As a spin-off to my Battle of the B-sides feature, I’m pleased to announce the arrive of “Battle of the Title Tracks!” In this feature, I’ll be pitting three K-pop title tracks/singles against each other and choosing a winner. These songs will mostly be from pre-2016 since I’ll try to focus on music I haven’t yet written about on the blog.
As always, the competition is all in good fun. Most importantly, I hope you discover (or re-discover) some great songs!
Battle of the Title Tracks: Round Four
Hyolyn – Lonely (2013)
Hyolyn made her solo debut quite early in Sistar’s career, releasing a pair of title tracks to showcase various sides of her musical persona. Lonely is the more reserved of the two – a gentle, piano-driven mid-tempo. Usually, I’d be tempted to call this type of song “dull” or “snoozy,” but Hyolyn elevates the softness of the sound with her beautifully breathy vocals. She’s one of my all-time favorite K-pop vocalists – instantly recognizable and always compelling. The same could be said for much of Sistar, really. How lucky were we to have them? With that said, she’s released much stronger solo material since this came out.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 7.75 |
PSY – It’s Art (2011)
When thinking of PSY’s music, it’s easy to pigeonhole him into some comedic, meme-making role. However, songs like It’s Art reveal a deeper musicality and surprising level of sentiment. The song is among his most anthemic, melding dancefloor energy with insistent symphonic heft. The piano arpeggio that drives most of the track is instantly memorable, giving the instrumental tons of character. The song surges and swells with utter confidence, blossoming into a knockout chorus that sees PSY belting at the top of his lungs. And just after pulling back for a softer bridge, It’s Art climaxes in the greatest of pop music tricks: a triumphant key change.
| Hooks | 9 |
| Production | 10 |
| Longevity | 10 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 9.5 |
Super Junior – Don’t Don (2007)
It’s been fascinating to hear how some elements of SM Entertainment’s much-venerated “SMP” hybrid genre have continued to make their way into the agency’s current roster. The blistering mix of pop, rock and hip-hop was at its peak from about 2004-2014 and echoed a daring idol sound that was prevalent in many east Asian markets at the time. Just listen to Taiwan’s Energy if you don’t believe me! Don’t Don might not hold together as well as a legendary track like Rising Sun, but it’s cut from the same cloth. Hard rock guitar collides with programmed dance beats and even a violin solo to forge a real showstopper. The layered chorus is so satisfying.
| Hooks | 9 |
| Production | 10 |
| Longevity | 9 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 9.25 |
My Verdict:
The winning track of this edition is PSY’s It’s Art!
Readers, what do you think? Leave your own ranking in the comments!
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Don’t Don certainly shows its age. It’s does sounds as timeless as other SMP songs
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I mean to say *doesn’t sound as timeless*
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Don’t Don holds the distinction of being the very first Kpop track I ever heard. Back when it had been out a relatively short time was when my cousin was first getting into Kpop boy groups and she would share her choices with me. I never quite picked up her affinity for the boys (DBSK breaking up broke my heart and it was only by chance that I got into BTS during their debut week while I had been following girl groups somewhat steadily the whole time) but that song will always be special to me.
Lonely tho? I was in on the ground floor with Hyolyn’s album. Such a wistful delicate song and a pretty solid debut album too.
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Don’t Don always reminds me of TVXQ – Tri-angle and that song always feels stronger to me, having BoA and then TraxX on the track also helps expand it from it’s original premise which works really nicely for my brain
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I’m always happy to see new features that spotlight older K-Pop songs! Have to agree on the winner. It’s funny… I was actually listening to It’s Art earlier today after reading some claims about all of PSY’s songs sounding the same (for his most promoted title tracks, I will concede that PSY delivers pretty much what the public expects of him, but I find he experiments quite a bit as an artist in the rest of his output). Hyolyn is such a gem as an artist and always manages to elevate anything she sings on and conveys emotion so well. It’s just kind of a shame that her output since starting her own company is so all over the map and now mostly overlooked (even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of Sistar19’s comeback song, I’m still surprised by how little noise their reunion made in Korea given their past success). How nice it would be if the production side of her songs met her at least halfway… we’d get some great music, but one of the downsides to starting your own company is not having the finances or clout to get first choice on song rights or the best of what a producer is capable of.
One idea (though I’m happy to see this feature in any form!!), it might be more fun to pick title tracks that have some similarities or cohesiveness between the, for example: artists’ approaches to the same genres, trends, or concepts; songs released at similar times in the artists’ careers or career trajectories; or even output from different artists from the same agency, etc…. just some similarity to tie them together. It feels a bit more like an actual battle that way 😹 as opposed to more unrelated material. But I’ll gladly take whatever I can get! Thanks for the new feature!
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Still waiting for you to make battle of b-sides with Orange Caramel
my ranking of all OC titles/b-sides: (literally made it 3 hours ago) https://youtu.be/Os-WDrfAXFo
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Bubble Bath will always steal my heart. Talking about Bubble Bath, I got reminded of Cosmic Eyes by BoA. They both have a d&b influence (especially the latter), and it’s interesting to see how d&b in kpop has changed. It still wild how a good number of 2nd gen songs had some d&b influence, but that they added 3 layers on top of it, making songs sound fuller and not just barebones.
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