April 2026 K-Pop Roundup
The post-BTS album slump was real, but there were still some lovely things this month!
Soyou, TWS, Hwasa
Soloist
Hwasa, “So Cute”
Group
TWS, “Fire Escape”
Release
Soyou, Off Hours
There really is no one else like Hwasa; actually, there’s no one else like any of the Mamamoo members except other Mamamoo members. The stage presence alone is startling, but all four back it up with genuine skill. Hwasa in particular has always been adept at writing and delivering a great hook — perhaps most notably on “Twit,” her 2019 debut single, which has an honored place on my Replays playlist (where I put all the songs I never stop enjoying) — and “So Cute” is catchy as fuck. It’s both retro and fresh and on its own it’s a delightful little gem, but performance truly elevates it to pop transcendence. Also, she wore some really great hats during music show promo.
For such a new group (they debuted in early 2024) TWS has a very legible identity, one that I feel can be summed up in a single word: sparkly. Their spin on the bright, enthusiastic musical theater energy of their senior labelmates Seventeen is always fun to experience in performance, but until No Tragedy the music hasn’t quite broken through for me. I thoroughly enjoyed every track on this EP, though I naturally gravitated toward the weirdest song, “Fire Escape.” Honestly it bears a more-than-passing resemblance to P1Harmony’s “L.O.Y.L.,” which I wrote about last month. And both “Fire Escape” and “L.O.Y.L.” share some DNA with one of my favorite Zerobaseone b-sides, “Road Movie” (from their — group best, in my opinion — 2024 EP Cinema Paradise). Sometime I’d like to do a deep-dive on this microgenre, especially since I have a hunch that it’s traceable to a song written by multihyphenate trendsetter Jeon Soyeon back in 2020 (“Oh My God” by i-dle). But I digress! “Fire Escape” is great, No Tragedy is a delight, and thank you to TWS’s Hanjin for accidentally confirming the existence of Zhang Hao’s dog.
Second- and third-generation soloists have been on an incredible run for the past few years (Yuju, Doyoung, YooA, all of Shinee, etc.) and I’m delighted to see Soyou get in on the action with her first EP in almost three years. Promotional images and the album cover imply unvarnished intimacy but also distance — the photos are framed and shot like candids captured on a friend’s digital camera circa 2010, and yet in many Soyou wears dark glasses or otherwise obscures her face. The combination of Soyou’s bright R&B vocal style and the dark, slightly grungy production supporting her fits this visual contradiction perfectly, as do the lyrics to title track “Girl,” where Soyou croons:
All the nights I felt so dumb
All the times I bit my tongue
Messy, pretty, looking clueless
I am not a cool girl
Elsewhere: Wheein laments the fuckboy epidemic; I am charmed by a Cravity EP (a first for me!); Hui takes a break from going on dates with various members of Zerobaseone (RIP OT9) to release a frankly adorable single; Fellow Pentagon member Kino’s latest had me laughing out loud (your mileage may vary on if you’re laughing with or at); and Yves is still doing her queer indie pop girlie thing.
