way she sings the soft hushing sh and x sounds also gives the auditory effect of snow being crushed

🌸 贺子玲 Hè Zilíng - 樱花扮成雨落下
🌸 徐梦圆 YUAN - CHINA-波

Gufeng
🌸 王睿卓 Wáng Ruìzhuó & Damn5z - 重生之我在异乡为异客
enjoyed this combination of gufeng and rhh

🌸 刘宇 Liú Yǔ - 灿照花海
song for the Luoyang Peony Festival

🌸 邓寓君 Dèng Yùjūn - 霜雪千年

OSTs
🌸 冯家妹 Féng Jiāmèi - 家书 A Home Letter [The Farewell Song]

today's episode of Music Bank~☁️🌈

everyone was good, not a single bad stage this week 😊 especially Sevenus, Ampers&one, TAN, and Drippin 💖

but I really had to pick my jaw up off the floor after this one.
the choreography is incredible, the stage ambience, their vocals and performance just total perfection 🌹✨🌹✨ i knew ONF are great of course, but this raised my estimation of them even more - fully vixx or infinite tier stage

🌸 March 2024 Chinese music 🌸
(I decided to keep delaying my cpop posts a little because sometimes stuff takes a few days to get uploaded to Youtube)

anyway, it's been a good month! i think my playlist has doubled in size! maybe last month there was not as much coming out because of the lunar new year holidays. but yeah there is so much to listen to that i have to be really aggressive about skipping anything even remotely meh to get through it all 😃 it doesn't help that everyone releases a billion kajillion singles instead of eps/albums... but i guess maybe that's what you have to do to stay relevant nowadays. ok, let's see what i've got for highlights~

first of all: SA JI GE NIE SA NA - an Evenki folk song - it's really cool!! check it out!!

Gu Feng
🌟 兔裹煎蛋卷 Rabbit Egg Roll - 万物繁生 🌟
🌸 糯米 Nomi - 百鬼夜行
🌸 唐伯虎 Tang Bohu/Annie - 落
🌸 以冬 Yi Dong - 温柔乡

OSTs
🌟 刘宇宁 Liu Yining - 世世 Ages [The Legend of Shen Li] 🌟
🌸 王錚亮 Reno Wang 小日子 Simple Days [Simple Days]
🌸 王靖雯 Wang Jingwen - 幽幽相送 Send Off Quietly [In Blossom]
🌸 井胧 Jing Long - 少年行 Youth Journey [White Cat Legend]
🌸 许天奇 Xu Tianqi - 云月谣 [The Slave To Love]

Pop / EDM
🌸 SNH48 - 因为你 Stay With Me album
🌸 SING - 可叹
🌸 Zhu Zhixin & Zhang Junhao (TF Family 3rd gen trainees) - 童话 the day we leave home

🌸 pro & 徐靖雯 Xu Jingwen - 其实不舍得
🌸 王喜忠 Wang Xizhong - 和你在一起

🌸 Carta & 王艺瑾 Wang Yijin - 紅 Famous
🌸 徐梦圆 YUAN - CHINA-盼春

Rock
🌸 en - 若夢
🌸 银河快递 Galaxy Express - 一个人的对白 Aback
🌸 张妙格 Zhang Miaoge - 紫阳花

today's episode of Music Bank~🍓☁️

toxic (tw: flashing lights) - I really liked this song so it was a pleasant surprise to see them on MuBank today ･ﾟ✿･ﾟ✿ kiss of life - good stage, very sexy ⋄❀°⋄❀° catch the young - their first comeback with a cute ocean concept 💙🐬✨ ampers&one - very cool and visually striking stage 🎃 drippin - with only 5 members it's not really peak drippin and the outfits are a bit clashy, but I was impressed with the song, their live vocals**, and even the fanchant! 😃

It was hard to pick a best stage today - Ampers&one was visually the coolest but ultimately Drippin has the best song and they're at a higher tier in terms of talent so ✨👑 Drippin 👑✨ it is!
^{I look forward to better outfits next week!!!}

**edit: in case you watched the main stage and doubted it's live, the full cam makes it more obvious. They prepped for this comeback with a CD-only diet apparently 💿✨

So I started watching In Blossom 🌸 and I'm intrigued by the story so I plan on finishing it 😊 however, I'm annoyed that the internet is full of people crapping on Ju Jingyi while gushing over Liu Xueyi...

Sure, JJY is not amazing but she's not terrible either - I'd say she's ok/decent. But I have to say I'm not satisfied with LXY because although his facial expressions are great, his body language is really unconvincing to the point that it breaks the immersion at times. Like that scene where he had to confront his father after his wife died... what a fail. I feel like the only person on the whole internet with anything negative to say about him, but he's definitely overhyped.

Overall I am enjoying the drama though, rant aside!