Top Three K-Pop Songs of September 2018

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.

September 2018 Overall Thoughts

September’s usually a pretty slow month, with the Chuseok holiday holding back new releases during the last week. Most of the September’s bigger releases were clumped together during the beginning of the month, which gave a welcome burst of momentum that kind of fizzled out the closer we got to fall.

After a generally underwhelming summer, I came out of August feeling pretty disillusioned with the current state of K-pop. September didn’t make a complete 180 turn, but it definitely felt like a step in the right direction.

This month was all about the ladies. Not only did the number of girl group releases eclipse those of boy groups, but their quality (and willingness to take risks) was undoubtedly higher. And this is coming from someone who admits to preferring boy group material! We had a wonderfully diverse collection of sounds, which reminded me of how K-pop used to be before it discovered tropical house, trap and EDM.

My top three songs of the month were all released within a week of each other, and led the charge when it came to delivering styles outside of today’s trends.

With that said, there are still two months left before I start compiling my year-end top 50 list. I’m concerned with 2018’s shortage of truly standout singles. October and November have a lot resting on their shoulders.

Month Cumulative Rating: 7.9

(compiled by averaging the scores of every k-pop review from this month)

J-Pop Worth Your Time

DAY6 – Breaking Down (review)

GFriend – Memoria (review)

M!LK – Over The Storm (review)

News – Ikiro (review)

Honorable Mentions

BLANC7 – Drama (review)

Chanyeol X Sehun – We Young (review)

Cosmic Girls (WJSN) – Save Me, Save You (review)

Dreamcatcher – What (review)