Music reviews have their place, but when it really comes down to it, the most important aspect of a song is how many times you actually play it.
Well, I’m a total nerd when it comes to statistics, and I keep a detailed eye on my iTunes play counts. Apart from music videos and live performances, I listen to everything via my iPhone or iTunes. I am not a streamer.
This habit has led to a detailed list of stats that I enjoy pouring over every once and awhile. For a while now, I’ve wanted to document them in a more meaningful way, and that’s where this feature comes in.
You may or may not be interested in actually seeing this, and this may become the most self-indulgent series of posts in Bias List history, but I’m going to do it anyway. And, I challenge you to do the same!
For play count information, I use the “Play Time” app, though I only started using iTunes properly in May of 2015. Any play counts from prior to that month exist somewhere in the ether, never to be retrieved. That gives a serious disadvantage to second-gen groups – some of which I love dearly but barely made it onto the list (or didn’t make it at all).
Below, you’ll find four tables – two for K-pop, and two for J-pop. The first is simply a ranking of my top-played artists – Top 25 for K-pop, Top 10 for J-pop. The second attempts to account for the disparity in discography size. Obviously, an artist with 300 songs is going to have more play counts than one with 50. So, for this second round of tables, I used the following formula to come up with a weighted score:
Total plays ÷ Number of songs from that artist in my collection
I plan to add follow-up posts to this feature every once and awhile, updating to see who rises and falls. This may end up being for my gratification only, but hopefully it can give more context to the “bias” behind my reviews.
Go straight to: K-Pop (Play Count Rank) // K-Pop (Weighted Rank) // J-Pop (Play Count Rank) // J-Pop (Weighted Rank)
K-POP – PLAY COUNT RANK
| RANKING | ARTIST | PLAY COUNT |
| 1. | Infinite | 1,161 |
| 2. | TVXQ | 900 |
| 3. | EXO | 891 |
| 4. | Seventeen | 756 |
| 5. | SHINee | 709 |
| 6. | Super Junior | 609 |
| 7. | BTS | 583 |
| 8. | Astro | 580 |
| 9. | GFriend | 571 |
| 10. | Golden Child | 555 |
| 11. | B1A4 | 545 |
| 12. | Lovelyz | 475 |
| 13. | NCT 127 | 468 |
| 14. | Red Velvet | 459 |
| 15. | GOT7 | 431 |
| 16. | Twice | 416 |
| 17. | Snuper | 411 |
| 18. | Pentagon | 383 |
| 19. | DAY6 | 376 |
| 20. | Stray Kids | 365 |
| 21. | Monsta X | 364 |
| 22. | UP10TION | 350 |
| 23. | Cosmic Girls | 346 |
| 24. | ATEEZ | 341 |
| 25. | VIXX | 339 |
K-POP – WEIGHTED RANK
| RANKING | ARTIST | WEIGHTED SCORE |
| 1. | Golden Child | 13.54 |
| 2. | Infinite | 8.80 |
| 3. | Astro | 8.79 |
| 4. | Seventeen | 8.69 |
| 5. | Snuper | 7.60 |
| 6. | ATEEZ | 7.58 |
| 7. | EXO | 7.30 |
| 8. | NCT 127 | 6.88 |
| 9. | Stray Kids | 6.64 |
| 10. | Lovelyz | 6.60 |
| 11. | GFriend | 6.21 |
| 12. | Cosmic Girls | 6.07 |
| 13. | Red Velvet | 5.00 |
| 14. | Pentagon | 4.91 |
| 15. | UP10TION | 4.61 |
| 16. | Twice | 4.38 |
| 17. | DAY6 | 4.37 |
| 18. | B1A4 | 4.36 |
| 19. | SHINee | 3.87 |
| 20. | VIXX | 3.65 |
| 21. | Monsta X | 3.53 |
| 22. | BTS | 3.47 |
| 23. | Super Junior | 3.44 |
| 24. | TVXQ | 3.28 |
| 25. | GOT7 | 2.76 |
J-POP – PLAY COUNT RANK
| RANKING | ARTIST | PLAY COUNT |
| 1. | Kis-My-Ft2 | 905 |
| 2. | KAT-TUN | 743 |
| 3. | News | 741 |
| 4. | Hey! Say! JUMP | 710 |
| 5. | Arashi | 410 |
| 6. | AAA | 354 |
| 7. | Bullet Train | 332 |
| 8. | Sexy Zone | 327 |
| 9. | T.M.Revolution | 263 |
| 10. | V6 | 234 |
J-POP – WEIGHTED RANK
| RANKING | ARTIST | WEIGHTED SCORE |
| 1. | Bullet Train | 3.49 |
| 2. | Kis-My-Ft2 | 3.44 |
| 3. | KAT-TUN | 2.97 |
| 4. | News | 2.96 |
| 5. | Hey! Say! JUMP | 2.80 |
| 6. | AAA | 2.01 |
| 7. | T.M.Revolution | 1.96 |
| 8. | Sexy Zone | 1.78 |
| 9. | Arashi | 1.59 |
| 10. | V6 | 1.31 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
What service do you use for J-POP? I can barely find any Kat-tun MVs anywhere!
