At the end of each month, I look back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists. I take my own ratings into account, but there’s a bit of wiggle room as certain songs tend to grow or fade.
September 2022 Overall Thoughts
Well, September was certainly a contrast to August! With hindsight, August was even stronger than I’d first thought. It overflowed with 9+ rated songs! September is always more sparse because of the Chuseok holiday. The holiday occurred a bit earlier than average this year, causing a long stretch of K-pop-free time right in the middle of the month.
Of course, “quality over quantity” is always a possibility, and some past Septembers have made their mark despite a smaller number of comebacks. However, this time the month was both barren and underwhelming. Things turned around during the last two weeks, but not enough to make for a standout bunch of tracks.
When it comes to my top three, I had to go with tried-and-true producers and genres that appeal to me. Some of the victorious groups/acts may seem surprising at first, but if you listen to the music you’ll definitely hear why these three tracks complimented my personal taste.
It’s also worth noting that my number one song made it to the top on the sheer force of its melody. Melody remains the most important element of a song for me, and it’s not often that we hear a brilliantly-realized chorus like this. Let’s normalize melody as a new trend in K-pop! After all, there are few songs that couldn’t improve with at least one expertly crafted melodic hook.
When it comes to J-pop, there’s not much to report this month. September tends to be very busy for me so I don’t keep up with the industry as closely as I do during the summer. There were a couple of solid singles from Johnny’s acts (and a solid Snow Man album), but beyond that I’m mostly replaying Fantastics’ Summer Bike from last month.
We’ve got two more months of releases before the cut-off point for my year-end lists. October’s looking stuffed already. I’m eager for the industry to pick up again and maybe even deliver a few more “year-end top ten” contenders. I’m weirdly optimistic!
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.8
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
King & Prince – TraceTrace (review)
The Lethal Weapons – Samurai Disco (ft. Chiaki Mayumura) (video)
TOP J-POP SONG OF THE MONTH
Sexy Zone – Trust Me, Trust You (review)
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
Crush – Rush Hour (ft. J-Hope) (review)
Kim Jaejoong – Nobody Like You (review)
Lee Changsub – Surrender (review)
Maka Maka – I Am (review)
Mimiirose – Rose (review)
Mirae – Drip N’ Drop (review)
ONEUS – Same Scent (review)
The Rose – Childhood (review)
Villain – Dance With Me (review)
Xiumin – Brand New (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
TOP THREE SONGS
3. CRAVITY – Party Rock (review)
2. Jay B – go UP (review)
1. RoaD-B – Icarus (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of August 2022
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of July 2022
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of June 2022
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of May 2022
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of April 2022
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
I’ve got a very short list.
RoadB Icarus, yes.
Stray Kids 3racha “Hey Day” from some OST or mixtape or something. This my Do Han Se “Taaagggg over” for this year.
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Ha, I picked another track from Street Man Fighter myself.
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Hi! Sometimes I feel you should have a fandom name for those of us who read your reviews everyday but never comment on them.
I’m being brave here and second RoadB’s “ICARUS” choice. Such a wonderful song! Such a shame that I’ve only found one music show performance of it.
My other two would be J-Jun’s “Nobody Like You” and Oneus’ “Same Scent”.
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My number one this month is indisputable for once : Miimirose Rose ❤ Besides this month, it might probably be my favorite gg song of 2022 with After Like and Talk that Talk being the closest competition.
It’s such a simple song really but so brilliantly beautiful and their vocals are right up my style – strong, powerful, mid-pitch and clear! And it has so many unexpected and wonderful pitch variations!
I won’t say anything else this month really stood out as much as that for me. Oneus Same Scene, Cravity Party Rock, Mirae Drip n Drop and Nmixx Dice might be the next ones up but not really even close to how much I loved Rose. Bside Cool by Nmixx is a real winner though and one of my fave bsides of this year!
Anyhow I’m so looking forward to next month – 3 of my ults coming in rapidly – DC, SKZ and Kingdom and if I’m being honest…. I’m most excited about Kingdom even if they’re the youngest there 😂
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Kingdom at the very least will have SUPERB b-sides.
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I have 10 and that includes B-sides. No order.
P.O.A – Stand Up
NCT 127 – Faster
NCT 127 – Can We Fix It? Can We Fix it? I mean Time Lapse
Road-B – Icarus
NMIXX – Dice
Mirae – Welcome to The Future
Xiumin and mOrK – How We Do
Cravity – Knock Knock
Villain – Dance with Me
Gwanjil Jo- Groove
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That Time Lapse edit gives me life lmao
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I also enjoyed Icarus! The chorus is so shiny and bubbly and it was stuck in my head after just one listen.
Blah Blah has also grown on me quite a bit. I still find it annoying, but the production is relentless and i can appreciate that.
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Yeah, this month was no August. Thankfully, there were some decent songs outside of East Asia, with special notes to AR Rahman, Carly Rae Jepsen, Jackson Wang, and SB19. Hopefully, October is great!
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I’m looking forward to October, it’s the final stretch before the end of year shows so I hope we see some idols bring out their best material
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September was a very empty feeling month. Sure, there were some good songs this month but I didn’t listened to them as much as I usually would. If you replace JayB’s ‘go up’ with ONEUS’s ‘Same Scent’ then that’s my top 3.
For me, it was more of a month of rediscovering songs in my playlist. It started with ‘Psycho’ by Baekhyun then lead to ‘Heaven’, ‘Shadow’, and ‘Holy Water’ by Taemin. I have repeated these 4 songs way too much this month. Also I don’t know how I forgot ‘To You’ by SVT was a song that existed. Driving while having ‘To You’ play is such a vibe.
‘Breathtaking’ by EPEX. What a song. I usually get bored of songs after a few months or so but this song is not one of them. I’ve found myself going to this song over and over again ever since it came out. The guitars in this song are so so nice. And thanks to this, I gave their album another chance and ‘Traveller’ is definitely a missed gem for me. Listening to the chorus of ‘Traveller’ on full blast through headphones at night amplified the song so much.
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I know everyone loved August more but knowing my taste, I saved more songs this month. A lot of the songs released this September are up my alley!
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Favorite kpop songs would have to be:
Surrender- Changsub
Welcome to the Future- Mirae
Brand New- Xiumin
Knock Knock- Cravity
Automatic- Cravity
Usually I’d never be caught listening to hip hop but Sweaty by Gray and New Things by Zico from SMF have me hook. I blame it on the tiktoks of idols dancing to these songs.
Honestly this month has made me want to listen to non-kpop songs, so I’m Fine by Dadi Freyr and Million Dollar Baby by Ava Max have been getting a lot of love from. And thank you so much for introducing me to WYAT by SB19!
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My September favourites were Blah Blah Blah by ITZY, Sick Love and Luminous by Loona, Dice by Nmixx, Nirvana Girl by Sorn ft Yeeun, and Sunflower (PEL) by Choi Yoojung! Overall a fairly quiet month, and half of my list is Japanese ventures anyway.
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