Music Reviews
Paledusk returned with a brand-new single inspired by a football match. Their latest single, "GOLDEN GOAL" reflects the chaotic trajectory of the band as well as their relentless drive to keep pushing forward. Their music has always been willing to get loud, heavy, unpredictable, or all three within the same track, and "GOLDEN GOAL" is no different as it takes the intensity of a football match and channels that experience into a song about chasing the goal ahead, taking on whatever stands in...
Number_i return with REBON / BUGS LIFE / DIGITAL GIRL, a new EP that brings together three different perspectives on where the group is headed. From revisiting the energy of “BON” to turning digital glitches into a hard-hitting performance track and exploring love in an increasingly online world, the release gives Sho Hirano, Yuta Jinguji, and Yuta Kishi room to experiment with both sound and concept. Number_i officially formed on October 15, 2023, bringing together three artists whose...
Lil Cherry and GOLDBUUDA are back with “Yummy 88,” a new single and music video that brings the Korean sibling duo’s love of food, hip-hop, and completely unapologetic indulgence back to the center of their music. Following “DRESS2KILL” earlier this year, the pair return to the food-focused world that first became a major part of their identity with “MUKKBANG!” six years ago, this time turning a chaotic kitchen into the setting for a full-on celebration of eating, cooking, and having a good...
Before they had debut dates, or any idea of where their careers would lead, ONE OR EIGHT's SOUMA and STARGLOW's TAIKI were two trainees pushing each other to become better. Years later, that history has found its way into music with "ONE WHO GLOWS," a special three-song session released on YouTube that brings the two artists back together for a high-energy rap exchange. SOUMA and TAIKI first met during their trainee years, when both were working toward the same goal and spending their time...
SOTA HANAMURA has found an unexpected subject for his latest solo release: ramen. Released September 18, “キミヲサガシテタ Searching for You” serves as the new TV commercial song for Osaka-born ramen chain Dotonbori Kamukura, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, while giving SOTA another opportunity to explore the urban pop sound developing around his solo work. Best known as the main vocalist of Da-iCE, SOTA began building his solo career in 2026 with the digital pre-release “Me.exe”...
Adam Fan makes his English-language debut with SKYFALL, an eight-track album released September 16 that brings together melodic rap, trap, Rage, rock, and dance. The project introduces Fan to an English-speaking audience through a collection that gives its individual tracks room to take on different moods and production styles. Known in China as Fan Chengcheng, Adam Fan first gained wider attention through the survival program Idol Producer before debuting as a member of NINE PERCENT. He...
XG returns with “DEPENDS,” a new digital single released November 6 and the group's first new music since January's THE CORE - 核. Rather than arriving with another large statement, the song takes a more reflective approach, built around the idea that not every question about identity, growth, or the future has an immediate answer. JURIN, CHISA, HINATA, HARVEY, JURIA, MAYA, and COCONA officially debuted as XG on March 18, 2022, with “Tippy Toes,” establishing a group that has continued moving...
Odetari, SatapanP, and Hatsune Miku come together for “Party Monster,” the latest release from BEYOND BORDERs. Released September 9, the single brings electronic production, rock influence, and hip-hop energy into one track, pairing Odetari’s hard-hitting style with SatapanP’s Vocaloid production and Miku’s unmistakable virtual vocals. Odetari has built his music around the kind of electronic sound that moves quickly and hits hard, drawing from hip-hop, club music, and the internet-driven...
What happens when Awich, CHICO CARLITO, ONE OK ROCK, and Paledusk end up on the same song? YAO’s second single, “FOR OKINAWA,” released September 4, bringing four distinct voices from Japanese music together around a song rooted in Okinawa, its history, and the importance of understanding perspectives beyond our own. YAO is a newly formed Japanese music collective bringing together artists from very different corners of the Japanese music scene. Awich and CHICO CARLITO are both Okinawa...
Keina Suda does not make darkness particularly difficult to listen to. On “BLACK,” his newest single and latest preview of the upcoming album LOVE HATE, heavy ideas about existence, time, life, and death are wrapped inside a track that is sharp, melodic, and surprisingly easy to keep playing. For listeners who have followed Suda’s work for years, his ability to turn complicated emotions into something immediately memorable is familiar. Before becoming known primarily as a singer-songwriter...
