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.
November 2025 Overall Thoughts
Though there’s still another month left of 2025, I always consider November to be the end of K-pop’s calendar year. December is filled with end-of-year festivals and award shows, meaning new comebacks are pretty infrequent. And, this blog converts to its own “best-of” celebration for a good portion of the month.
This all makes November very important — at least when it comes to my own best-of lists. After a long, underwhelming stretch of time, I thought the end of October through the beginning of November was a relatively strong period. Releases were frequent and frequently good. That tapered off as the month went on, with this last week ending on a whimper rather than a roar.
Still, there were a few great title tracks this month — more than enough for my top three. I’m particularly pleased with my top two choices, which each stood as late-2025 highlights. Close “number four” picks would probably be ALLDAY PROJECT and &TEAM.
Looking back at the past few months, I’ve become more convinced that K-pop agencies unveil their strongest material during the first half of the year and release whatever’s left during the second half. This would make sense if they’re aiming for year-end honors. You want your best material to have the longest possible time to accumulate sales and streams.
J-pop was also pretty strong this month. I doubt many of you have heard my top choice of November, but I’d urge you to give it a try. It’s a great track! There were also an unusually large number of great songs in my global pop round-up this month.
The calendar’s a bit weird this year, with the start of December happening on a Monday. I plan to star rolling out my year-end countdowns during the third week of the month, starting on the fifteenth. Until then, I’ll cover the dwindling amount of new comebacks and continue to grade K-pop agencies for the year. It’ll be a busy month!
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.7
(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
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Five
TOP J-POP SONGS OF THE MONTH
3. aoen – MXMM (review)
2. Ryugujo – Sugar (review)
1. ENJIN – Day By Day By Day
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
ALLDAY PROJECT – One More Time (review)
AM8IC – Link Up (review)
Baby DONT Cry – I DONT CARE (review)
BABYMONSTER – Psycho (review)
Cha Eunwoo – Saturday Preacher (review)
Close Your Eyes – X (review)
I.MET.U – Velvet Trigger (review)
Kang Seung Yoon – Me (review)
KIIRAS – Bang Bang! (review)
NCT Dream – Beat It Up (review)
NOWZ – HomeRUN (review)
ONF – Put It Back (review)
RESCENE – Bloom (review)
tripleS msnz – Fly Up (review)
&TEAM – Lunatic (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
This Week In K-pop: Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4 / Week 5
This Month’s Global Pop Round-Up
TOP THREE SONGS
3. IDID – Push Back (review)
2. CRAVITY – Lemonade Fever (review)
1. AHOF – Pinocchio (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of October 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of September 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of August 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of July 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of June 2025
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
hey nick, i was wondering if u left out ‘bloom’ by rescene from honorable mentions on purpose or if u forgot since it had an 8+ rating.
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Nope, that was an oversight on my part! Thanks 🙂
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I also noticed BANG BANG by KIIRAS is missing
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Oops. Yeah, it was meant to be here. That’s what I get for trying to write a J-pop round-up, weekly ranking and month recap all in one day…
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The #1’s for both J-pop & K-pop here are really good, on first listen.
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I’ve got “Beat It Up” by NCT Dream and(checks list) that is about it. A list of one.
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nick what was that one song you reviewed that was a cover of an old song you liked and you were so disappointed that you didn’t even give an actual rating?
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Was it this one?
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yes! thank you
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November was pretty good but these were the best for me:
SeungYoon-Me
Ahof – Pinocchio
Cravity – Lemonade Fever
Idid – Push Back
MonstaX – Baby Blue
ONF – Put It Back
CYE – X
NewBeat – Look So Good
NTX – Ice Luv
Xodiac – Alibi
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This month was fine, but I’m already ready for next year.
Also, The Bias List turns 10 on December 28th! Are you planning something special for the occasion?
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