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!
July 2011 Overall Thoughts
As the summer season took full bloom in 2011, July delivered a slate of bonafide classics. This is the kind of month with too many iconic smashes to squeeze into a top three, meaning that some of my honorable mentions might feel a little surprising. It was also a month that saw many 2010 debuts really start to bear fruit with breakthrough singles.
My top pick will surprise nobody who is familiar with this site. It’s one of my absolute favorite K-pop songs, and one of the decade’s most iconic. Slots two and three were harder to fill, with many tracks in competition. 2NE1’s excellent pair of singles were very close to breaking in, and joined their earlier 2011 work to create one of the strongest K-pop mini albums of all time.
In addition to all the great music from rising acts, July 2011 saw the inauspicious debut of Brave Girls, as well as the After School sub-units Red and Blue (only one of which I really liked).
Honorable Mentions
2NE1 – Hate You / Ugly (video / video)
After School Blue – Wonderboy (video)
B1A4 – Only Learned Bad Things (video)
Chi Chi – Longer (video)
Girl’s Day – Hug Me Once (video)
MBLAQ – Mona Lisa (video)
miss A – Good-bye Baby (video)
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
As far as your H.M.’s:
– 2NE1: While I love 2NE1, “Hate You” & “Ugly” weren’t their best material. Not bad, but not top tier.
– After School Blue: It has since grown on me a bit, but I was more impressed with the After School Red offerings.
– Girl’s Day: This is a tough one. The song, itself, is an overly infantilized shrill-fest, but it’s the first song I heard from them and it sunk its teeth in me; big-time.
– miss A: I was already hooked on them from “Bad Girl Good Girl”. “Good-bye Baby” just drove the hook in deeper.
On your choice for 3rd place:
– HyunA: I’m actually a little surprised by this. I mean, yeah, the song embodies the ‘pop’ part of K-pop, and it’s so exaggerated that it generates its own memes, so there’s a trophy element to it. Still, given some of the other releases from that month, does it really deserve a higher placement? I’m not asking you, specifically. I’m actually questioning myself on that.
If I chose this months rankings (based only on the girls):
3. HyunA – Bubble Pop *
2. Girl’s Day – Hug Me Once
1. miss A – Good-bye Baby
* “Bubble Pop” made 3rd, because I gave it credit for its trophy factor, but 2NE1’s “Ugly” was a better song.
NOTE: Infinite “Be Mine” is a fantastic song and I can understand it’s place at 1st. However, I’m still camped over on the girl’s side of the lake, so.. ..yeah.
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