WAYF BOYS released their second single, “SWAG,” on August 28, following their August 7 debut with “WAYF BOYS DO.” Bringing together Andrew, Junmyeong, Anderson, Samuel, and Ryan, the new track settles into a smooth blend of R&B and hip-hop while giving the five members more room to show what happens when their different musical backgrounds meet. The five members each came to WAYF BOYS through their own paths in music. Lee Junmyeong trained with YG Entertainment, Starship Entertainment, and...
As the night falls over Seoul at mid-September, the rhythm of the city never stops pulsing, but from time to time, changes frequencies. At 6 PM sharp on Thursday, September 10, 2026, TOP MEDIA announced a new era for the five-piece group called MCND with the release of their seventh mini-album. Coming out nearly two years after their 2024 mini-album X10, the Devil Youth Club came into the world of music not as an unnoticed phenomenon but as an intended, sharp claim of place. Published by Sony...
Philadelphia underground rap has met one of Japan’s most recognizable virtual performers? slayr and Hatsune Miku have released “Light,” a high-energy collaboration that brings drum and bass, rap, electronic production, and Vocaloid culture together without trying to make any of those pieces feel separate. The new single also brings Japanese artist XAMIYA and Vocaloid producer picco into the mix, creating a track that feels very much at home in the space where internet culture and music...
NCT 127 celebrated their 10-year anniversary with several changes, and BLINGY reflects the aspects that have changed as well as those that have remained the same. Their music has always been willing to get loud, strange, aggressive, sentimental, or all four within the same album, and BLINGY is no different. On the surface, the seventh full-length album is packed with the kind of hard-hitting production that NCTzens have come to expect, but underneath the distorted synths, heavy drums, rap...
Twenty years of ONE OK ROCK is a lot of music to fit onto one record, but ONE OK ROCK: A DECADE OF GREATEST HITS is taking on the challenge with 18 tracks that trace some of the band's biggest moments while leaving room for something completely new. Arriving October 30 via Fueled by Ramen/Atlantic Records, the collection will feature the brand-new song “Fever” alongside fan favorites spanning the band's international rise and most recent era. Formed in Tokyo in 2005, ONE OK ROCK is made up of...
Sometimes losing yourself does not happen all at once. It can happen quietly, somewhere between scrolling through everyone else’s lives, comparing where you are to where you think you should be, and trying so hard to keep up that you forget what you actually wanted in the first place. LIL LEAGUE’s “Boku wo Sagashiteta” sits in that uncomfortable space, turning the feeling of searching for yourself into a ballad that feels less like an answer and more like finally being given room to breathe....
Déjà vu is that strange little feeling of familiarity that catches you off guard: the sense that you have been somewhere before, heard something before, or lived through a moment that is happening for the very first time. SOTA HANAMURA and Airi Suzuki capture that same contradiction in "Dejavu,” a song built around two people who already know each other but sound as though they are meeting in this musical space for the first time. The friendship between SOTA and Airi developed through radio...
Sometimes, the story behind any global pop icon requires a reinvention of sorts or a declaration of independence. For JISOO, however, one of the founding members of BLACKPINK, who started her career in 2016, independence was achieved through subtle precision. On Friday, September 4, 2026, at 1 PM KST, BLISSOO, her label, introduced her latest single album called CLICK along with the titular song. Instead of being an introduction to her solo music career, it is the next step of a...
"Guitarist" is a perfect example since in this song, the metaphor is not imposed on top of the production but rather embedded within it. The guitar and the vocal line seem to negotiate space the same way as two people in lyrics find a common rhythm between them.
Despite the bright lights of global pop music, authentic artistic authority rarely develops out of sheer insistence on oneself. Artistic authority develops in the calm confidence of the ensemble that no longer has to feel the need to establish its legitimacy. At the comeback of LE SSERAFIM on Friday, September 11, 2026, releasing the official music video for their second single album Made My Night at midnight KST and later releasing the two-track project at 1 PM KST, the South Korean quintet...