Fashionably late, let’s do this one last time.
By this point you know or you don’t, in which case you wouldn’t read it, anyway, so here it is:
- Eligibility period: December 25, 2022 until December 24, 2023. Yes, I might be the only person in the world to think so but there is actually a possibility that something good will come out in the first three weeks of December.
- Qualifications: music video or at the very least a proper live stage. Some songs this year happen to stretch those pretty thing but you just got to wait and see.
- Stuff which has videos but is still inelligible: OST songs, Christmas music, covers too close to the original so they don’t have much of a reason to exist at all.
- The honourable mentions are in alphabetical order, which I don’t think is the point I’m trying to put here every year and forget, but it is something. Main lists are ordered by preference.
- If you disagree with what I’ve got to say, you must cry about it and punch a hole in the wall, otherwise Amber Liu might visit you in your dreams. Choose carefully.
- Have fun.
- Or not.
25. TripleS – New Look
For how Loona stans demonized Jaden Jeong, Loona’s initial creative director responsible for all the Loona stuff that we actually liked and cared about, the members don’t seem to share quite the same sentiment, as half of all of them signed up to his new label the second they were free to do so. Unfortunately, Odd Eye Circle haven’t quite managed to recapture the same appeal from a few years, and it’s TripleS, a different girlgroup under Jaden, who released the best song in that same style this year. „New Look” certainly takes a lot of similar sonic queues and textures, even if the production is a bit more rough around the edges, it wouldn’t stick out next to „Loonatic”, and in some aspects, it even upstages that great song, mostly by having an outstanding melodic chorus that is immediately catchy. There might be another 74 members still waiting to get added to this group, and I’m not sure how well they’re doing with their NFTs, if the state of every other monkey online is to go by, probably not the best, but if they keep chucking out stuff with this quality standard, I might be able to make peace with all the other bullshit around.
24. H1-Key – Seoul (Such a Beautiful City)
Surprisingly, not a song to promote some travel agency but just an ode to what great life in Seoul must be – which is frankly way worse and more cringe – this song scrapes by anyway just by being so good in every aspect that matters anyway. The keys and synths are warm and nice right from the get-go, and they make way for good vocal melodies which sensibly progress along with the different sections of the track, amazing. Then it gets even better towards the end where the song actually has a solid tension build-up to the final more explosive chorus, followed by the same instrumental passage as it started with but with added harmony underneath this time, a smart resolution that keeps the track engaging and replayable. Admittedly, the song does spend a bit too much time being slow and obviously „leading up” to something impressive rather than just being impressive all the way through, but none of those parts drag too much either, which is why this still overall kicks ass, deserves its spot here, and why Blackpink and Aespa may extend their time off, as the real most relevant four-member girlgroup in kpop has got us covered.
23. From20 – Beat It
You sure can to this one. Some awesome military gear fashion in this one, which is something we could have more in kpop, did anyone even seriously tackle this concept after Shinee dressed up as nazis and BTS went one step further? Truly feel like that’s an untapped market right there, and From20 clearly has the right idea, and if you’ve got any doubts if he knows I’m ogling him all over, he himself claimed to have had girlfriends and boyfriends, and unquestionably produces gay-friendly of his own, he knows just fine. However, none of that sexy vest flashing is as gay-friendly as the music on display here, with super cool keyboards driving it forward and the chorus repeating that same one note, which would normally be a bad thing but here it sounds triumphant and he leads up to it very nicely. Someone should link this guy up with Lionesses as soon as possible, he’d clearly know all of what they’re about and would probably appreciate it, whereas they desperately need some guidance on how to make music that’s gay [fucking awesome] and not gay [derogatory].
