Updates – KPOPREVIEWED

[Announcement] 2020 KPOPREVIEWED Awards – Coming Soon!!

November 15, 2020December 1, 2020Posted in Special, UpdatesLeave a comment

It is almost that time of the year where you get to pick who was the best of the year! Without a doubt, 2020 has been one intense year. But nonetheless, we were treated to many great comebacks, debuts, songs, music videos and performances throughout the year. But who was the best group in 2020? Which songs were your favourite? Very important questions that I must ask to deliver the 2020 KPOPREVIEWED Awards!

Voting for each category opens on the 1st of December 2020 at 12:00 am AEST. And like over the previous few years, you will be able to vote in an increased number of categories including (gendered categories are all separated and not combined – they are only combined for this list):

Best Female / Male Group
Best New Female / Male Group
Best Female / Male Soloist
Best New Female / Male Soloist
Best Subunit
Best Mixed Group
Best Band
Best Rap Performance
Best Vocal Performance
Best Female / Male Choreography
Best Music Video
Rising Star of 2020
Most Underrated Artist of 2020
Best Concept [New Category]
Best Costume / Outfits [New Category]
Best International Song by an Korean Artist
Best OST [New Category]
Best Side-Track or B-side [New Category]
Best Album
Best Song (Title Track)

In addition to the above categories, there are a few awards that I will be determining the winners for themselves, including all awards relating to the Weekly KPOP Charts and a few surprise ones that you will find out at the end of January 2021, when all the winners will be announced. Voting will close, per usual, at 11:59 PM AEST on the 31st of December 2020.

And like last year, your votes for the Best Song (or Title Track) award will be counted towards the final 2020 KPOPREVIEWED Awards End of Year Charts. The charts will be determined by your votes (accounting for 50% of the charts) and my Weekly KPOP Charts (accounting for the other 50% of the charts). There will be slight changes to the way I calculate the charts this time around (i.e. I will be basing the Weekly KPOP Charts side of the End Of Year Charts on the number of votes given the song with the most fan votes) and I will fully explain the changes at a closer date to publication of the awards/charts).

But that is all you will need to know for now. Keep your eyes peeled for the voting page coming your way on the 1st of December 2020. Share it to you your friends and be ready to have your say in the 2020 KPOPREVIEWED Awards.

[Update] KPOPREVIEWED IN 2020

January 4, 2020January 4, 2020Posted in Updates1 Comment

2020 is offically upon us, while 2019 is officially behind us. I think many people might be glad to hear that, since 2019 can be described as one of the crappier years of KPOP. But at the same time, we have been blessed with a lot of amazing songs, debuts and comebacks throughout 2019. With the latter point and based on another strong performance for the blog in 2019, I have no plans on stopping reviews, as I know 2020 will be an exciting year as well.

2020 is going to be a big year for me on a personal level. I will be taking a big step into my adult life. Essentially, I am moving out and starting a new job, which is very exciting and daunting all at the same time. I am telling you this because I do expect this to have an affect on the blog during January and February. While I do endeavor to post reviews for all the “major” releases, they may be a few days late because of my change in environment and system. I think it is best to let you know ahead of time before you think I am picking favourites or think I am being exceptionally busy in this new year.

For some of the current segments that I have on the blog, I will need to schedule in their return as my move will be happening in the next week. The schedule will be as follows:

Weekly KPOP Charts – Returning Sundays (1st Weekly KPOP Chart of 2019 will be posted 5th January 2020).
Album Reviews – Returning Sundays and Fridays (1st Album Review will be posted on 12th January 2020. Note that no album review will be posted on the 5th, 10th January and 2nd February 2020).
Past Album Reviews (PARs) – Returning Tuesdays (1st PARs will be posted on 14th January 2020).
Review of End-Of-Year Performances from SBS, KBS and MBC Music Festivals (Returning Segment) – This will be posted on 10th January 2020)
2019 KPOPREVIEWED Awards – Song/Artist categories Winner Announcement (This Will Be Posted on 1st February 2020)
2019 KPOPREVIEWED Awards – End Of Year Charts & Song Of 2019 Announcement (This Will be Posted on 2nd February 2020).
International Song Review segment (New Segment – to replace current Japanese Song Reviews) – Saturdays (1st post will be posted on 18th January 2020).

There are also a number of other segments that I will want to revisit including Missed Reviews (for music videos), Music Video Theory Posts, Special Review posts. But these can only be scheduled once I have them in motion and my footing in my new environment. A new segment that I want to bring to the blog in 2020 are Revised Reviews (where I pick some reviews that my opinion has changed and essentially update them). I also wish to revise my Saturday Japanese song reviews into a new International Segment, where I will review any song released by a Korean artist. This new segment will feature a quick review of 5 or 6 songs and will be posted on Saturdays once I have fulfilled that quota.

At the end of 2019, I also promised you to complete a ‘catch up’ of some tracks that I missed. As 2019 wrapped up, I realized that my goal set was not achievable and had to drop it. Throughout January and February, I will be bringing back the ‘catch-up‘ review, where I reviewed 3 tracks in one post. I may need to work on the format of this review to match my current format. This may also become a pernament fixture at the end of month to help cover songs that should be reviewed but I am unable to due to my schedule and other commitments.

But for now, reviews will still be coming your way starting Monday and I will try my very best to stay up to date! I hear ATEEZ, SF9, VERIVERY, B.O.Y, DreamNote and many more are returning this coming week! So a lot of keep up with!!!

