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 2021 Overall Thoughts
So far, the rule of 2021 seems to be “expect the unexpected.” Like the past several months, June turned out quite different than I’d anticipated. Back in May, if you were to show me a list of all the upcoming comebacks, I could’ve easily pointed to the ones I thought would rule the month. But, groups continue to surprise in both good and bad ways.
June was packed, yet weirdly lop-sided at the same time. Its first two weeks were among the most consistently strong we’ve seen this year. Then, the bottom dropped out and we had a whole week with almost no major releases. Of course, this corresponded directly to the beginning of my summer break (when I actually have a surplus of time to work on the blog!). These final few days of June have offered a rebound of sorts, though the quality of songs has been mixed.
Looking at song ratings alone, I think you’ll be shocked at my top three picks. Tracks have moved all around for me this month (more details when we get to my “risers and fallers” post in a few days!), and many emerged as sleeper hits. When all is said and done, June probably delivered more 9+ rated songs than any other month in 2021.
I’m pretty confident about my top three, but there are a ton of tracks that are very close honorable mentions. Lucy’s I Got U (a sleeper hit!), GHOST9’s Up All Night, Seventeen’s Ready To Love and BDC’s Moonlight all make convincing bids, which just goes to show how strong June’s release slate has been. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some flip-flopping when all is said and done.
Then, we’ve got normally-reliable acts like EXO, DRIPPIN, A.C.E and Twice, who all underwhelmed to one degree or another. That’s the bittersweet side to June, I guess.
Competition series Kingdom ended early this month, with a whimper rather than a bang. As far as K-variety goes, I’m much more smitten with the new JYP/PSY series Loud. I won’t be recapping it here, but the show has my highest recommendation. The producers are putting a few twists on the familiar audition show tropes, and the talent so far has been fantastic.
The beginning of June tends to be one of the busiest times in my non-Bias List life, so I feel like my attention to J-pop fell to the side. My actual favorite Japanese releases this month came from the second season of Produce 101 Japan, which was a really fun series. Other than that, I’m sure I’m missing some great singles. Let me know in the comments!
Looking forward to July, I’m a bit worried. I feel like the comeback slate is pretty light so far, and the past couple of weeks have passed by without many new teasers/announcements. I thought this might be due to the Olympics, which kick off at the end of the month. But, the event didn’t seem to have much effect on August 2016’s comebacks. I don’t know why this year would be different. I’m hopeful we’ll get some big group comeback news soon. For now, it feels like everyone is pushing their stuff to August.
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.9
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
Generations – Make Me Better (video)
Koichi Domoto – Tik Tik Tik (video)
SHINee – Superstar (review)
Twice – Perfect World (review)
TOP J-POP SONG OF THE MONTH
Nissy – Do Do (review)
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
A.C.E – Higher (review)
BDC – Moonlight (review)
B.I – illa illa (review)
EXO – Don’t Fight The Feeling (review)
GHOST9 – Up All Night (review)
Ha Sungwoon – Sneakers (review)
Just B – Damage (review)
LIGHTSUM – Vanilla (review)
Lucy – I Got U (review)
NCT Dream – Hello Future (review)
NCT 127 – Save (review)
Pink Fantasy – Poison (review)
Seventeen – Ready To Love (review)
TXT – Magic (review)
TOP THREE SONGS
3. UP10TION – Spin Off (review)
2. Monsta X – Gambler (review)
1. Brave Girls – Chi Mat Ba Ram (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of May 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of April 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of March 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of February 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of January 2021
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Great top 3. Gambler stayed good and the other two got better for me over time.
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I have in some order:
Seventeen Anyone / Ready to Love
NCT Dream – Hello Future
BDC Moonlight
Up10tion Spin Off
and honorable mention to
ACE Higher
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Anyone staying strong for me too.
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Chi Mat Ba Ram is really an instant summer classic. It’s brimming with melody!
Can’t wait for the already announced August repackage.
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I think my top June songs are:
Lucy – I Got U (it gets better with every listen!)
Lulileela – Howl
Onewe – Rain To Be
NCT 127 – Save
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Ha! I knew Chi Mat Ba Ram would top. That song is hard to resist. Love Gambler too, “My suit is black my suit is fresh open my pack let me show you how I bang”.
For my end-of-month list, I think I might count the songs that came out today as July songs, eases the flow for the blog.
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I went and watched one episode of Loud and holy crap its so good. Watching a kpop reality audition show definitely wasn’t on my 2021 bingo list but the changes in this one caught me by surprise.
And wtf are those boys with 16, 17 years producing tracks, movies and lyrics of that level?
Apart from some of the now ex-trainees like Junhyuk, Gyehun and Kyungjoon (not surprising that they are already good performers) guys like Daniel (the movie director and 1/3 Brazilian), Donghyeon (the first comedy-poetry guy), Sihyun (the programmer with smartphone controllers), Eunhwi (the powerpoint composer) and Yedam (the footbal guy) completely blew my mind with how creative they could be.
Thinking about it now, while writing this reply, i realize that this type of auditions made me connect and care about contestants in a reality show like i’ve never had and i’m a veteran that started all the way back in season 4 of The Voice. And i can’t stop laughing at some of the contestants AND at, most of all, to JYPSY reactions to the contestants.