22. CSR – Shining Bright
CSR took the world… or maybe just my playlist now that I’ve checked their charting stats, by storm with their excellent debut song „Pop? Pop!” and an almost as great follow-up „Loveticon” last year (whenever I mention 2022 as last or 2023 as this, it meants I wrote that shit long ago and got too depressed to finish jeez). „Shining Bright” isn’t nearly as good as either of those songs, and it comes down to the fact that it’s just a lot less adventurous than either of them. „Pop? Pop!” had outstanding and bizarre arrangement choices, while „Loveticon” ripped at a fast tempo with a unusual for this style meaty beat, in comparison, „Shining Bright” is a lot more written to the cute girl-pop formula. That is just about the only thing wrong with it, however, and if „it’s not as good as those other awesome songs” was the only complaint I could have towards any song, I’d probably be a much happier man overall. It’s hard to deny anything going on here still packs a decent punch, especially once you get to the chorus, it’s pretty much smooth sailing from there. I really hope CSR keep going with this type of thing, it suits them very well, and in the current kpop sphere this sound is actually sorely missed. Although now that half of the group have been sent to some bullshit reality show, watch the rest of them get swamped with crappy sentimental ballads or, worse, get reformed with 6 new members and given generic girl crush music to yell over.
21. Lucy – Haze
And now the entire questionable fun of compiling the list goes out of the window, as I have to talk about a Coldplay song making it in. Seriously, fucking Coldplay? Proof that anything can get on here and that I have no standards, as if that hasn’t already been well-documented. The problem with Coldplay in general is that they always stick to the same formula that had already grown tired by 1999, with chord progressions we’ve heard a thousand times before, millennial whooping all over the damn place, and appealing to the lowest common denominator emotionally, which is enough to get them a stadium full of people, but anyone who likes their music to be more than a steakhouse background noise will roll their eyes. All the Coldplayish elements are present here as well but what sets Lucy apart is that they dust off the formula quite a bit, writing an actual properly engaging melody that doesn’t put you to sleep immediately and finally making good use of their violinist, who’s always been playing very well but it hardly amounted to anything much because the songs weren’t really there. Here he’s given something good to work with and he enhances it a great bit too. It’s so good that even when the disgustingly corny na-na-na’s start, I don’t mind it all that much.
20. Silica Gel, So!Yoon! – Tik Tak Tok
And here’s a bit of a different type of rock music. What Koreans are fairly good at is taking old styles of music as a general template but upgrading them to suit the frames of kpop, which usually results in something where you can easily tell „oh it sounds like the 80s” but then it doesn’t really cause the sonic polish is just so severe and different from how it had been handled originally, it becomes something of its own new thing. However, every once in a while, there are songs which are just so faithful to what they’re recreating, the only thing that gives away that they aren’t actually transported from half a century ago is the better sound quality. „Tik Tak Tok” is exactly one of those, following the 60s rock clues with remarkable precision. I honestly don’t even like 60s rock all that much, it’s alright I guess, but certainly not my favourite era of it, but this new version is just so well-made I can’t help but appreciate it, in particular, the 4-minute instrumental section at the end where everyone just goes ham on their instruments is pretty fucking cool. Mind you, the music video also features an intro song called „T” and the proper track I’m reviewing here starts at 1:04 but I don’t think it matters that much, I’m sure all of you clicked out of it immediately upon seeing the full length of it.
19. IVE – Baddie
Initially, I had „Off the Record”, a different song by IVE, jotted down here but when I re-listened to both of them recently, I had a change of heart. „Off the Record” is definitely really good, it’s got all the same elements that made „After Like” from last year great… but it also just kind of doesn’t have anything that would make it differ from that song enough. The only changes are that it’s a bit slower and vibey-ier, and that it sounds more like The Cardigans’ „Lovefool”, and frankly neither of those are preferable changes. On the other hand, „Baddie” improves on re-listens, and actually does a couple things pretty differently. It’s a bit like if you took the cool meat-grinding beat from Aespa’s „Savage” but left out the horrible zu-zu-zu hook, the dubstep breakdowns and grating vocal runs, and replaced them with sensibly developing the song’s melody and harmony in a way that fits that tougher backing track. The result is a very rare example of how to do this type of thing well, and I’m just over here wondering what happened to Starship that after all these years, they can give IVE a consistently great streak of songs, that none of the other groups under their rooster ever got to have.
