Tomorrow, The Bias List‘s comprehensive end-of-year countdowns will officially kick off with the first ten songs on my Top 50 countdown. Over the course of the next few weeks, you’ll get round-ups from every angle of K-pop: rookies, artists, b-sides, etc. I’ll also continue my tradition of recapping the industry’s year-end music festivals. In other words, things will be busy around here so make sure to check back daily!
This has been a dramatic year for K-pop, and not always in a good way. I have no hard evidence for this, but it feels like the K-pop bubble has burst — at least for Western audiences. I’ve noticed a big dip in online interaction/commentary from Western fans in almost every corner of the internet. More and more, it feels like fandoms and interest have become siloed to specific artists. In other words, people closely follow the few acts they’re interested in and aren’t necessarily looking for more outside of that bubble. Big acts grew even bigger but overall interest in the K-pop industry seems to have softened. Again, this is purely observational from my perspective, but I’ve followed online K-pop chatter for over a decade now and something has definitely changed this year.
Of course, things were still hopping over at The Bias List. For title tracks alone, I published 515 reviews from last December to the end of this November. That’s not counting “buried treasures,” J-pop releases and all the other posts I write. I became interested in seeing how these 515 reviews broke down by certain categories, which ends up being a pretty accurate representation of the K-pop industry’s output since I write about almost every small-to-major release each year. Here’s what I found from my 515 song reviews:
Boy Group – 214 reviews
Girl Group – 133 reviews
Soloist (male) – 82 reviews
Soloist (female) – 67 reviews
Duo (male) – 10 reviews
Duo (female) – 3 reviews
Mixed/Co-ed Act – 6 reviews
This wasn’t too surprising. Boy group releases eclipsed girl groups, as did male soloists when compared to female soloists. Make of this what you will, but in general it seems that male acts tend to be a safer investment for companies. With that said, girl groups and female soloists continued to chart better digitally and generally received more interest from readers of this blog. As usual, my “Top 50” list is about 75% male, 25% female, which is a little off the overall ratio of releases. I’ve long preferred the sound coming from boy group music, and that has shifted even more so in the past few years as certain trends have crystallized. Funny enough, this ratio is reversed when it comes to global pop.
The year’s musical trends were a mixed bag. I’ve enjoyed how bright and energetic the material has been from most fifth-gen boy groups, and in general it felt like the tempo amped up a bit this year. I’ve also liked seeing newer groups debut and stick with their own signature sound. This has been one of the benefits of K-pop fandom silos. Oftentimes, artists are catering directly to their fan base rather than to as many potential listeners as possible. If “beigepop” was my most derided trend last year, 2025 delivered way too many songs I’d describe as “talking over a dance beat.” When I say this, I don’t mean rap. I literally mean idols speaking catchphrases in monotone on top of club-ready production. A few of these songs worked for me, but the majority felt like huge missed opportunities for engaging melody.
As I always warn this time of year, my countdowns are different from the ones you’ll see coming from bigger publications. I’m not trying to find consensus or represent the year as a whole. I don’t take popularity or chart placement into account. In other words, there will be no K-pop Demon Hunters here (a project whose widespread adoration continues to baffle me). This is simply a list of my top 50 favorite title tracks of the year. The same applies to my other countdowns. Because of this, you may not agree with my choices but you can be certain they’re coming from an honest place.
And for those of you who enjoy stats, this year-end prelude is my 850th post of the year, which is up thirty from this time last year. That’s a whopping 287,000 words. No wonder I’m tired!
Eligibility criteria for my Top 50 Singles list hasn’t changed since last year, but for those who are new to the blog, here are the rules.
Eligibility criteria:
- A song must have been released as a title, follow-up or promoted track between December 1, 2024 and November 30, 2025.
- A song must be paired with a full music video or big-budget performance video (the lines get more blurred each year and I give myself some leeway here).
- English-language singles are eligible. Japanese singles by K-pop artists will be part of the J-pop countdown.
Before kicking off the countdowns tomorrow, here are the ten songs that didn’t quite make the Top 50.
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
damn SOB, THUNDER, I Feel Good, Doctor! Doctor! and CHILLER
did some of these songs grow on you or I didn’t know you liked them that much or k-pop was just meh this year…
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Probably a bit of both, tbh. Many songs grew on me and the year as a whole was less than stellar.
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just popping by to say a. Can’t wait for the countdown and b. How much I appreciate you keeping up this blog, Nick. I love your take, your writing is so good, and I have NO idea how you keep it up week after week—thank you! It’s primarily through you that I find new K-pop acts to listen to outside my bandwidth (ha ha), so you’re doing more than your part to keep the culture alive for Western fans. All best wishes for the holidays and looking forward to the year-end recap!!
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Thank you so much!!
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Wow, Thunder at 58? It’s easily in my top 5 this year.
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*56
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Hey, 56 out of 515 reviewed songs is still in the top 11% of the year! 🙂
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It just had very little staying power for me, and I really don’t know why because it’s the kind of song I generally love.
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I thought for sure it’d have been within his top 30 or so.
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It got a tad old for me. I think maybe being released in January and being overplayed (while not having the depth to handle it) contributed to that.
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Same, that dance break never gets old and the vocal performance probably one of the best this year.
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Most years, I’m fairly confident I can predict several songs that will be in your top 10 of the year. But this year, I don’t have a clue. There’s not a single song that I think, “This one’s gotta be in Nick’s top 10 for sure.” I’m really curious what it’ll be this year, lol.
