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.
June 2022 Overall Thoughts
I’ll be publishing my top songs of the first half of 2022 tomorrow, so I’ll write more about this then… but at this point I’m wondering if I’ll have a “top ten” songs at the end of this year at all! Seriously, what is going on? Where are all the future classics?
June was a particularly low-rated month. Only two (!) songs earned an 8.75 or above, meaning standout comebacks were few and far between. Usually at this point in the year, I’d be raving about a song of summer candidate. The past five Junes have resulted in classics like Complete, Chi Mat Ba Ram, Wave, Boogie Up, Pporappippam and As If It’s Your Last. The best we could do this year was the Kep1er song, which is… fine, but hardly year-defining.
This wasn’t due to a lack of trying. June saw a heap of releases, including big names like BTS, Nayeon and aespa. But with most comebacks topping out at an 8.25 (B-) max, it felt like an unending stream of solid — but forgettable — fare. Sadly, that description matches the past twelve months of K-pop releases. While compiling songs, I realized that (in my opinion) there have only been two top-ten-worthy singles released since last June. That’s a whole year without the kind of enduring standouts that make me so excited about K-pop. Wow. This has caused me to totally shift the way I think and write about new releases. I apologize if my thoughts feel a bit jaded sometimes.
With that said, I really like my top two songs this month. Number three feels more like a placeholder in a weak June, but it’s an enjoyable piece of pop nonetheless. There’s been a surprising leap frog at the top, with my favorite song taking off like a bullet on my playlist. I’m actually surprised how much I enjoy it. Notable honorable mentions come from Pixy and Kep1er, with songs that have grown on me throughout the month.
Thankfully, J-pop had a stronger June. Johnny’s hard-carried the month with a string of solid releases, including an excellent Sexy Zone album promoted with my favorite single of the year so far. Thank goodness for this agency, which has really made up for an unexciting slate of releases. A fun trip to see Golden Child’s U.S. tour also buoyed my K-pop spirits this month.
I’ve given up trying to predict what will happen next in K-pop, but July has to be stronger than June, right? At least we don’t have the summer Olympics clearing the release slate this year.
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.8
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
A.B.C-Z – Graceful Runner (video)
News – Loser / Sanjuushi (reviews)
King & Prince – Ichiban (review)
Rocket Punch – Fiore (review)
Sexy Zone – The Finest (video)
TOP J-POP SONG OF THE MONTH
Sexy Zone – Forever Gold (review)
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
Heize – Undo (review)
Jo Yuri – Shhh! (review)
Kep1er – Up! (review)
LOONA – Flip That (review)
MCND – W.A.T.1 (review)
Nayeon (Twice) – Pop! (review)
Omega X – Play Dumb (review)
Pixy – Villain (review)
Sunmi – Heart Burn (review)
Trendz – Who (review)
Ulala Session – I Am Fine (video)
Yoojung (OnlyOneOf) – Begin (review)
TOP THREE SONGS
3. Kang Daniel & Ahn Yujin (IVE) – Move Like This (ft. Kim Yuna) (review)
2. Wonho – Crazy (review)
1. DRIPPIN – Zero (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of May 2022
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of April 2022
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of March 2022
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of February 2022
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of January 2022
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
wow i didnt except you to switch wonho with drippin in the top 10
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will you be doing a review of xg’s mascara?
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Nope. Not a fan at all. You guys probably wouldn’t want to hear my ranting haha
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I actually would love to hear the rant! The song was absolutely HORRIBLE
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Crazy, Louder, Zero, Villain for me. Nothing else worth mentioning, unfortunately, even though I really like these four.
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My fav from this month:
1. DRIPPIN – Zero
2. Wonho – Crazy
3. YUKIKA – Scent
4. Rocket Punch – Fiore
5. Youngjae – Sugar
Some honorable mentions:
> Youngjae – Crema
> Kwon Doil – It’s true (produced by NEWTYPE!)
> LOONA – Flip That
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For me, this month’s highlights are Crazy, Love Shhh!, Move Like This and Begin. I also liked other releases (except for Louder, Zero, Who, Doomchita, Stupid Cool and Hit Ya), but…..DAMMIT, the strongest of ’em hardly even surpassed the score of 8.25, which means that the quality of K-pop has been only deteriorating, unfortunately…🤬🤬🤬
Tbh, I don’t even expect July to be better😭
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Crazy is definitely the winner for me.
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I didn’t get to catch everything this month but from what i did catch, my top 3 is lookin like
1. Kep1er – UP!
2. Nayeon – POP
3. KD, Yujin, Kim Yuna – Move Like This
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We share the same top two actually, with Begin being my personal third favourite of the month.