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I think that most j-pop artists put their discographies on Apple Music anyway, including MVs
You can use bilibili to watch their MVs, if you like. Here’s rescue’s MV https://www.bilibili.com/video/av62232528/
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Thank You! I use spotify so I did not know!
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With a lot of these J-pop acts, you have to actually buy the physical albums. I usually buy second-hand (because new ones are so over-priced), using a proxy shopping service because places like Amazon Japan don’t ship most items to the States.
Other than that… I have my ways. But yes, bilibili is a good resource for J-pop mvs that you can’t find on youtube. They’re all fan uploaded, though, so the quality ranges quite a bit. If you want the real thing, you’ve gotta fork over the cash for the dvds/blu-rays that come with albums. It’s a real rabbit hole, let me tell you!
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My top 5 boy groups are all on your kpop list so I’m satisfied 😊
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I’m a longtime Spotify user, so I like to play around with the slew of third-party statistic websites built for it. Apparently my top 5 songs of all time are:
1. My Childhood Story — Sandeul
2. Very Nice — Seventeen
3. Stay As You Are — Sandeul
4. Mansae — Seventeen
5. Without You — NCT U
I haven’t listened to the Seventeen songs regularly or the Sandeul songs really… at all since late 2017, so I must have just streamed the life out of them at some point! BTS is still listed as my top artist, too, even though I stopped listening to all but a handful of their songs maybe six months after discovering them. All of my “all time” lists are nearly exclusively things I haven’t listenEd to much in at least a couple years but, if nothing else, it’s a nice trip down memory lane!
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Wow the taste here. I really loved Sandeul’s debut album and My Childhood Story was my fave track on it next to the Wheein duet.
2016 Seventeen is also top tier Seventeen for me and stays in heavy rotation tbh.
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Haha, thanks! Sandeul’s album is part of what sold me on Korean music in general, honestly — it showed me that there was more to the scene than the more aggressive(?) tracks Spotify had given me at that point (Block B’s Very Good, NCT 127’s Fire Truck, all that jazz), and My Childhood Story remains my favorite off the album by a huge margin (not to mention how incredibly talented a vocalist Sandeul is!). I should bring it back into my rotation.
Seventeen was the second group I ever properly followed, after Astro, so I think the two tracks I mentioned may have fallen out of favor a bit because they were severely over-listened to in my heyday as a fan. I don’t think I had made full sense of the K-Pop industry until a few months after I found them, so I really didn’t have much else to listen to. Those two are still among my favorites in general, though.
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My Top 5
TWICE
LOONA
GFRIEND
DREAMCATCHER
RED VELVET
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My top 5 goes like this:
1. Super Junior
2. TVXQ
3. BTS
4. EXO
5. Infinite
And just pointing out casually but Nick this method is not fair for artists with a lot of songs.
Although I get why you used the weighted score idea but in a given time we usually want to change up artist’s song rather than listening to a single group’s songs.
Eg. I have one hour, I play a list… Although I many like the second song of the artist that comes, I just click skip because time is limited and I want to listen to all the artists I have in mind.
But in weighted score the score get less simply bcoz the number of songs of that artist is more.
So 1 song from 2 groups everyday, meaning u love both songs equally, but the weighted score becomes more for an artist with 10 songs and disadvantageous for the group with 100 songs… because we’re less likely going to listen to 100 songs of 1 group each & every day(probably the top 10)..that would take the whole listening time.
Well I don’t think I was able to explain it in this way.
But then again there is no need to be this serious and you do you Nick.
God bless.
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Yes, neither of these metrics are a perfect representation, which is why I included both. For example, if you were to look at my first table, you’d think I play TVXQ all day, every day. And… I do play a lot of TVXQ! But, I’ve got 274 of their songs in my iTunes, so even if I only play each one twice, they’re making it high on my list. On the weighted chart, they’re much lower, because there are a lot of TVXQ songs that I just don’t play that often. But, I’m a completest — so I like to have them all at the ready just in case.
Whereas, Golden Child only have 41 tracks in my iTunes, but I’ve played all of them many, many times. With these two contrasting metrics, it’s hard to draw a clear conclusion. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, I suspect.
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Hey , this seems like one of the best features for your site , can I borrow it for mine? I’m just asking If I can borrow it and If you have a problem with it then it’s fine 🙂.
Btw mine is more like this:
1. Golden Child
2. Seventeen
3. Infinite
4. Shinee
5. Snuper
6. B1A4
7. EXO
8. Ateez
9. Gfriend
10. Astro
All of them are my Personal Favorites
Most listened K-pop Songs:
1. Golden Child – Lately
2. SHINee – One Minute Back
3. Infinite – Wind
4. SHINee – Lucifer
5. Taeyang – Eyes , Nose and Lips
6. Astro – Hide and Seek
7. Golden Child – Lady
8. Snuper – Star Of The Stars
9. Ateez – Utopia
10. Infinite – The Chaser
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Of course! I certainly don’t own the concept of ‘play counts’! haha 🙂
And I am so behind both of those lists. Pretty darn flawless.