18. Purple Kiss – Autopilot
I don’t consider album tracks eligible for the lists, as one, they already take a pretty damn long time to plan out, and two, kpop albums almost universally suck. Very rarely are they ever created with a consistent theme or sound in mind, so what you end up getting is pretty much just a compilation of random songwriters, who likely have never even met you in person, as half of them write from their home in Sweden, ideas of what you should be releasing. The single should be the best song on it, although sometimes by „best”, it’s understood that it’s the most daring/out-there song, the one that’s most memorable, or best suited to the current trends, meaning it might get on the charts by some miracle, which is why the tracks on the worst lists are also always much, much worse than the album filler junk that never gets officially promoted. That said, a lot of kpop groups force me to pay attention to album tracks by giving them those DIY crappy videos or doing live stages on some show I don’t care about enough to ever watch. In 2023, it just so happened that checking those releases out paid dividends a few times, and here’s the first example which blows every other main track Purple Kiss had out this year completely out of the water.
17. Kerrigan May – Daddy
Kerrigan May left her first mark in the world by making out with another girl in the pool full of muscled shirtless guys and quite literally dog-walking San E, and if you know of any two better ways to make your debut, please do tell cause I sure don’t. Of course, the attitude and charisma were highly appreciated, it was only the musical output that had been left behind and never taken care of quite as well. Fortunately, that changed with „Daddy”, a song clearly showing Kerrigan could very easily shit all over every other Korean rapper, she just chose not to do that until now, she’s just so considerate. It doesn’t really matter what she’s rapping on top of it, the obvious star here is the tough club beat which gives the track a consistent groove but has just enough odd industrial quirks to stand out. It’s also why the song works even when it’s actively trying not to – there are breakdowns and weird interruptions every few bars here, but just because they remain within the same weird and bouncy style, it works and rocks all the same.
16. Golden Child – Feel Me
Infinite had a very good song „New Emotions” out this year, easily their best in years, and almost an honourable mention. Good music quality is nothing new for Infinite, though, and I was a lot more surprised and impressed that Golden Child, once hailed as their successors, finally kicked off their first-ever genuinely great track that surpasses the last few years of Infinite’s output. It’s not quite „The Chaser” but it works for many of the same reasons, a meaty beat with cool drum sound, decent tempo that rarely lets up, and a great explosive chorus that gets stuck in the head pretty quickly. There’s a shirtless guy here too, they thought about everything. Now Woolim just owe us an explanation of why it took so long for Golden Child to have a song this good, how to keep that going moving forward, why there was no great Rocket Punch release this year that I was really hoping for, why Lovelyz got disbanded without a kick-ass goodbye release, how you screwed Infinite up so badly that none of the members renewed their contracts even when they evidently wanted to keep doing stuff together, and there are probably a bunch of other excellent questions you could ask, but I’m not sure if their press person has managed to locate the mailbox icon on their desktop after it was seemingly virus infected by a SM a good decade ago.
15. Green – Trouble
2023 unfortunately didn’t have a lot of really good songs released by little known acts that managed to grab my attention, but if just a bit over 22,000 views after 9 months suffices for you, then here’s one of them. It surely doesn’t feel like a nugu release, as the video has some incredible visual work, you probably wouldn’t think it’s all filmed in front of a green screen with barely anything more to it, just because of how well it flows and rich it looks, the only thing that I’d personally change is the red background later into the video, as every other scene keeps a very tight colour theme of shades of gray, plus green, a clear nod to the artist’s stage name. The music here is no less well thought-out and executed too, with a lot of ambience and interesting sonic details to start off with, and getting progressively more intense and texturally complex as the track goes on. Given the short overall length, the song never lets itself to linger on anything for too long so the progression feels natural and well-timed. Very clever and good, when (or if) JYP figures out how to do something like this for NMIXX, there’s no telling how high they could on a good list for a change-up.