[Review] SOSO – WINNER

October 30, 2019October 30, 2019Posted in KPOP, Reviews, UpdatesTagged Winner1 Comment

It is time to catch up on some more reviews. But I am not dipping into my ‘Coming Soon’ page yet as there are a few more comebacks from last week that I wanted to cover. WINNER is a major group that I have yet to review and they made their comeback with SOSO last Wednesday. I am not going to delay their review anymore. We last saw the group through their Ah Yeah comeback, which was released 5 months back.

The way the song was set up was quite promising. But the resulting mix just didn’t work out too well. And I point my finger squarely on the slowdown that was featured as the chorus of the song. It was disappointing and a complete letdown, especially after such a rocking buildup to what could have been an amazing drop. It cut the momentum down to a sluggish pace. The repetition of the ‘So So‘ didn’t help as well. I think in their defence, it would have been interesting to some people. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. The rest of the track was fine. I really enjoyed the verses. Mino’s rap sequence at the start of the song has to be one of the best sequences of the year. It was fluid and just kept coming at us. The vocals work was also quite good. They did seem to go with a more generic sound this time around, which seems to be the route that they have been aiming for during their last few songs. But WINNER always seems to make it sound good. Just not this time, unfortunately.

The music video is very filled with a lot of symbolism, which is different from what a typical music video coming from WINNER is usually. Based on what I understood from an interview, the video shows scenes of the scars that fans do not see commonly. They are practically isolated from the rest of the world (shown by Mino), entangled in the public life (shown by Seungyoon), dodging scandals to keep that innocent and well-behaved image (shown by Jiwoo) and are hurt and tired underneath all of that name brand clothing that they get to wear (shown by Hoony). It is an interesting video that does manage to speak volumes, especially with what recently happened.

I think the performance is a lot like the song. There were good moments during the verses and pre-chorus thanks to the more upbeat vibes in the instrumental. But the slowdown from the chorus made it rather disappointing and this really dried up the performance for me.

Song – 5/10
Music Video – 9/10
Performance – 5/10
Overall Rating – 6.2/10

[Update] Thanks + The Next Few Weeks

October 3, 2019October 12, 2019Posted in Updates4 Comments

Hello everyone,

WordPress just informed me today that it has been 8 years since I started this blog. That’s literally crazy. Out of all my ventures and hobbies that I have tried out, this one has stuck around the longest. And I think it will be sticking around for a few more years. I thoroughly enjoy my time writing on this blog. And while my reviews aren’t technical nor do I think they are as good as some other blogs/sites, I am always grateful to see people come to read, like and comment on it. And it is you, the readers, that make me want to come back every day and write more and more reviews. Over the years, you guys gave me the confidence to start new segments and I have a lot more ideas up my sleeves for the future. But before I get to the future, I just want to express my gratitude and thanks for the last 8 years (and especially the past year!)!

Now that I have said all the cheesy stuff, let’s move onto a very important topic, the future. Don’t worry, I am not going anywhere and I will continue to post my reviews. Over the coming weeks, however, I will be quite busy with my final weeks of study. So do expect the number of reviews to do go down. On top of that, do expect me to awkwardly post a lot of reviews on one day of the week.

I will be focusing on the major comebacks (at my discretion) for the reviews, for the time being. I will be starting a new page (you can find it on the menu above titled as ‘Coming Soon’, which will be a list of song reviews and album reviews that I will write up once my schedule has cleared up and I am freed from my studies. I can tell you right now, there will be a lot to get through, so get prepared for then.

In December, I will be posy the 2019 KPOPREVIEWED Awards nominations and voting form on the blog for you to vote for your favourite artists and songs. Yeah, we are already close to the end of the year. Very daunting but also very exciting.

In the meantime, I will be around and about, posting whenever I can. I will be posting reviews tomorrow as well, so keep an eye out for them. Thank you once again and see you all tomorrow!

5 years…

October 3, 2016Posted in Special, UpdatesTagged 5 Years Old, kpopreviewed, Thank YouLeave a comment

So today I decided to go onto WordPress.com and see what is going on. In the corner of the web page was an orange square, with a trophy on it. I click on it and it pops up a message. It congratulated me on the past 5 years. 5 years of KPOPreviewed. Wow, has time went by quickly or what?

Yeah, the progress is slow and the site doesn’t seem to have grown much. But I enjoy what I do. I like it when you guys follow this website. I like it when you guys comment or like my post. More importantly, I like it when you guys read my posts. Sometimes you agree with them, sometimes you don’t. In my memory, I don’t think I ever got one bad message. Given what I post, I am honestly surprised, but at the same time relieved I haven’t faced that yet.

To be honest, I am in a slump. I honestly do not know what I am doing in life at the moment. I live concerned for my future ( i.e. financial stability, social life, health). A lot of those things I am currently trying to work on (or in the near future), but it stills scares me. Having this site means a lot to me. It is a thing that I picked up 5 years ago and have continued with it. You could say a hobby or an activity that takes my mind off things. By you reading, liking, following and commenting; it puts a smile on my face. And for that, I thank you.

Thank you for the memories! I am sure some of you guys have stuck around for some time and others may have just followed this site recently. It all means a lot to me and I cannot say this enough, but thank you!

I am sorry if I came off depressed in this post. It just hit home when I saw fives years. I personally don’t know how long I will be on here. 5 more years? Maybe just 1? Who knows? Life is spontaneous this way. Just I do have a few plans for a few more things for the website, so I think I will be around for a while.

Once again, thank you for the past five years. Enjoy reading my posts and of course, KPOP. Make sure you guys like, comment and follow my site. All appreciated. I also have a Twitter, which I will try to update every now and then, especially, if I disappear for exams or an overload of work. That can be found down below (just click the Twitter bird). And sorry if you are expecting a post today :D.