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Oh , Thank you very much then
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My number 1 most listened to song on Spotify is Dumb and Dumber by Ikon and I think that says a lot about me
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I’m surprised to find Gfriend is in your most played list, considering your reviews about them in past years. Also surprised on how you manage those Jpop lists, I became a Jpop casual listener since 2011 and the only obstacle to like more boy groups is their music (especially Johnnys) is very hard to find.
Oh Nick, and do you have any plan to write about streaming Jpop? I find it interesting to know your take on this hot topic (at least on Twitter lol) due to the world’s increasing demand on streaming service
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You underestimate just how much I played GFriend’s 2015-2017 stuff (and a lot of their more recent b-sides)!
No plans to write about J-pop streaming at the moment, though I’m of two minds. On one hand, I’m very anti-streaming (especially given what it’s done to the industry), but I’d also like some J-pop to be more accessible.
Yet… accessibility often brings watering down, and I certainly don’t want that either. Wow, I guess I’ve got more to say about this issue than I thought. Maybe I *should* make a post! Haha (but would anyone actually want to read it?)
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Yess, I found myself skipping their A-sides (because I repeat them too much) but always listen their full album/EP. Hey, you should update their Top Ten list next month lol, they going to have a comeback.
I am sure you will have many points to talk since I am not seeing much anti-streaming opinion online, and by discussing both its dis/advantages, I think it will help us to know more how we can support an artist in a best possible way.
Haha take your time, Nick. Personally I love to read more of your opinion in music industry.
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Surprised there’s no TXT. I guess it’s because they just debuted last year?
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Yeah, they just don’t have enough songs yet. They’re #45, in case you were wondering (which seems low to me…)
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Do you have a list for just the songs? I’m curious if “MIROH” will be up there lol.
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Mine is all girl groups, as expected:
1. IZ*ONE
2. GFriend
3. WJSN
4. LOONA
5. TWICE
6. Red Velvet
7. Nogizaka46 (Jpop)
8. Fromis_9
9. Oh My Girl
10. Dreamcatcher
11. SNSD
12. Lovelyz
13. Taeyeon
14. EXO (yay first boy group)
15. The Boyz
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Mine goes like this (+most listened song of each group):
1. SHINee (Lucifer)
2. EXO (Mama)
3. KARA (Step)
4. 9muses (Figaro)
5. SNSD (Genie)
6. Infinite (Paradise)
7. Sistar (Loving U)
8. Orange Caramel (Lipstick)
9. Red Velvet (Dumb Dumb)
10. SEVENTEEN (Very Nice)
11. After School (Shampoo)
12. AOA (Like A Cat)
13. Stray Kids (Miroh)
14. TWICE (Fancy)
15. NCT _all units_ (Superhuman)
That’s only counting Kpop groups ofc. If I were to include western “artists” it’d be:
1. The Beatles
2. David Bowie
3. Pink Floyd
4. Franz Liszt
5. Queen
6. everyone else
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I don’t know how to preserve counts on itunes from computer to computer, so all my counts reset last October with new computer.
If I had to guess, the highest plays per song normalization would be for Big Bang, only because darling daughter would borrow my ipod and listen to Fantastic Baby and such on repeat.
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I’ll bite:
1. LOONA (this is exclusively related to them being my gateway to the genre – I’ve since fallen off, hard)
2. Red Velvet
3. Infinite (and I only started with them in January!)
4. NCT 127
5. TWICE
6. WJSN
7. ATEEZ
8. TXT
9. LOONA/Odd Eye Circle
10. SHINee
1. Yves – new
2. Odd Eye Circle – Girl Front
3. TXT – Crown
4. Kim Lip – Eclipse
5. Red Velvet – Power Up
6. Odd Eye Circle – Sweet Crazy Love
7. Sunmi – Siren
8. Infinite – The Chaser
9. Hyolyn – See Sea
10. Choerry – Love Cherry Motion
Gosh, LOONA used to be good. Also, this is Kpop only, natch – full list goes Kylie, Madonna, Charli, Gaga, and… Panic! At the Disco. Heh.
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What are your thoughts on Jpop girl groups? It seems you don’t really give them listens nor reviews. I think their music is amazing.
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It’s funny you should mention this, because over the past month or so I’ve been down a wormhole of Hello Project and Sakamichi Series groups. There’s some wonderful stuff in both discographies, though I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.
I’m slowly getting there, so expect more J-pop girl group reviews in the future!
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I’m also someone who loves looking at stats. I actually have my Itunes filtered to show me the last time I’ve played a song, the amount of times skipped and the amount played. I just really enjoy seeing the information. I think it would be cool to include your top 25 most played songs. I can kind of guess what yours would be due to following this blog for for three years but I think it would be cool to see which songs you listen to the most.
1. BTS
2. GOT7
3. Monsta X
4. EXO
5. Seventeen
6. VIXX
7. BAP
8. Block B
9. SF9
10. Pentagon
11. NCT 127
12. Boyfriend
13. Shinee
14. IKON
15. Beast
16. Highlight
17. Winner
18. BTOB
19. Ateez
20. Up10tion
21. Stray Kids
22. Super Junior
23. Oneus
24. Topp Dogg
25. Infinite
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