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.
January 2020 Overall Thoughts
What a K-pop wasteland this January was. The new decade kicked off with a whimper, as releases were scarce and largely forgettable. I was entirely too kind with my ratings, which led to an overly high cumulative rating compared to how I really felt about January of 2020.
For the past few years, the Lunar New Year holiday has occurred in February, meaning we’d get a rush of new comebacks at the start of the year before dipping into a lull. This year was flipped, with January acting as a bit of a hiatus for most acts. The thing is, December was already a hiatus for most new releases, so now we’ve had two barren months in a row. It’s hard to get very excited about new music given these circumstances.
With that said, my number one pick was incredibly easy. It’s heads and tails above the rest of the songs released this January. Number two was also pretty obvious to me, and it’s a song that has grown more addictive with time. However, there really wasn’t a track that I felt deserved the number three spot, so my choice came mostly by default.
Longtime readers will be surprised at which group didn’t make the cut this month. I’m surprised too — especially given how non-competitive this January was. Maybe the Golden Child song will grow on me, but right now it’s easily my least favorite single from them, and a move down a murky, moody route that I don’t want them to pursue further.
Fortunately, next month is already packed with comeback announcements. I’m hoping that K-pop will kick itself into gear. Last time we had a January this weak, it was 2016, and that year ended up being a very strong one. Fingers crossed!
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.8
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop (and C-Pop) Worth Your Time
SixTONES – Imitation Rain (review)
Snow Man – D.D. (review)
Honorable Mentions
ENOi – Cheeky (review)
Golden Child – Without You (review)
Sechs Kies – All For You (review)
SF9 – Good Guy (review)
Super Junior – 2YA2YAO! (review)
TOP THREE SONGS
3. Dongkiz – All I Need Is You (review)
2. VERIVERY – Lay Back (review)
1. ATEEZ – Answer (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of December 2019
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of November 2019
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of October 2019
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of September 2019
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of August 2019
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
No surprises with Answer at number 1, it’s probably my favourite ATEEZ title yet. Kind of surprised that Paradise by Siyeon didn’t make it into honourable mentions though.
Also what are your thoughts on TREASURE’s pre-debut song “Going Crazy”? I find really charming and one of the years best surprises. Would be great to see a YG group follow such an upbeat pop sound.
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I like Going Crazy, but don’t love it. To me, it sounds like it could be an old Teen Top song from around 2012-13. I think it’s a good template for the group, and I’d love them to take a lighter pop style as their concept. But, I don’t trust YG at all so we’ll see what ends up happening.
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My Top 3
Answer
Good Guy
Lay Back
Without You, yes I still don’t know if it will grow on me, but still I think of it as Top 10
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While I enjoyed Answer, I’ve probably listened to it only like twice. For me this month was all about SF9’s album and (still) Golden Child’s one.
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Answer deserves the spot, without a doubt. It’s ATEEZ’s best single yet.
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Dongkiz song’s energy always gets me to smirk at least and this one is the same. I don’t like “stan” them but i’m gonna keep an eye on them for 2020 hoping they’ll break out
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January was so thin, so few releases! So thin I even downloaded a Voisper song “Keep Going” which isn’t as treachly as their usual.
I suppose we should give props to Zico for taking advantage of the thin schedule and releasing a popular song that is dominating the charts. Not my favorite from him by any means, but congrats to Zico.
So, January: I have in some order the same three: Answer, Lay Back, All I need is you.
And honorable mention to Shin Wonho “Invasion” and “Kki” which was technically late December, but the holiday season was such a blur and I didn’t listen to them until the new year. Both are great songs, retro disco awesomeness. (I didn’t even know any Cross Gene until now except for the ba ba bi da song on Kville charts on youtube (said song has a name, it is “Na Hago Nolja”).)
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We all love K-ville…
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