At the end of each month, I look back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists. I take my own ratings into account, but there’s a bit of wiggle room as certain songs tend to grow or fade.
July 2024 Overall Thoughts
After a stellar June, July was always going to have a hard time keeping up. Add the Paris Olympics essentially cancelling most releases for the last week or two and we end up with a month that was pretty sparse and underwhelming. Thankfully, July ended with KCON LA (check out my recap here!), which definitely kept my K-pop enthusiasm going despite a middling selection of new comebacks.
This doesn’t mean the month was completely devoid of new releases from big names. In fact, July saw the return of Stray Kids, BTS’s Jimin, (G)I-DLE, BABYMONSTER, Taeyeon, ENHYPEN and NCT 127. When you put it like that, the month actually feels quite stuffed. I only enjoyed about half of these releases, but that’s still a notable list. July also saw the continued rise of rookies Kiss Of Life, who scored a big summer hit with Sticky.
My top three picks are a big surprise, as the top two are both groups who have never come even close to my list before. This just proves that a good song is a good song and acts always have a chance to reinvent themselves. Songs that nearly made the cut were ENHYPEN’s Brought The Heat Back and ALL(H)OURS’s Shock.
When it comes to J-pop, July was yet another month of solid but unspectacular music. I hope the industry turns things around in the second half of the year because right now my 9+ rated highlights are few and far between. There were none this month, sadly.
As we work our way through this Olympics-driven lull, I’m curious how K-pop’s August will shape up. The month has developed an incredible reputation over the past few years, with a whopping seven songs placed in the top ten of my year-end countdowns over the past two years. 2024 has already been so strong that replicating this feat will be quite difficult, but I can certainly root for August keeping its crown. So far, the month’s announced comebacks aren’t filling me with a ton of optimism though…
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.9
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week One
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Two
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Three
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Four
TOP J-POP SONGS OF THE MONTH
3. Psychic Fever vs. Wolf Howl Harmony – Yin Yang
2. RIIZE – Lucky (full review)
1. &TEAM – Koegawari (full review)
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
ALL(H)OURS – Shock (review)
Celest1a – Panda (review)
Dignity – Cool Down (review)
Dreamcatcher – Justice (review)
ENHYPEN – Brought The Heat Back / XO (Only If You Say Yes) (review / review)
from20 x Hello Gloom – Your Love (review)
Kara – I Do I Do (review)
KAVE – Legend (review)
Kiss Of Life – Sticky (review)
Lee Seung Yoon – Waterfall (review)
n.SSign – Tiger (New Flavour) (review)
NCT 127 – Walk (review)
STAYC – Cheeky Icy Thang (review)
Stray Kids – Mountains (review)
Waker – Vanilla Choco Shake (review)
Weeekly – Lights On (review)
90TAN – Tang Tang Tang (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
This Month’s Global Pop Round-Up
TOP THREE SONGS
3. TWS – Double Take (review)
2. BABYMONSTER – Forever (review)
1. DKB – Flirting X (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of June 2024
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of May 2024
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of April 2024
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of March 2024
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of February 2024
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Baemon having a massive musical glowup after Batter Up and Sheesh is pretty great, hope they keep getting songs like these (or maybe I Am). Shock is the first and only ALL(H)OURS song I’ve heard so far, so I was impressed and intuition says it is prolly my most played song this (or last) month (otherwise, it’s Charli XCX’s Von Dutch cause I love songs with chaotic energy)
Anyhoo, my Top 3 songs are:
(while on the opposite side, my Bottom 3 would be Touch by KATSEYE, Roll Up by Blackswan and Blessed by Ha Sungwoon, not in any order since all are 6.75 for me)
Oh well, I hope August delivers, though the first half might be empty due to Olympics. Man, I hope my birth month delivers but the track record sounds promising so far.
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Song of the month: Bloom by (G)I-DLE (9.5/10)
Cheeky Icy Thang – 9.25/10
Heaven – 8.5/10
Sticky – 8/10
Justice – 8/10
Chk Chk Boom – 7.5/10
Forever – 5/10
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Didn’t listen as much this month but
Dignity – Fire
NCT 127 – Walk
ALL(H)OURS – Shock
(G)idle – Klaxon (you hear Megan Trainor, I hear 60s girl groups)
Lee Seoung Yoon – Waterfall
DKB – Flirting, Let’s Dance
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Your fun fact about the frequency of August-released songs appearing on your last few Year-End Top Tens got me wondering how you keep track of all these stats. Do you have a spreadsheet or database of all the songs you review and the incidental data on them so you can make observations like this? I’m a spreadsheet enthusiast as a result of my work so stuff like this to keep track of hobbies and interests really intrigues me!
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Other than iTunes playlists and the blog itself, I don’t keep any exhaustive records. I just have a good memory for this kind of stuff 🙂
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Short list this month.
KAVE (ft Gaho) “Legend” and nSSign “Tiger” for me.
Darling daughter is a big fan of the new Dreamcatcher “Justice”.
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Short list for me too!
DKB – Flirting X❤️
Kave – The Legend
Vahn – Crush on You ( I have a soft spot for this guy. Loved everything he did for Nine.i and Golcha’s “Feel Me” is still wonderful to me)
Honorables:
&Team – Koegawari (Japanese)
**Still waiting for a decent “Who” remix
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Cheating a bit as my top two aren’t Kpop or released yet..
Koegawari, &TEAM – I can never remember the name of this song so I just call it the song about not being a kid anymore. The choreo for this is really fun and I’m convinced that &TEAM is the successor to SVT in that regard rather than TWS.
Bite Back, THE BOYZ – This hasn’t been officially released yet but IST keeps teasing us with performances, including a recent stage mix. Also love the choreo for this one, it seems different from regular bg choreo (and is great live). It’s the best song from them since Fantasize, etc. from Christmas in August and miles above Gibberish.
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It’s all about the rock influences for me this month… Flirting X, Justice, and Legend are my tops.
I hated Forever at first listen, but it’s grown a bit. Just can’t get behind the centerpiece of “foooooorororororehehever,” but the rest is a step in a promising direction.
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My top two:
Koegawari, &TEAM – I can never remember the name of this song so I just call it the song about not being a kid anymore. The choreo is really fun and makes me think they are the successors to SVT in that regard.
Bite Back, THE BOYZ – This hasn’t been officially released but IST keeps releasing performances and stage mixes. It’s probably the best song from them since Fantasize, etc. from Christmas in August and miles better than Gibberish. It is also great live.
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bts💜💜🫰🇰🇷🇰🇷
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