14. Gwangil Jo – Acrobat 2
A few years ago Gwangil Jo released the song „Acrobat”, which was very unusual in he world of Korean rap, in that it was actually rather good, it had a beat, and even the rap in it was more than competent too, all of which are qualities that Korean rap doesn’t have about 99.7% of the time. Therefore, it was probably to be expected that fans of the style didn’t like it very much, the sudden quality jump was something they were not accustomed to whatsoever. It’s ok, I’d probably feel like this if Dimmu Borgir came out with some blues scale bullshit with clean vocals as well. Gwangil Jo quickly proved that he rather knew what he was doing a little better than his detractors, by winning some of those hip hop shows that no one cares about with little trouble, and fast forward to now, has released a follow-up to „Acrobat”. While the first song had some clever lyricism about him coming up and succeeding, this one I can only imagine is about how he’s already achieved what he set out to do, at the time of writing I have not been able to find a reasonable translation so I can’t really tell. Musically, I sure know, though, that „Acrobat 2” is somewhat less out-there but at the same time, has a more immediately appealing beat on this side of Wu-Tang, Gwangil Jo is still awesome at rap, and the hook calls back to the original „Acrobat” in an inspired way.
13. NCT 127 – Ay-Yo
NCT are always all over the map doing a lot of shit, and a lot of it is tragic, some of it is good, but very rarely is it average or unremarkable. They certainly do push the envelope a lot further than any of the groups I heard were supposed to do that so even if the result is not always exactly good, I can still commend it for trying new and weird shit out. Here, the result is good, however, and it comes down to some smart songwriting choices all the way through the song. In the first verse there is this frantic feeling of unease, due to the syncopated beat, but also that something is missing, mostly due to the track mostly keeping to one chord with only the melody on top of it changing when the oh-oh’s kick in. Then once the chorus hits, the tension is resolved, as the wall of synths appears, and it’s already a satisfying conclusion that would make the package work overall. However, then you get the second verse where the harmony is changed, there is a bit more stuff going on in the background, and suddenly the stuff from the first verse also clicks – it’s supposed to be a bit bare bones in the beginning because it has a cool progression later on. There’s more fantastic sonic details happening here which are more obvious in this instrumental version and honestly, I’m not all that impressed with the vocal side of things, which lingers a little too hard on generic boygroup-isms but the backings are so good that I’m willing to cut them some slack. Taeyong surely deserves after the traumatic „Shalala” experiences.
12. Viviz – Untie
Despite a promising start, Viviz have unfortunately been a bit of a disappointment so far, and while Gfriend’s shoes are no easy fill, most of their stuff up to this point have not got the least bit close. How much the lowered expectations contributed to me liking „Untie” as much as I do, I don’t really know, but regardless, it’s easily the best thing they have ever done as a trio despite – or maybe because – straying the furthest from Gfriend’s sound they ever have. Right from the start, you hear things might get a little bit different here, and once the club beat drops, we’re definitely in an unfamiliar territory. Yet it all works just fine, as the backing track is pretty damn ass-kicking and would work even without any vocals on top of it, and the contrasting more melodic and vocal-heavy bits are also strong enough to carry the tune on their own, but as is, they provide the much needed variation so you don’t feel like you’re listening to the same thing all throughout. They also all look outstandingly sexy in it and it’s crystal clear Eunha in particular feels way more at home here than she ever has in the schoolgirl concept she was put into for years, and that’s great, but why aren’t boygroups releasing more stuff like that? You get that one-titty-per-broadcast yet can’t moan and gasp in my ear just a little. Clearly, Viviz have more balls than any of them combined.
11. Eric Nam – Only for a Moment
Eric Nam might not have as much balls as Viviz do but he also has a song that’s just a little bit better. This type of mellow midtempo stuff usually flies right under my radar, as it’s not really my preferred choice but I’m sure if it was done more like this, I’d have a lot more time for it as well. The bassist and pianist actually rip quite a lot of ass here, there’s a ton going back in the background that’s wisely muted so it doesn’t overtake the main melodic line, but leaves a lot to discover if you listen more closely. Then the main melodic line is good too, restrained and subtle, and only after the track’s fully established itself, does Eric allow himself to show off a little, and he also happens to be a bit of a better singer than the kpop average, so even that isn’t a disgusting autotune barf, and it actually goes sensibly with the lyrics, now that’s something you don’t get to hear everyday. The entire package is just extremely well crafted – here’s hoping he doesn’t hit like on any other stupid Israel propaganda posts on Instagram next year so he can come up with something this good again and have it not be publicly ostracized, that would be great.
