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[tinkaton]

Sign-ups are open for that unsent_letters_exchange! I did end up submitting some nominations as I was debating in my last post, so now I sit here waffling on actually signing up. I feel like I can't back out now because what if someone wants to write one of my noms and I miss out on it!! So I did go through all the noms and made a list of possible offers/requests I could do at least... (Whoever nominated The Last Binding series PLEASE reveal yourself I need to be your friend.) Now I just need to figure out the etiquette for those dear creator letters...

At this point I am highly doubtful I'll get around to doing the snowflake_challenge in any sort of timely manner, so I think I'm crossing that off my to-do list lmao. Hopefully next year I'll give it a try on time! But I DO want to steal Challenge #10: Five Things and do a list of five of my top no-skip k-pop albums/EPs because I've been thinking about it too much not to just do it.


Fancy You by TWICE (Listen: Spotify / YouTube)

I've been a Twice fan for a while and while I love their early stuff ("What is Love?" and "TT" are of course classics), to me "Fancy" is where their sound sort of...got less cutesy? They still put out cute stuff, I LOVE "The Feels" and "Scientist"--which I JUST learned apparently people didn't like?? I cannot fathom that, "Scientist" felt like the perfect blend of their current concepts and their older cutesy stuff. Anyway, tangent! "Fancy" is what I consider the turning point into their current sound and I loved it sooo much, I was completely shook when it came out. The MV, iconic. Chaeyoung's pink hair, iconic. Their b-sides used to be...not great...and I would rarely listen to them lol but they've got a lot of really good b-sides these days too. So thank you, Fancy You!! The album is heavily dance pop/electropop/hip hop so very upbeat and fun.

Lowlife Princess: Noir by BIBI (Listen: Spotify / YouTube)

So, Bibi. She debuted as a soloist with the song "Binu" which I really liked, it was fun and unique and her voice was really nice. I kept up with her releases and none of the songs really hit the way "Binu" did. So I was like man maybe Bibi just isn't for me? HOW WRONG I WAS. Lowlife Princess is her first full-length album and it SLAPS. She released a bunch of music/performance videos to go along with half the tracks and they're amazing, she kills a lot of people in "Animal Farm" lmao. I'm so sorry I doubted you, queen. I'm loving her latest comeback "Sugar Rush" as well. The album is a mix of genres, with influences from R&B and hip hop, EDM, pop-rock/dark pop sounds.

Unforgiven by Le Sserafim (Listen: Spotify / YouTube)

This features one The Songs of All Time "Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard's wife" and that alone would get it a place on this list, but there's a lot of bangers on this one! "Fearless", "Blue Flame", "The Hydra", "Antifragile", "Impurities", "Fire in the belly", "Unforgiven", Le Sserafim is one of the popular new girl groups that deserves the hype imo. Wikipedia has this album labeled as "experimental pop" and there's definitely a mix of influences--R&B, disco-pop/house, latin, reggaeton, hip hop, among others. Other than "Eve" I'd say give "Antifragile" a listen for max earworm power.

The Other Side of the Moon by GWSN (Listen: Spotify / YouTube)

Justice for GWSN for reallll :/ This was their last release before they disbanded because their shitty company basically went bankrupt after neglecting them for months (not paying staff wages or rent for the dorm, not providing practice space, not doing paperwork for the foreign members' visas) and the group disbanded after winning the subsequent lawsuit. But I was always a GWSN girlie and they deserved so much better!! This album is a mix of pop/dance with some more lowkey tracks that show off the vocals more, and it was kind of a departure from their previous stuff, so it's absolutely criminal we didn't get to see more of them with this direction they were heading.

28 Reasons by Seulgi (Listen: Spotify / YouTube)

The solo album debut by my Red Velvet bias. Seulgi was one of my first faves and her voice is sooo pretty. Like the velvet side of RV's discography, this album is very R&B inspired, lots of bass, with a few songs leaning into the disco/EDM realm. I don't think I could pick a favorite song off here because they're all so good. (Okay except "Bad Boy, Sad Girl" is at the bottom of the list, girls STOP putting male rappers on your songs.)

The Happy Star by Lexie Liu (Listen: Spotify / YouTube)

My honorable mention! This isn't officially on the list because Liu is a Chinese singer (apparently classified mandopop according to Wikipedia) but I have been obsessed with this album lately and wanted to share it. While "The Magician" is hands down my favorite track, again this is an album full of bangers, with dance/electropop/EDM songs mixing with some more R&B stuff.

This definitely isn't all my fave albums, for example Itzy and Dreamcatcher never put out bad b-sides, and a lot of good singers never do anything other than singles (Sunmi, my love, album? Full album?? Please?) so I could definitely go on about a thousand other songs/groups lmao. A lot of these are fairly recent too so clearly a recency bias happening but I already put too much time into this so I am stopping here sjhfskdjsf.

I think I only have like, 2 k-pop fans on my friends list, but what's everyone's favorite albums? Of any genre/country of origin! K-pop recs not required haha.

Comments

[vendettadays]

California Dream and Love Me Out Loud are my faves on that album too — I'm looking forward to Chung Ha's new album next week; she's got a new sound now she's with her new agency and the teasers already look so good.

Ah, if you get the time definitely recommend LOONA's b-sides from any of their albums, but I may be a bit biased towards LOONA, ahah :D

[tinkaton]

I just listened to her new single/b-side and I think I like them lol. I'll have to give them a few more listens but it's very interesting musically. Not as good as Bare & Rare imo but also the vibe is very different SO probably can't really compare them either sjhdfksjfs