This week we were treated to Apink, WJSN and iKON’s newest music. The week ahead of us has just as much promise as big and small groups put out music. This is a rare week where none of the big three labels are putting out any music. Let’s take a look at the week ahead of us for K-Pop releases.
K-pop Release Preview 1/13/19 – 1/19/19
1/14/19 – GFriend – Time for Us
After their putting out Japanese single album, Memoria, in October, GFriend is back to Korea with their biggest project ever. In my recent memory, this is the first time in a while where a girl group has put out a full-length album. There were ones in 2018 — I mean, one won the Album of the Year award in my award article — but they felt few and far between. The group finally launched their Japanese career in 2018 and will begin their first exclusive Japan tour in March, doing four shows.
The full-length album, Time for Us, will be a 13 track release, including new title track “Sunrise.” The two teasers make the video and the song seem like they are very dramatic. Just as the title of the song is based on sunlight, so were the three concepts that they went with, those being “Daybreak,” “Daytime” and “Midnight.”
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1/16/19 – ASTRO – All Light
ASTRO will be the other group this week who will be putting out their first full-length album. The group laid low in 2018, only putting out one mini-album. This was quite different from their 2017 year, which included three mini-albums. It’s hard to tell what the title track on this release is, but it’s cool to see that LDN NOISE produced the second track, as they have worked with other K-pop acts in the past.
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1/15/19 – ATEEZ – Treasure EP.2: Zero To One
Boy group ATEEZ will have its first ever come back on the 15th with their second mini-album, Treasure EP.2: Zero To One. The group hasn’t even been around for a whole three months, having their debut in October with the title track “Treasure.” The pop-trap song was shot in very bright and exotic scenes. The group got a well-received 3 million views on Youtube and ranked seventh on the Gaon Album Chart. Since no teaser videos have been put out, it’s hard to predict the sound that they will produce. But, from the concept photos, you can assume that they will be going for a way different concept than last time.
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1/15/19 – FAVORITE – Loca
Favorite has been a smaller group for over a year now and has put out music at a slow rate. Their debut mini-album, My Favorite, came out in July 2017, with their second mini-album, Love Loves To Love Love, releasing in May of 2018. The group sees their fastest turn around rate yet with their third EP Loca. In their past releases, there hasn’t been a title track that was too reeling in for me, but I really liked a b-side song from Love Loves To Love Love called “It’s Mine.” Similarly, in the album medley for this release, the song that stuck out the most to me was the third one, titled “Hush.”
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Japanese Comeback: APRIL
In late 2018, it was girl group APRIL who got their name around quite a bit with the music video and song “Oh! My Mistake.” Along with that in the mini-album, The Ruby, was the song “Oh-e-Oh,” which will be getting a Japanese adaptation as the group’s second musical venture into the country.
In the next preview, we will look at the long-awaited debut of Cherry Bullet, plus the come back of Seventeen and much more.
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