Wednesday 27 December 2023

My K-Pop Collection 2023

The end of 2023 is upon us and that means it is time to round up my K-Pop collection for another year. Pretty much only purchased Korean releases this year and no Japanese ones. Luckily I was able to obtain all the albums locally in my city. The main music store here which is JB Hi-Fi has a decent K-Pop collection and it was easy to find ones I was interested in. Let's get straight into it!

First off we have aespa who are the main group that i follow nowadays. I don't stan the group but I always make sure to get their new releases. Aespa is the only girl group that my local store stocks regularly and you can always find a few different versions. All of the albums shown except Girls are purchases in 2023. I pre-ordered My World and was fortunate enough to get the Zine version which was the one I wanted! Plus I got Ningning's photocard! I eventually found the World version at another JB Hi-Fi. The Drama albums are a recent purchase from last week and I wasn't too sure about getting them. Originally they were listed as online only and wouldn't be available in store. Then the listing changed and I was able to order them. It was impossible though to tell what the versions were so I did some research online. I got the big two photobook version and the what I believe is the retail exclusive version of the Giant one. It isn't the Target exclusive as it doesn't have the same inclusions and you get the English message photocard. It is pretty easy to buy other versions of aespa albums in store and it is always those poster versions which I'm not interested in. Just not at the price they are set at and I doubt it would drop.


Isn't this the most aesthetically pleasing photo of this post? So gorgeous and I love the hardbook structure of Red Velvet releases. Previously I only had four of these albums and got two new ones in 2023. Russian Roulette and Summer Magic are the new additions and I adore how they are the same size as the other smaller ones. Rookie is just chilling there being gigantic and The Red I've had forever. The store I brought it from isn't even around anymore.


This year I wasn't planning on collecting more releases from Oh My Girl but I lucked out with finding their latest mini album stocked in my local store. Seems such an old girl group to find so easily available. Love the design on these two albums and all the inclusions were gorgeous. I'm a big fan of bookmarks being included in albums recently as that is definitely something that I will use often. Also picked up their first mini album which I ordered specifically in as the price was quite reasonable.


Picked up some more TWICE releases for the collection and the poor Ready To Be album is hidden at the back because the cover is so boring. How do you go from all these beautiful designs to that? I actually pre-ordered all the three versions and decided on this version as it had the best photo book. Also got in one of the member versions but the content wasn't as good as I thought so I left that one. It got purchased pretty quickly after it got put back on the shelf as did the others.


Two new Cignature albums in 2023 and now I am only missing their third EP. For some reason my local store stocks the second and fourth but not the third. So I was confused at why I didn't have it when I was buying the fourth one recently. Still think their first EP has the best cover because it has the girls featured on it. I'm just not into boring plain looking covers and think they are lazy.


Found this random Miss A one in an op shop and was quite surprised to find it. It was wedged in between some DVDs and the spine caught my eye. This is the second time I've found a K-Pop release in an second-hand shop with the other time being years ago when I found a KARA album in the Oxfam book store.


The last two new purchases for this year are Jisoo's single Me and (G)I-DLE's 6th mini album. I decided to get Jisoo as she is my main bias in Blackpink along with Rose and the single is so gorgeous. You get lots of beautiful goodies and a bookmark which I love! I've kept that sustainable packaging on it and it is a quite loud plastic when you touch it. I've tried searching for the Black version of the single in other stores but no one else had it. I found one other Red version and I was hoping maybe the black one would pop up at my store after I brought this one as they usually restock however it sadly did not. The (G)I-DLE one is cool and came with some awesome looking photocards. This was a random purchase and I haven't listened to it much. I'm more interested in the photobook as I love the design of it and you get some great larger style photos of the members.



All the new purchases are out of the way so here are all the usual suspects in my K-Pop Collection. Same photos as last year (and probably the year before) with no big changes. I could've brought a new 5th mini from Kepler but my local store was only able to order the Platform version which didn't come with a CD. Kind of useless for me, like I would've loved every other aspect of it but I like to listen to the CD.





















Very happy with my music review list for 2023 as I managed to review quite a number of releases! Only made a slight dent in the collection but at least it's something. For 2024, I have no clue what I want to focus on. I'm in a mindset currently of wanting to own less things and reduce clutter so I thinking of maybe not buying as many physical albums. Maybe I'll switch to the old school purchasing the songs digitally as then I don't have to store them. I don't use streaming services as my main music listening source and only really use them if I want to listen to the whole album to see if I like the sound of it. I know aespa is planning on releasing their first album so I will be getting that one. Hopefully my local store will stock it and maybe more TWICE as that is one that often shows on the order list. So here is the complete list of my K-Pop collection for 2023 along with links to all the releases that I have reviewed!
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