Rundown: IVE, KickFlip, MINNIE, BOYNEXTDOOR, GOT7, ZB1, more

Hello and welcome to the first Rundown of the year, and 2025 is not off to the best of starts, but maybe some promising stuff will come soon.

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KickFlip – “Umm Great”

JYP Entertainment‘s upcoming boy group hailing from the survival show LOUD, this is thankfully just a pre-release, though it doesn’t exactly make me look forward to the debut.

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KickFlip – “Mama Said”

Yeah, expectations being low helped.

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BOYNEXTDOOR – “If I Say I Love You”

The chorus has elements that QWER imported from J-pop, but other than that, this is a remarkably unremarkable song that made me check whether it was a throwaway holiday song that was delayed.

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MINNIE ((G)I-DLE) – “Blind Eyes Red”

There’s definitely a market for songs in the “Let’s Fuck” playlist, but one thing I don’t want on those is to feel annoyed by the vocal effects.

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MINNIE ((G)I-DLE) – “HER”

The production has some similarities with Billie Eilish tracks, and it has softness to the synths and subtle production, though the hook wore on me fast and there wasn’t anything to attach my eardrums to.

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Kwon Eunbi (Feat. Coogie) – “Snowfall”

These kinds of relatively generic and boring songs with minimal production that rely on the vocalist to carry them are not fit for her at all, a borderline setup. I don’t get the choice.

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XLOV – “I’mma Be”

There’s intrigue here because of the vaguely OnlyOneOf and SHINee‘s Taemin in sound, but that quasi-rapped chorus kinda ruins any type of vibe it would’ve potentially fit in. Still, there were flashes were I could see potential going forward.

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IVE – “REBEL HEART”

Guess I’ll be the odd man out here, because while this is probably the best track in this article, it’s also not great. The “love me, hate me, you will never never never be me” hook could go viral, but melodically it’s not up to par with their best work. The dubstep breakdown features the worst part of the chorus, highlighting the lack of edge and vocal grime to effectively take advantage of the rock makeover, and that makes it feel like a half-baked Katy Perry-esque revival anthem type of thing.

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ONEUS – “IKUK”

If you can stand the vocal effects and it doesn’t get grating on repeat listens, then the production and vibe of this is great.

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BB GIRLS – “LOVE 2”

Nothing wrong with this, just nothing remarkable, and certainly not what Sweetune do best.

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GOT7 – “Python”

Honestly, this was frequently more annoying than anything else. Was looking forward to it as well with all the reunions and revivals going around.

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ZEROBASEONE – “Doctor! Doctor!”

For better or worse, this sounds like one of the 10 tracks a month that Dept releases. Like those, it’s pleasant and that’s about it.

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Only a few weeks in at least.

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