August 2026 K-Pop Roundup
Now that I’m officially unemployed and no longer on vacation in Maine I am much faster with this blog, even when I avoid actually writing the roundups in favor of making videos because writing a blog is a little bit too close to writing an article and my brain is stuck in I DON’T WANNA mode. Hopefully my brain’s little tantrum will be over once my freelance gigs start up again in a couple weeks. In the meantime, my August report:
Solo
Jung Eunji, “I Love LOVE”
Group
NOWZ, “Achilles”
Release
Rocky, Unsaid
Back in 2023 the girl group Apink appeared on Dingo Music’s Killing Voice series to sing a medley of their past hits. I wasn’t yet doing my Big Project, but I tuned in eagerly. Past editions of the show had turned me on to groups I would’ve overlooked before, and from what I knew of Apink (chiefly “Mr. Chu”) this format would be my best point of entry to their music. (I was right, and I had to go back and watch the whole video after writing this.) I was instantly endeared by two things: their robust group harmonies (surprisingly rare in live k-pop performance) and main vocalist Eunji’s clear love of singing. And boy are we lucky that she loves singing, because her instrument is undeniably lovely — warm, rich, sweet, and clear all at once. Even on a brutally technically demanding song like “I Love LOVE” she sounds relaxed but still emotive. She’s versatile too: on other tracks from her new EP (Summer, I)she leans into her voice’s natural jazzy roundness in “Rainy Season” and “Gradually,” and shows off an equally unaffected lightness in the midtempo acoustic number “With the Wind.”
I guess I’m on a streak of boy group appreciation this summer — or maybe it’s that boy groups keep releasing disco tracks. That’s definitely what’s going on with NOWZ and their breakthrough single “Achilles,” which is an electro-disco delight with hips-forward choreography to match. And it helps that there’s what feels like a playfully intentional nod toward the complex parasocial/parasexual dynamics of k-pop fandom here. On the one hand, the song’s title (the gay reading of Achilles and Patroclus now being quite mainstream, not to mention the common association between ancient Greece and homosexuality), genre (disco is gay, kids), and the homoerotic jeans ad of a music video — all of this reads incredibly queer. And yet you listen even to just the English lyrics and you hear “you’re my achilles girl,” as in, “I’m weak for you, girl.” Do the fans want to be the “girl”? Unclear, but they definitely want to watch these boys dance with each other. And what do the boys want? Well, it’s k-pop, so they’re probably not at liberty to say.
Speaking of nonverbal queerness in k-pop…I actually have no idea if ex-Astro soloist Rocky has indicated anything about his own identity, but he’s on a short list of idols who have put their allyship into practice by filming content with the industry’s only gender-nonconforming group, XLOV. In fact, Rocky and XLOV leader/mastermind Wumuti are longtime friends, as evidenced by this frankly adorable video of Wumuti putting acrylics on Rocky. I’ve enjoyed most of Rocky’s solo work since I started this project, particularly his heartbreakingly sweet “We Still Love You” from his 2024 EP Blank (a song most likely about his late groupmate Moonbin, who died by suicide in early 2023). But Unsaid is all the most compelling elements of Rocky’s artistry distilled. I’m especially impressed by his decision to make “Fake It” the promoted single, considering that it’s perhaps the least commercially digestible track on the album. But then you see it with Rocky’s masterful and frankly unsettling choreography and it makes perfect sense. “An endless maze, a hidden phrase,” starts to feel like an incantation.
Elsewhere: I regret to report that new girl group (of literal children) Tuide put out an excellent debut EP, but I still wish they’d let these kids cook for a few more years before putting them in the public eye; I like the new Red Velvet EP but Wendy is nearly as hard to watch as Ariana Grande these days; I can’t stop listening to “Ever2Late” but the rest of the new KiiiKiii EP doesn’t really hit for me; OURBIRTHDAY has the skills to be worthy juniors to NMIXX and the musical direction is intriguing; every single thing about Seventeen’s Dino debuting as his ahjussi alter-ego Picheolin is a goddamn delight, and frankly I enjoy his “trot” singing more than anything else I’ve heard from him; You Dayeon is a hidden gem; and Taemin remains the king of retro swagger (this video is from April but the song is on his new album – but look at him MOVE, ugh).
