Not Today

Predictably the Lay MV did indeed cause somewhat of a shitstorm, but not for the reasons you might think. The lyrics were incredibly...bad lol and the song wasn't much better. Annoyingly though, I hated it at first but then I watched it a few more times and started liking it lol. Idek. The rest of the album was better...in spots. Peach was atrocious, so much worse than Lu amg. Boss sounded like I'm the Bus and I think Shake was kinda bad too. Basically the whole ten tracks thing turned out to be a curse. It would have been better as six. LE SIGH. I'm just tryna luv ya Lay, but you're making it hard.

Then the GOT7 album dropped yesterday and that wasn't great either. Teenager was super annoying and the rest of the songs went nowhere and so the album just sounded blended together. I more or less liked the title song, but definitely not as much as previous title songs. Never Ever remains the best. So yeaaaah, putting that one back on the shelf. Super glad I didn't preorder it now.

It's tempting to blame EXO for being so flawfree, but nah it's not that. GOT7's songs are still fun, but this album was booooring.

In other bias news though:


Istg the Pentagon guys are sooooo good at making sticky-af songs. I listened to this ONCE and it's this kinda lowkey rap song, but it started sticking in my head immediately. I am constantly amazed actually at how talented they all are when it comes to making songs.

Also pretty cool was the new Taemin teaser. I'm getting a bit of a Halloween aesthetic from the promo stuff so far and I'm so here for that.

So what have we left for this month?

GOT7 - 7 For 7
BTOB - Brother Act
Lay - LAY 02 SHEEP
Varsity - U & I, Date
SF9 - Knights of the Sun
Taemin - Move

 Ok, so I really do believe that Hyunseung's comeback is out there somewhere.  Idk why they're taking so long or why they're not updating anyone, but there's bits and bobs of hints in places, including HS's own Insta.  So I do think it's coming.  I'm just super hoping it's a real full album.  I don't like reading about all these 89-liners getting their draft notices lately.

So I watched a few Exo Ko Ko Bop stages and honestly the choreo is not gripping at all.  But one of the shows had translated lyrics and omo I had no idea they were all fully of sexin like that lol.  I mean, the song definitely has that feel, but there's plenty of Kpop songs that have that feel and then the lyrics are super ambiguous or tame.  It's weird that no one talked about it vs Vixx's Black Out, but I kinda bet that the translation has something to do with it.  Like, it maybe sounds way more explicit to someone who knows Korean vs how it got translated.  Kinda like when people kept translating Agust D as literally going to Hong Kong when that line was slang for being turned on.  The subs by Big Hit were actually accurate vs all the fan translators.

Speaking of BTS though.  I'm always conflicted on them you know bc of how annoying their fans are and plus all these recent fans who obviously just saw them when they appeared on the stupid American awards show.  For the most part I just like Suga bc of what a little shit he is lol.  Well and I love his rapping too.  The one thing I do like I guess is that they seem to make a lot of old KPop fans salty due to their unstoppable popularity.  Old Kpop fans are always annoying me bc they act like their era was better and that the new era needs to have respect for the old.  Yeah, no.  I'm very aware of the old era of Kpop, but I didn't like it.  Even some of the groups I like now that were on the fringe then like 2PM, SHINee, B2ST, etc. I still don't like their oldest albums.  Plus the rapping in all three of those groups is largely awful.  

Tbh aside from all the electro, bassy, dance-oriented stuff now, it's the emphasis on rapping that made me a fan of this newer era.  Apparently that bugs some people.  I've seen threads where people were whining about how there's too much rapping in new groups.

In unrelated crack speculation...lol, today I was thinking WHAT IF, as in plot twist!  What if Hyuna decided not to comeback solo and instead wanted to do more Triple H?  I remember she did that with Trouble Maker one year.  I would actually really love that though.  I've played the heck out of that mini.  And besides, in terms of their sound, Edawn and Hui are my favorites in Pentagon and in Triple H, you get to hear way more of them.  I just thought they meshed really well.  Hui with his strong, soaring voice and Edawn and Hyuna with their really unconventional chipmunk voices lol.  So yus, gimme mo of dat.

 Lol so I stalk Twitter for Hyunseung news bc Idk where else I'mma get it at this point.  At least I feel like I'm not alone in my total saltiness about the issue.  The worst part is that I love how Cube has promoted Pentagon, but I'm hopping mad at what they're doing to Hyunseung.  Anyway, so I saw someone saying that Cube was trying super hard to make Edawn Hyunseung ver.2 and like???? I have to object.  I admit, I saw a passing resemblance in their facial features and there's no doubt that Edawn is very 4D.

BUT.  

Idt Cube is doing any such thing and honestly, if you're familiar enough with both, they're very different.  Talentwise, there's the very obvious that HS is a singer and Edawn is a rapper, even though Edawn can apparently sing, it's not his forte.  Their voices in general are very different.  HS actually has a kinda low speaking voice, whereas Edawn's is kinda nasal.  Yes, they are both 4D, i.e. rather weird in comparison to the extroverted social people people that most Kpop idols are.  HOWEVER, Edawn is a bit of a troll.  See the Weekly Idol with Triple H where the hosts tried to needle him over looking sick and he rolled with it, he rolled with it so hard that the hosts were starting to believe him.  HELL, I was starting to believe him lmao.  ON the other hand, HS generally got flustered with needling like that.  He's a lot more introverted, more like Mark Tuan actually, except just kinda weird.

HS definitely got more confident in his dancing and singing later on, but Edawn is both right NOW, like he literally transforms when he's asked to do something performance related.  He's also, I would say, a more fluid dancer.  Again, Weekly Idol where he just randomly got up and did a robot and popping dance and it was hella cool.

Also looks-wise, other than working the blond hair pretty well, I don't think there's huge similarities.  HS is really lanky, Dawn is muscular. 

Me personally, I'm very into HS's vocals more than anything else.  Like I STAN his voice so hard.  There's no other vocalist in Kpop or anywhere else that can get me like Hyunseung.  Edawn's rapping style cracks me up a lot, but honestly his dancing is probably what I'm most into lol.  He was a street dancer before and it srsly shows.  I hope there's another HIt the Stage in the future and he gets to be in it.

So yes, they're very different if you happen to stan both of them like I do lol.