Daniel is my guy from now on because i have to stand up for my nationality, even if he is only a third from home, and because i would love to see the twists that a MV shot by one of the own members of a group could have.
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Yay! I’m so glad others are watching and enjoying. I’ve seen more of these kind of audition shows than I can count, but so far Loud has been the perfect version of them. The talent, the judges, the set design, the voting rules… everything just feels right and so entertaining.
My two favorites as of now are Junhyuk, who’s like the perfect idol performer already, and Donghyun, who’s just impossibly charming. But honestly, there isn’t a weak link in the whole series and I love how diverse all of their talents are. I mean, we’ve got producers, ballerinos, videographers… It’s just so good and I hope the eventual boy groups will feel just as unique.
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My top groups for June:
TXT
Seventeen
Brave Girls
BDC
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YES CHI MAT BARAM~ for the win!!!!
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Mine’s probably some combination of Spin Off (though I only listened to my edited version so IDK), Gambler and Moonlight. With a close fourth to Poison or DFTF.
And PTT has decided she wanted to worm into my head and now I’m singing that song all day now so I guess that one too. I apologize to Everglow’s FIRST, since they’re so similar it’s hard to be mad at FIRST now.
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My top five of the month
5. A.C.E – Higher
4. Brave Girls – Chi Mat Ba Ram
3. Seventeen – Ready To Love
2. Monsta X – Gambler
1. NCT Dream – Hello Future
Hon’ble mentions to Spin Off (that could have glided into the top five if it were not for that stupid second verse break), I Got U (which aged surprisingly well), Up All Night (a very close 6th place), and Sneakers.
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I’ll be honest here, I don’t know my Favorite song this month.
June delivered so many comebacks that I considered incredible and the tracks which I initially considered “great” also turned into absolute Stompers as the month went on.
But! If UP10TION’s track didn’t have the trap breakdown for so long, Then I could’ve easily chose them as The Top Spot of the month. For Now, I am tied for who I want to give that Spot away to.
So for Now, I’ll tell a shocking fact: SISTAR has never topped any of TheBiasList’s Top Three K-pop Songs of The Month Posts. They have entered several times, But have never grabbed The Top Spot of these round-ups.
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My top three this month are probably:
1. N.Flying – Moonshot
2. PINK FANTASY – Poison
3. WEi – Bye Bye Bye
With honorable mentions in no particular order going to:
GHOST9 – Up All Night
ONEWE – Rain To Be
A.C.E – Higher
LIGHTSUM – Vanilla
WOO JIN YOUNG – Happy Birthday
JUST B – Damages
OMEGA X – Vamos
A.C.E was indeed underwhelming, as was GHOST9 to a lesser degree. LIGHTSUM and PINK FANTASY were pleasant surprises, as I don’t run across GG releases I really like all that often. Two artists you don’t cover here that had releases I loved this month were AQUINAS and Mirani. I also finally got on the DONKIZ train, if belatedly.
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Chi Mat Ba Ram is just a super listenable if you’re at all partial to that style (electric/tropical anthem.) The Brave Sound four chords kick in and it’s hard to resist.
I don’t know if it’ll stand out as one of my favorite songs of the year, but then again, I haven’t heard much I’ll revisit this month.
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Pink Fantasy all the way for me. Listened to Rain To Be and Moonshot the most out of this month’s releases too, though I’m not sure if I would call them *objectively* the best. 2021 has been the year where I’ve finally acclimated my ears enough to enjoy NCT’s particular brand of weird music, so credit to Hello Future too, I suppose. And to Ghost9 and their entertaining 1D ripoff.
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Yeah, I noticed you focused a lot on K-pop this month. I was wondering if you checked out any of the LDH releases this June. And Generations and Ryuji Imaichi are set to release albums next month. Produce 101 was much more interesting this year too!
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Yeah, I think I heard most of the LDH stuff. Didn’t care for the JSB tracks and thought that Rampage’s was just okay. I liked Generations’ track the best, but didn’t end up writing about it. From the preview circulating on youtube, Fantastics’ Dive sounds like it’s going to be great.
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Pingback: The Top Three K-Pop Songs of June 2021 | Beatsway
really like anyone, i got u
(actually svt, twice, lucy, txt albums have been solid)
moonshot, hello future, paint the town has wormed into my brain
next level is as fresh as ever
wish ggs could step it up… looking at next month, there are no major gg releases… I’m a little bitter. hoping for good solo releases from soyeon and taeyeon that will tide me through the month. I now somewhat miss the girl group bloodbaths from before.
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correct me if i’m wrong but this is the first time Monsta X has made it into your monthly top 3! good for them 😊 totally deserved with Gambler, too – it’s just a crazy catchy, solid song that highlighted all their strengths well. so cool to see what can happen when a group is given full creative control over a title track
you’re right though, it’s been a really quiet month! slightly disappointing but it gave me time to finally listen to Exo’s entire discography AND all their solo/collab stuff, so that’s a plus hahahahaha. i’ll have to go back and read your individual Exo song reviews that I bookmarked eons ago lol
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For me, my fav. tracks of this month were:-
Seventeen – Ready to Love
Brave Girls – Chi Mat Ba Ram
Lucy – I got U
Hon’ble mentions:- Twice – Alcohol free – This song has grown on me quite a bit. I am now embarrassingly trying to replicate the main dance moves in my dressing room. This song is thus on my list.
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