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I am betting AHOF, KickFlip, The Wind, Close your eyes, TWS, and the other 5th gen debuts mimicking the 2nd gen style.
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for me I’m sure BTTF will be in the Top 50 since Chiller is here 😆
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I think TWS and RIIZE are obviously going to make his top 10 lol.
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It breaks my heart to see Infinite not even make the honorable mentions.
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Mine too!!
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Even worse (for me), I know not a single Sweetune song will make any of the lists. They were on fire for a couple of years there, with songs by RoaD-B and NINE.I. I thought they were on to a new sound, a kind spacey synth-led style that was an exciting update to their sound, but then the last two years (other then some b-sides for some female groups), crickets.
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Thanks again for all your hard work! I appreciate seeing these site stats, and am looking forward to your seeing more, and the reader survey results.
2025 has about the same number of A-Tier tracks for me as the previous couple years, but more than double the B-Tier tracks. I think more acts are copying the sounds that I’ve liked from the last few years.
NCT Dream is actually my favorite bg, but Chiller just doesn’t work for me. I mostly came around on BTTF, but I gave Chiller several chances over all these months, and the more I hear it, the more I dislike it. I’m with you on most of your other runner-ups though!
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Hadn’t planned on a reader survey this year but maybe I’ll post one in the next few weeks.
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Oh, also I’m predicting Nick’s #1 now: TWS – Head Shoulders Knees Toes 😉
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A huge thank you for all the work you put in throughout the year Nick! I’m always finding new music to listen to as a result of your recaps (and especially more jpop this year, an extra thank you for that). I appreciate your candor and the deep perspective you bring. Can’t wait to see what your top 50 list this year looks like.
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Thank you!
I’m especially glad you’ve found new J-pop this year because I keep thinking it’s been a reaaaallllly barren year for J-pop and I feel like I’m mostly just complaining about it every week 😅
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I have an idea, how about you put the original rating of the song and compare it with your current rating and put it next to the song so we can get a better idea on how your thoughts on the song has changed over the year
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Probably won’t do that on the main countdown but it might be fun to have a separate post afterward that goes into that…
I also thought about doing a biggest risers/fallers of the year post. We’ll see if that actually comes to fruition, though.
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this is what I tried to suggest a few weeks ago, but I don’t know if you ever saw that…lol
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I’d also like to thank you for keeping us up to date and entertained! Looking forward to all the year-end lists.
I’m pretty sure I’ll pull up a list of my own with maybe 25 songs, and CIX’ Thunder will be in it, so my heart broke a little to see all the way up there in the 50’s. Having said that, Shattered, SOB and I Feel Good were very good additions to my playlist, but probably would not make it to my top 25.
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I do agree with Thunder having a weak staying power. Like in theory, it should be among my Top 10 songs of the year given that I’m a big fan of the group and this is one of their best songs.
But IDK, I played Cinema & Lovers or Enemies more times when they’re released than Thunder. Still, it’s in my Top 50 songs this year and I hope they continue this synthpop route cause that’s where they really thrive at.
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Hoping NouerA – Bring the Crunk is in top 10 because that’s honestly my fave kpop song this year
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That one will be in my “b-sides and album tracks” countdown because it wasn’t promoted as a title track, but yes it will definitely have a place on that list!
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In the end, it wasn’t a bad year for kpop. Not one for the books, but somewhere in the middle of the muddle.
I found myself listening to a handful of kpop albums this year, so in my ranking I have to carefully tease out the unskipped b-sides that comes immediately after the released single on my playlists. (For example, “Passage” by Riise, which is a 0:40 instrumental segue.)
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Thunder not making top 50 wow 😲
i wasn’t expecting it to make top 30 but becoming an honourable mention – off
I guess there were more growers this year
Anyway, I’ll be here in mourning and still vibing to my top song of the year
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Late to the party but I’ll throw in my honorables!
Rebel Heart – Ive: This one stood on its legs all year long. I still like hearing it and I personally think they pull off the rebellious concept, despite the known kpop contrivances.
Countdown – TWS: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. While not reaching the heights of their earlier material, this stands on its own remarkably well still. Sure, it sounds like Plot Twist, but I like Plot Twist and yes I do want more of that.
K, bye – Kiss of Life: So yes, we all know the controversy, but it doesn’t take away from the attitude and flair they give this song. The timing was unfortunate…
Dirty Work – Aespa: Something about that chorus is just so catchy, it still sits in my head. They never reached the heights of Supernova, Drama, or Savage this year, but Aespa is still Aespa.
Good Thing – i-dle: holy moly, shit
Summer was you – H1-Key: great summer song vibe, the hooks could have been hookier, but that’s a minor point when they do so much right.
Dear – QWER: I think they actually developed a more cohesive twist on their typical work… the hooks in particular work really well here.
Girlfriend – i-dle: Has a great backbone and plugging instrumental. Then throw in classic weird i-dleness and you’ve got a great track!
Style/Chase – Hearts2Hearts: grouping these together, they did great with this double header, giving themselves a great calling card and making me tune into all their releases.
What If – Niziu: This is exactly where I want all of their tracks to live. A bit crazy Jpoppy but with great hooks and vibes and exciting all the way through.
Soda Pop – Saja Boys: I love the fun fact that part of the lyrics were written by AI. Supports the theme of the song in context to the movie so well. Yes, we’ve all heard it a million times, but yes it is that catchy and just a well produced bubble gum pop song.
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