10. StayC – Bubble
Another group who know which side their bread is buttered on more often than not, StayC have actually not performed all that well with their own fans this year, who were mostly complaining that their output is getting more cutesy and childish. I guess it’s not entirely untrue, the sounds surely are more bubblegum than they were with „So Bad” or „RUN2U”, and they have some bright fairytale visual concept to match here, but the primary building blocks of the songs haven’t changed all that much, and are kicking ass as hard as ever. By keeping the entire thing overbearingly upbeat, the track is even able to get out of some stinking situations too, like the verses being kind of weak and the bridge being a halftime breakdown, as it all stays within the same compositional camp, and as soon as the song’s worse sections are over, it’s back to straight rocking, the pre-chorus is bouncy and fun, and the chorus rocks like a motherfucker, with stomping synth passages and just enough room to breathe for you to actually hear the cool backings, the vocals don’t annoyingly fill every empty space here like it most likely would’ve happened if anyone less talented sat down to write this. Then again, if that was the case, it would probably also have verses in a different tonality entirely, twice the amount of breakdowns, and it would just suck overall, cause StayC are dope and most other people are not.
9. (G)I-DLE – I Do
I’ve been a fan of Jeon Soyeon for a while and I believe she does some cool stuff in general, and given a lot of it is entirely self-made, she might even be making some money off of it. The only real issue for me was the pretty consistently crappy music (G)I-DLE had, recently it’s improved a bit with „Tomboy” and „Queencard” but I was still missing that one truly outstanding track that would get me fully on board. In a shocking turn of events, that came with the help of 88rising, an almost always rubbishy label pumping out some truly horrid hip hop stuff from all over Asia, but I guess I won’t ask too many questions, since they got it very right here. The ambience is completely unusual for both (G)I-DLE and 88rising and it helps the otherwise 80s-inspired midtempo jam a great deal. The melody is the obvious king here, and it’s somewhat sentimental but also hopeful, and there are no random breaks or interruptions anywhere, you just get a song that’s good from start to finish. I was so surprised by it especially given whom it came from… hold on, what are you saying? Soyeon didn’t write nor produce this? Ah, makes sense. Next we’re going to find out it wasn’t actually 88rising funding it either, now that would be one predictable plot twist.
8. J.Y. Park (JYP) – Changed Man
People give JYP a lot of shit and sometimes it’s deserved, like when he joined a cult or when he beat 2PM in the training room for being a bit shit at dancing, and he must be creeper 5000 when resident creep #2 Jay Park fucked off from the country altogether after being in a JYP group for about a day and a half, but whenever it’s related to the actual entertainment side of things, all the complaints come off as a bit ridiculous to me. Does he come off comical when performing, yes – that is the point, he’s very much aware. Even if you didn’t like it, you paid attention, that’s good enough, that’s how he uses his peculiar sense of charisma, effectively having a better stage presence than virtually every single idol group, who have an accumulated zero of it. He is also undeniably a skilled producer and songwriter, and he knows very well what styles work best for him if the recent mash-up of this song, „Take on Me” (the soundalike song „In Bloom” by ZeroBaseOne nearly scraped an honourable mention, by the way), „Sweet Dreams” and his own earlier song „When We Disco” is anything to go by. The very self-consciously outdated synths and drum machines are here to amplify the funny, he’s pretty clearly taking the piss, but at the same time, the songwriting is up to par with any of those other tracks, honestly, there’s a killer catchy chorus here that has been stuck in my head ever since the song came out. Less of the religious propaganda stuff oppar so I can stan 100% uwu
7. Key – Killer
In the meantime, here’s someone who tackles the very same sonic territory without the comic element and ends up just slightly better for it. As much as I used not to like The Weeknd very much, I hope he’s getting his dick sucked everyday for doing „Blinding Lights” those few years ago, birthing the best trend to have ever graced kpop and pretty much singlehandedly giving Key a consistent direction in his solo career, as all his best songs have been slightly altered variations of this exact sound. Now that The Weeknd has been involved with that supposedly shitty and failed-scandalous show The Idol, and he’s just been a creep in general, maybe we should even forget all about him and let Key be the main male popstar in the world. Wait, what are you saying? Key has been colorist to even his groupmates all his career, made fatphobic comments on numerous occasions, when Soyou called him to tell him she may be getting stalked that very moment, he answered that it’s good she’s at least getting attention from somewhere, and he’s gay? Oh well, I guess men will just be dickheads, most of them don’t have a song this good, though.
