2018 arrived still reeling from the lingering aftereffects of tragedy, as Jonghyun’s passing continued to loom large in everyone’s minds. But the year went on to deliver one of the strongest Januarys in memory. Title tracks pin-balled between genres and there seemed to be a renewed, free-wheeling energy within the idol industry. The Winter Olympics put the brakes on this pattern to some extent, but the first quarter of the year still delivered exciting projects like NCT 2018.
From springtime on, K-pop started to settle into a pattern I often described as “lots of solid tracks, but few standouts.” The indie and idol worlds continued to collide this year, resulting in a trend of mid-tempo title tracks that seemed to focus more on mood than melody. I think I used the word “murky” a thousand times this year, but it was the best descriptor I could come up with to describe the tonal trends I was noticing.
2018’s other musical trends were largely holdovers from last year, with trap and tropical pop still a huge factor. I blame this largely on the genre stagnation in mainstream Western pop music, which K-pop tends to follow quite slavishly. The oft-mentioned Latin trend never took complete hold of the industry, but it was definitely a factor. K-pop continued to feel more international this year, bolstered by the American success of BTS and others.
This all resulted in…. not my favorite year for K-pop. But, that doesn’t mean there weren’t plenty of highlights. As always, I consider my own top 50 list to be quite solid, though it’s admittedly a refection of my personal taste.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be breaking down every corner of 2018 K-pop with the usual onslaught of countdowns and opinion pieces. Tomorrow, we kick off with the first day of my Top 50 countdown, which will run until Friday.
For now, here are five songs that just missed this year’s list:
2018 Honorable Mentions
Red Velvet – Bad Boy (review)
MXM – Diamond Girl (review)
The East Light – Real Man (review)
Chungha – Love U (review)
NCT Dream – We Go Up (review)
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Ohhh it’s list season! I can’t wait to see your Top 50!!
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As usual, there will be so many lists that you’ll all be sick of them by the time they’re done 😉
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I’ve always been curious about how you go about ranking things, especially when there’s 50! Is there a certain method you use? And also how do you make sure you don’t miss anything?
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Having my “top 3 of the month” feature really helps. First thing I do is comb back through those. My top three songs are the first to get added to my “nominations” list, as well as any honorable mentions that I think hold merit. Then I take a look back through my other reviews to make sure I haven’t missed anything.
From there, it’s a lot of dragging and dropping. I have a long list on my computer and I simply drag the best songs to the top and compare each one to the song above and below it. Eventually, I’ve got fifty.
The funny thing is that, in many ways, numbers 50-41 are much harder to decide than numbers 10-1! Especially since it’s often like comparing apples to oranges.
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Ahh okay I see, thanks for the response!
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Haha I find it so hard to rank songs, especially when there is so much variety, so I commend you for doing 50! Looking forward to your upcoming posts!
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