Since the start of The Bias List in January 2016, I’ve always looked back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists each month. Now, it’s time to look even further into the past, one month at a time. And, yes, the top three rankings count toward The Bias List’s personal artist scorecard!
September 2012 Overall Thoughts
September tends to be pretty light for K-pop releases due to the Chuseok holiday, but even though September 2012 saw fewer comebacks than previous months, it was still jam-packed with classics. I mean, I don’t even know how to choose between some of these songs! It’s just incredible stuff, back-to-back.
I really wanted to focus on some of the stellar girl group releases of the month, but in the end three male artists took my top spots – and one is actually a debut!
Still, songs like Orange Caramel’s Lipstick, T-ara’s Sexy Love and Spica’s I’ll Be There deserve all the praise they can get. As far as K-pop goes, we’re talking the A-list here. Huge choruses, fun instrumentals and incredible energy.
Elsewhere, we’ve got an excellent New Jack Swing track from BTOB, the promising debut of boy group 24K and an underrated EDM anthem from soloist Anda. But, nothing quite compares to the towering masterpiece that finds itself in my number one spot. It’s still one of my favorite K-pop songs of all time – the perfect melding of artist and musical trend.
Honorable Mentions
24K – Hurry Up (video)
Anda – Hypnotize (video)
BTOB – Wow (video)
G-Dragon – Crayon (video)
Orange Caramel – Lipstick (video)
Spica – I’ll Be There (video)
T-ara – Sexy Love (video)
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
I always look forward to these posts. 😺 They make me so nostalgic and have given me quite a few hours of relistening to fantastic songs that have slipped my memory over the years. I think the only misses for me this month from your list would GD’s One Of A Kind. The overly auto-tuned and sort of monotonous chorus just never appealed to me, even more so in retrospect since I can’t help but compare his other solo work to Crooked which remains, in my opinion, one of the best melding of song, artist, and concept in K-Pop’s history.
Out of curiosity, have you decided on how many years you plan to cover or ever intend to go back further than 2011? And I’m not going to lie, I’d probably happy dance around my apartment if you ever did a Top X songs of the last decade or 2010’s lol. It would be very interesting to see how more recent and older favorites stack up against one another. I know for me personally, my list would probably skew pretty heavily overall towards 2011 – 2016 releases.
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One of a kind was a miss for me too haha I just can’t stand GD’s hip hop posturing… I also really want to see the “looking back” feature go even earlier since I think kpop as a pure pop genre was at its best from 2008-2011
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For me, GD is the only one who can get away with it. I think that’s because, back when he was doing this kind of style, it wasn’t all that common in K-pop. Plus, the guy’s just unbelievably charismatic.
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I intend to cover as many years as I can, likely working my way back once I finish up 2012/14/15.
Also, I may or may not have a feature in mind that might scratch the itch you have for more comprehensive lists. It just depends on how much free time I have to work on it!
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Man, I miss Orange Caramel’s quirky concept so much 😦 I’ve been on a nostalgic trip lately and discovered that approx. 2010-2015 was such a glorious time for Kpop girl groups. I miss 2NE1’s electronic, rap-heavy songs and beautiful ballads as well as SISTAR’s and SECRET’s sexy + elegant concepts so much. Hopefully this time will make a comeback since trends and concepts come and go in waves.
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Apparently this was the month that Pink released the album with “Try” and “Just give me a reason”. Seems like ages ago.
I’ve got Orange Caramel “Lipstick” for the win.
Honorable mention to GD One of a Kind, because of the posturing. Also that awesome autotuned glissando down helloooooooo ohohwohoh. One example of a good use of autotune.
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As a 4th gen stan:
-tvxq’s catch me sounds super outdated & generic (similar to “dj got us falling in love again”)
-orange caramel’s lipstick is one of my favorite k-pop song of all time (and one of the most addicting :). That whole album is 10/10 with some of the best b-sides I’ve heard like “Milkshake”, “Superwoman”, “Bubble Bath”, “Shanghai Romance”
if “Milkshake” was released this year, it would have been my top 3 favorite song of the year and “Lipstick” as the 2nd :d That just shows how good these 2 songs are.
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