A K-pop act’s title track isn’t always the best song on their album, even if it’s the one most people will hear. Sometimes, b-sides deserve recognition too. In the singles-oriented world of K-pop, I want to spotlight some of these buried treasures and give them the props they deserve.

There’s a reason I still watch K-pop’s weekly music shows in full. While I tend to catch 99% of new releases each week, there’s always a chance that something passes me by — especially if it isn’t paired with a music video. And as well-versed as I am on the history of K-pop releases, there are still a handful of artists I’ve never listened to before.

Baek Chung Kang is one of those artists. He won MBC’s Star Audition: The Great Birth in 2011 and debuted in 2012. Since then, his relatively sparse catalog has been a mix of ballads and bangers. He’s currently performing Dot Dot Dot on music shows and it is a certified banger with a nostalgic second-gen sound. This is for those of you who love dramatic arrangements and huge, belt-it-out hooks. Dot Dot Dot opens as a piano-led ballad before the beat drops nearly a minute in. We’ve got surging synths, banging percussion, violin and a dynamic melody that moves from power to emotive falsetto and back again. And that’s before we hit the electric guitar solo at the song’s climax. The drama! Close your eyes and imagine a newly debuted boy or girl group emerging with this exact song. What an exciting development that would be! Instead, we’ve got experienced veterans keeping this stylistic tradition alive. Thank goodness for that.

Grade: A-