It’s been a pretty dire quarter of Kpop though overall IMO. Most of my initial April faves didn’t last quite long on my playlists whilst the last two months barely offered anything that just really clicked with me. I’m always hopeful that the second half of releases will fill in the gaps (as they always have I’m pretty sure), but the odds are much more stacked against it this time around.
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Here’s mine.
1.Wonho – Crazy
2. Jo Gwanjil and Gaeko – Compensation
3. CLASS:y – Feelin So Good (B-side)
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Forgot about Begin by Yoojung – that’s #4
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MCND – WAT 1 is five. Now I’m done.
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I have still not caught up lol, but from what I heard, my favorites in no order :
Drippin Zero – Finally a Drippin track that struck me so much since Nostalgia. I definitely listened to this more than any of their songs from before!
Woo!Ah! Danger – I DID NOT EXPECT I WOULD END UP LOVING THIS SO MUCH!! 😂 But they sold it so well and the chorus is fantastic. Special mention to Nana whose charisma never ceases to surprise me!
MCND W.A.T.1 – I like songs like this which never let down for a second. Also MCND is a guilty pleasure. A fantastic pre release!
Kang Daniel Parade – I absolutely love this one!! I’m so happy it got an MV too!! It’s got this nice, haunting but melancholic but upbeat vibe and I don’t know how to explain it! 😂 Also he’s my favorite soloist and his deep tone is exactly the kind I love! I wish he collabs with Wonho someday! That would be amazing!
Pixy Villain – They absolutely rocked the concept change!! ❤ Sleek and catchy!
Bugaboo Pop – It’s so fun! And, that chorus is so damn good! I even like the Pop Pop part lol!
BTS Yet to Come – Honestly… I love this. I don’t follow BTS really, I don’t have a huge sentimental attachment to them but this song had the one thing which I absolutely adored about old gen songs, which I missed in newer ones – Rapping along with the vocal parts 🔥❤ That chorus alone is a solid 10 from me. All the rap parts absolutely stood out! And seeing them on the stages again with this sealed the deal!
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NOT GATORADE IN THE TOP THREE 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
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R.I.P K-pop 😩
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Top 3:
1. Jo yuri- love shh(honestly the best summer song we got)
2. Wonho- crazy
3. Nayeon- pop!
I’m still not getting the appeal of “up”. It’s a total pass for me after all this time
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I’m not gonna pretend that I gave June enough of a listen to really make a proper ranking.
But Wonho’s “Crazy” has been on repeat since release and would be my top pick by a pretty wide margin, so I should at least mention that. It’s the closest thing to a June highlight as far as I’m concerned.
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Pixy’s Villain is the one that I’ve enjoyed the most this past month.
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Top 3
1. bugAboo – POP
2. Nayeon – POP!
3. Kep1er – Up!
For this month, I liked the gg releases more than the bg ones. I wanted to like Drippin’s Zero but it’s too slow for me even though there’s the elements that usually make me like a song. The TRENDZ song had a killer riff i just wished the chorus was less shouty.
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It’s these three for me
1) Ring The Alarm
2) Pop
3) Love shhh/Crazy.
Really wish you, and most others, would revisit Ring the alarm. It’s an absolute banger imo.
Fairly weak year overall though.
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The June standouts to me this year were:
-Pop by Nayeon, I’m so so glad this was her debut solo song because it fit her perfectly and established a brassy and theatrical sound while retaining a lot of core Twice-ness. Her rapping in the bridge was a cool tough and the chorus simply… pops off.
-Flip That by Loona- this feels like Hi High’s more mellow, floral, summery sister. It’s probably not going to be one of my favourite Loona songs, but it’s a really good sound for them to try out and the the last chorus is so gorgeous. If this is their last ot12 song, I think it’s a beautiful way for this chapter of Loona to close, and I loved all their bsides for this minialbum too!
-Stupid Cool by Dawn, this song is so stupidly fun and an absolute rollercoaster to listen to. I love the niche Dawn has carved out of slightly bonkers but really fun anthems (hoping for another Money next though!) and the fashion and the music video were absolutely incredibly too. Only Dawn could pull off a saxophone beat drop!
-Love Shhh! by Jo Yuri, this is such a feelgood pop-rock summertime song, I love the punchy guitars and the double-barrelled chorus and it’s a sound I absolutely want Jo Yuri to continue doing as she suits it so well. The minialbum was really nice too.
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