6. Weeekly – Good Day (Special Dailee)
And here I may as well just stop writing altogether, as we’ve got to a point where a „for the fans” type song almost got into the top 5 of the year. Really, people? Only five of you could step up to the challenge and stop this travesty from happening? I expected better from you all, only DBO is excused, with how that guy makes music, I imagine he possesses access to some dark magic book that would allow him to make a song for the fans, for charity and for a sports event all in once, and it would somehow be the song of the decade. Anyway, Weeekly sure do have the best variation of this type of thing anyone’s ever had, with the exception of a few breakdowns after each chorus – the thing that also made me not want to like this track at first but after I couldn’t stop listening to it, I also couldn’t lie to myself any further – it’s just straight rocking from start to finish, very simple and straightforward in the NewJeans way, except NewJeans haven’t even been able to come within an inch of this cause unlike their usually lowkey stuff, here the beat is just beyond moshing and if one of these girls ever decides to give this the proper growling makeover and plug the electric guitars in, this will turn into the real shitfaced heavy metal heaven we all deserve. Fuck you Dreamcatcher (but not really, I will be trying to get tickets to your February Warsaw show, cheers).
5. Apoki – Space
Then again, maybe fan songs are still better than CGI bunnies, the jury is still out on that one. It has been a weird year for sure, with not too many songs standing a good cut above others, and the few that did coming from just about anywhere. In any case, this is just Gfriend’s „Mago” given an 80s synth style makeover and if that sounds awesome to you, that’s because it is so I have to rep it up, even if it was a lot more fun to watch and listen to if it wasn’t performed by a digital avatar, and instead they got the members of Viviz, that one girl who can sing pretty well, that filthy one who knows why men keep their toilet paper beside the monitor, and some nazi lover to do an all-star collab for it.
4. TXT – Chasing That Feeling
At its current stage, Hybe is concurrently running four different boygroups, and that’s not even counting Seventeen and whomever else did they acquire in the last few years, and that’s been a lot. However, for some reason they only ever get it right with TXT who by this point completely musically usurped their seniors BTS. I wonder if V ever goes around the company headquarters, hears those insanely cool descending keyboard riffs, synth passages and actual catchy and awesome choruses, and sighs to himself, knowing he’s about to enter the recording booth himself. „The usual”, asks the clearly bored sound engineer who’d much rather be doing any old scale exercises. „I guess”, answers V with a heavy heart, knowing that if he’d just been born a few years later, he could now be bouncing around some sewer, which might not sound like the greatest idea of all time, but he’d be surrounded by cool looking drones and cool sounding music, now that makes it better. Instead, he takes a deep breath, looks at the sheet music. Slow Dancing? Rainy Days? Fucking hell, could it get more depressing? With one final internal yell, he forces whatever’s left of his smoked out vocal chords to get it over with, and mentally makes a plan of dark web googling „how to kidnap a younger band’s songwriter without upsetting my CEO”.
3. Mijoo – Movie Star
While a lot of the material on this list caught on with me pretty instantly, I actually wasn’t all that fond of „Movie Star” initially. I mean, sure, it was good from the get go but I wasn’t exactly sure about the xylophones, calling back to the dark tropical house days just a few years ago, and the entire thing seemed to have a bit of an unwelcome IZ*ONE quality to it, even when it’s obviously produced about a thousand times more competently than any of their loud yet tinny disasters. However, that track quickly grew on me, mainly due to the incredibly engaging style it’s got, and a few quirks that would’ve definitely not been included, had anyone else got their hands on the song (say, IZ*ONE themselves). The chorus has a great rhythmic switch-up, where each half would work on their own but it’s the change that makes it interesting on repeated listens, and mind you, it’s all within the same tonality so it doesn’t come off as jarring. Then there are the strings giving the track a sense of elegance and making a really good match for the dance beat. The song also suits Mijoo very well, she’s always been a charismatic performer and a fun presence breaking through the idol mold a bit, but I’ve also felt she had been a bit wasted in Lovelyz where fitting within the group rather than individuality was the main focus. Here not only does she shine but she also becomes the first member of the group to deliver music as outstanding as they did together.
