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.
April 2025 Overall Thoughts
Oof. What a month. K-pop in 2025 hasn’t been overwhelmingly awesome so far, but we were on an upward trajectory through March. Typically, April ushers in the industry’s spring season and we start getting comebacks positioned for summer ubiquity. Instead, this April was well below average, delivering one clunker after another.
We reverted back to some of the industry’s worst trends: drained-of-its-color “beigepop” for the girls, shout-chant posturing for the boys. A huge swath of April’s releases could comfortably slot into these two sonic archetypes, and as someone who listens to every new release in detail it’s both exhausting and uninspiring to hear slight variations of the same template over and over again. I know the K-pop industry loves following (and following… and following…) trends, but I swear it used to be more musically adventurous than this.
Because of this sense of sameness, songs that stood out or delivered a punchier energy instantly found a place on my playlist. I know the comments were mixed on this blog, but I absolutely adore TWS’s most recent take on their signature melodies with Countdown. It’s easily my most played song of the month and offered the kind of bombastic, singalong hooks I tend to covet. I also want to spotlight the newly-debuted Close Your Eyes, who took a similarly melodic approach but in a completely different way. By drawing upon a mid-to-late-2000’s r&b sound, they instantly set themselves apart from the crowd. I’d love to see more of this from K-pop. The genre itself doesn’t even matter as long as the songwriting is strong and the sound isn’t just a regurgitation of what every other K-pop act is peddling.
For the first time this year, there were actually more J-pop highlights than K-pop. While I couldn’t even cobble together a top three for J-pop in March, I had more than enough choices this month. It’s been a slow start for J-pop in 2025, so I’m hoping this represents the beginning of a needed shift.
Looing forward to May, I’m hopeful that K-pop’s prospects will also strengthen. We’ve got big comebacks on the way from RIIZE, BOYNEXTDOOR, Seventeen, Jin and many others. At least some of these are bound to hit, right? Right?!?
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.5
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week One
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Two
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Three
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Four
TOP J-POP SONGS OF THE MONTH
3. Kep1er – Yum (review)
2. Wild Blue – Pop
1. Kis-My-Ft2 – Glory Days (review)
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
Apink – Tap Clap (review)
Chuu – Only Cry In The Rain (review)
Daesung – Universe (review)
Epic Travels – Tab Tab (review)
from20 – Eye Candy (review)
Good Day 2025 – Telepathy + By the Moonlight Window (review)
HyunA – Mrs. Nail (review)
NiziU – What If (review)
UNIS – Swicy (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
This Month’s Global Pop Round-Up
TOP THREE SONGS
3. YOUNITE – Rock Steady (review)
2. Close Your Eyes – All My Poetry (review)
1. TWS – Countdown! (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of March 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of February 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of January 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of December 2024
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of November 2024
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
It’s no prize to guess who’s the number 1 for this month. Of course TWS.
I hope u’re excited for their first OST this May too!
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Yes! I hope it’s an upbeat rock song, as some OSTs tend to be.
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Oh btw, TWS are making Japanese debut this early July too! ‘Hajimemashite’ is the title of the single! This July 2nd.
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A fitting title for their first J-pop single 🙂
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Where’s Gnarly at… Should’ve been number 1
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🥴
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Well, this month was… below average. Apart from the very little standouts, it’s been relatively quiet or just average/below average. Definitely the weakest month of this year so far.
My Top 3:
1- Rock Steady (Younite) – 8.75
2- All My Poetry (Close Your Eyes) – 8.75
3- Countdown (TWS) – 8.5 (haven’t checked it out since release tbvh…)
Hopefully May delivers.
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my top 3:
I’m only including Yum because there was no other k-pop release I listened to this month aside from CYE and TWS LOL
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My 3 favorites are the ones by Kis-My-Ft2 and the Jet Boy Bangerz’s Masaka Nakutowa Omowanakatta (I’m surprised that didn’t make your J-pop list), followed by TWS.
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will you review chen’s broken party?
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Not planning to.
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the first 1/3rd of kpop 2025 has let me unimpressed. Hopefully the second 3rd is amazing. As for songs, TWS’s countdown, CYE’s All My Poetry, and TJBB’s I’d didn’t think that you would cry are good
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as a girl group fan, march was great and april gave nothing. see you all in may
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My number 1 by far:
CYE-All My Poetry❤️
The rest were either Boy Group Fun or mood lifters. These include:
Mark – 1999
Kai – Adult swim
A&1 – Kickstart
From20 – Eye Candy
Aimers – Starry night
Younite – Rock Steady
TWS – Countdown
Others :
Enhypen – Loose
Daesung – Universe
April was ok…not great
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Adding “Cat” by Ha Hyun Sang, which isn’t for everyone but is for me.
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I still don’t really know what’s going on in K-pop, even though I’ve been following pretty much every release. I feel like it’s not clear what they’re trying to highlight or make a trend — nothing really stands out. I don’t know what direction they’re going in. K-pop is pretty lukewarm right now; we’re already in the second quarter of the year and nothing really impactful has come out yet.
I wish the new jack swing sound was more popular, as seen in Lee Changsub’s Feel The Groove and Younite’s Rock Steady, or something with the signature feel of Baek Chungkang’s Dot Dot Dot. In short, something that would make up for this phase. The three featured songs got an 8.75 for me, and the rest only got an 8.25. Things are definitely not going well.
Honorable Mentions
NiziU – What If
UNIS – Swicy
EB – Best I Ever Had (ft. Vincent Blue)
3. AXN – On My Way
2. Younite – Rock Steady
1. TWS – Countdown!
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.4
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I began to read this blog, in an attempt to listen more to boy groups. Even though my taste is different. I loved Chest by Just B so far, Close Your Eyes ep was also nice. That’s what stuck with me.
My top 3 are Eunbi’s Hello Stranger, Chuu’s Je t’aime and Solar’s Want
Kpop is flopping in my opinion so I don’t expect much. I’m okay with just a few releases that I can get obsessed with in a year. Old music will always be there.
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I started reading this blog as a way to explore more boy groups, even though my taste usually leans elsewhere. So far, ‘Chest’ by Just B really stood out to me, and the Close Your Eyes EP was also a solid listen—those are the ones that left a lasting impression.
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please
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