It’s springtime in Korea, and that means one thing: a resurgence in the nation’s collective obsession with cherry blossoms.

Bolbbalgan Puberty’s 2016 release, Galaxy, is a vertical slice of everything that I like in Korean indie: soothing vocals, acoustic instrumentals, and a general happy-go-lucky vibe, all wrapped up in colorful, springtime-esque visuals.

Something that I appreciate about the Korean language is its tendency to assign playful words to nuanced definitions of common thoughts and objects, and Son Ah Reum’s Lazy is a great example of that.

When I brought up Mnet’s Produce and IZ*ONE last week, it led me down a rabbit hole to taking another look at IZ*ONE’s predecessors, I.O.I.

IZ*ONE is an absolutely massive Korean/Japanese girl group (12 members!) formed with the finalists from the latest season of Mnet’s Produce series of survival audition television shows.

Some was the sleeper hit of 2014, beating out many big idol group comebacks to become one of the most representative songs of the year.

 Whimsy and innocence? In K-Pop? Stranger things have happened.

It would be too easy to say that KARD’s latest track is—*coughs*—the bomb, but when a song absolutely slaps as much as this one does, I really can’t think of a better descriptor. Bomb Bomb is unquestionably the bomb.

Urban Zakapa is one of Korea’s more prolific R&B groups, with five full albums and multiple extended plays, plus a bevy of K-drama soundtrack contributions, counted in their relatively young careers.

The debut title track for Girls’ Generation’s first subunit is interesting for several reasons, not least for its gorgeous set design, outfits, and the well-produced music itself. But Twinkle is also the perfect poster child for one of SM Entertainment’s ethically dubious moneymaking schemes.

Trot is a uniquely Korean genre that’s had somewhat of a resurgence recently, after years of it being treated as “old people music”. Hong Jin Young is one of the artists leading that charge.

What exactly is K-Pop? Does it exclusively refer to mass-produced idols, or is there room for a broader definition? Is it kosher to call independent artists K-Pop? How about artists that aren’t even Korean?

With Girl’s Day’s Sojin announcing her departure from her agency, yet another one of my favorite groups has bitten the metaphorical dust. Nothing lasts forever, indeed.

Winter is winding down, and that means I have precious few days left to share as much cold weather-inspired music as possible.

Before the boy group Highlight overthrew the yoke of agency contracts and struck out a new path as independent artists in 2016, they performed for seven years under the name B2ST.

A confession: I usually crank these out sometime past midnight, with a mug of tea, and the lights dimmed. Maybe that’s why my picks tend to skew toward the quietly emotive. Anyway, here’s one more.

Epik High is back! The kings of many a high school karaoke sing-along party have returned with LOVEDRUNK, the title track of their latest album, Sleepless In ____. (No, I didn’t forget to finish that sentence, that’s literally the album.)

Among the many, many idols who’ve attempted to spin off from from their (often dead or dying) parent groups, exceedingly few actually manage to successfully stand on their own. Katchup shows that Subin, formerly of Dal Shabet, is—at the very least—trying her hardest to do so.

More Latin vibes in K-Pop is unquestionably good, as faint as they may be.