2. Kep1er – Back to the City
And here’s the other album track turned eligible of the list, and way more shocking one than „Autopilot”, given Purple Kiss had a solid track record ever since debut. On the other hand, Kep1er have been consistently terrible, with almost nothing they’d released prior to this being good whatsoever, constantly just retreading the most dull and tired of girlpop trends from the last few years. I probably would’ve ignored that they performed this excellent song altogether, had it not been for my boyfriend sending me it as „hey, this is something you would like”, you know damn right I would love, thanks, you’re truly the best and I love you. I was astonished that a song of this high standard, which embodies fun – something that people who listen to pop music in general used to like to have, in about year 937 before Christ – more than anything else released in 2023 never got an official release a single, nor even a performance video with studio sound quality. Maybe the company truly is as hopeless as Kep1er fans on the daily state. After all, they did manage to scramble just enough money for all their shameful Japanese comebacks over this, and I don’t know if they’d ever bought streaming bots, but their Spotify stats sure do look completely ridiculous, as if everyone lost interest almost immediately. In any case, here you can listen to this amazing song without the annoying crowd and the live-but-not-really vocals and you’d better appreciate it before the next actual high-budget Kep1er release is a trap song with a nursery rhyme chorus played entirely on a kazoo.
And since this entire list just looks an unfunny joke retread of Kpopalypse’s, let’s just get it over with:
1. IVE – I Am
I mean, obviously. There was never really anything else that could’ve claimed the top spot, and whenever I’d catch myself wondering „if the year ended today, what would be the best song”, this would be the first thing to come to mind every single time. Not even other IVE came close, and it feels as though IVE themselves are their only competition, given they sabotaged their own song on some crappy awards show nobody cares about by releasing another one which was even more popular, or something like that, I don’t really follow.
So what makes „I Am” so good? First off, it’s fast. Well, it’s not all that fast, but it feels that way cause it’s in 6/8 which is a much more rare time signature in pop music, and most of those which do use it, are stomping dancefloor bangers. The song mostly sticks to that rhythm, and that’s already a road to success, the beat is meaty and very well-produced, pumping beautifully even through shitty little headphones. In the sections where it does drop out, the song does enough to make up for it – the slower pre-chorus still keeps a tight pulse and has a great melody to match, and the trap in the second verse isn’t even really all that trappy, missing the triggering hi-hats, and it ends after about a blink of an eye at how amazing the set looks here, so it’s fine. The track also has fantastic sound design, the textures are rich with detail, and constantly rotate, with distinct snaps and strings wrapping around the vocals in way that are just super nice to listen to. The song cleverly uses its layer as well, and it’s easy to miss that the explosive chorus has the same vocal melody as the slower part preceding it, just because of how many more sonic quirks are added in there. Then there’s also the amazing bridge which is a part that kpop often gets wrong – it’s either some lame vocal show-off, slow R&B part that only fans of the lame vocal show-off will ever care about, or the bridge is just non-existent at all (a part of the short songs trend, which is actually a GOOD thing cause good music will feel complete either way, and bad music will at least run for a shorter time). IVE avoid all those traps, having a breakdown which melodically expands and actually properly resolves and leads into the final chorus which is different from every chorus before it, making it exciting and rewarding to listen all the way through? Holy fuck, is this song just right on every level. It may have been a largely uneventful year full of songs that were less than fully realized, and I definitely get complains that kpop lost its spark, causing them to just leave it behind – although I wouldn’t personally agree, the quality always fluctuates, and I’d say it was still a better year on average than 2013-2016 which is a beloved period on social media – but as long as someone will care enough to make songs this awesome, I will also always find the time to shift through the rubbish to find them.
And with that – see you once again after my 12-month hibernation.
kpop for the average joe 