There are a number of acts who have debuted in the past few decades and have dozens of song ratings on this blog. I thought it would be fun to lay these ratings out in chronological order, line-graph style, and take a macro view of their careers so far. Then, similar to my “Underrated K-pop” features, I can average their ratings into one mega-score and place them in a pantheon alongside other acts.
As always, this feature has some rules of its own. I’m including any “Song Review” ratings as part of this graph, including Japanese releases and collaborations with one other artist. I’m not including Buried Treasures or solo/sub-unit releases. For the ratings themselves, I’m using the most current number on this blog, so if a song was part of a “Risers and Fallers” or “Legendary Songs Inauguration” post, that’s the rating you’ll see displayed here. That means there will still be a few ratings here and there I find slightly inaccurate, but it’ll mostly reflect my up-to-date feelings.
Finally, these scores are completely subjective. Feel free to agree, disagree and argue (that’s part of the fun!), but know that this chart reflects the opinion of only one person (me).
Check out MCND’s placement on the ULTIMATE ARTIST RANKING page!
MCND: A Career In Song Ratings
The Breakdown
Highest Rated Songs
Lowest Rated Songs
Imperial Phases
None
Slump Phases
Pop Star -> X10 (2023-2024)
Rating Average: 7.71
Overall Trendline:
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
in order to get to the imperial groups we must get through the middle of the packs first…
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They started out great. Their debut was amazing. I remember putting that song on repeat for months and hoped that they would do something great with their career. However, and sadly, they haven’t captured my attention since Crush to be honest.
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I’m worried about MCND. They haven’t made a comeback since 2024, and that’s usually a sign of possible disbandment. I really hope that’s not the case.
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I haven’t listened to MCND in ages, but that Ice Age song is one hell of a gimmicky kitschy pop song – I can still sing the refrain even though I have not heard it in years. (2020 to be exact, since I was looking up the video just now.) (There are plenty 80’s songs like this too, the Tarzan boy one gets lodged in my head from time to time.) Plus at the time MCND were snot nose indie punks, so it was easy to like the group just for being different and new and fresh.
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please do SECRET next! they just announced their reunion (though just with Hyosung and Hana 🥲)
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i still really like ice age omg
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I only remember them because of Bumpin’ and Breathe. Other than that, I can’t remember anything else they’ve done
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(imma be turning this comments section for this feature into my own personal soapbox lmao)
can i just take a minute to talk about nerdcore music? this kind of music was all over youtube back during the mid to late 2010s when it was at its peak with artists like JT Music, CG5, TryHardNinja, and The Living Tombstone, and im sure some of you were around to listen to it, especially if you were neurodivergent and/or in the indie video game fandom, i definitely was around, mostly against my will cuz i barely touched fnaf at all, but my younger sister was definitely enjoying some of it
let me tell you, a lot of the music from this scene is decidedly not for me, firstly they feel way too indebted to the franchises they’re based on (Minecraft, FNAF, Undertale, Bendy, etc.) which means you NEED to be a fan of or know the lore of these franchises in order to get the full experience, which pretty much restricts these songs to their core audience of teenagers and pre-teens who are fans of these franchises, since i’m not that much of a gamer that’s definitely given, strip them of their context and there isn’t really much to enjoy
second, the songs themselves have tropes that tend to do my head in, built on stuff like dubstep breakdowns, electronic rock, theatrical vocals, and horror-inspired sound effects (you especially see them with songs based on indie horror games), and a lot of the drama in the songs just feel very canned and melodramatic outside of the fan context, lacking the standout melodies and idiosyncratic styles that can pit them against popular songs outside the genre, the lyrical content also tends to do me in, being very on the nose about their subject matters and feeling like bad musical theatre
not a single song has wowed me enough to give it a 9+, they tend to range from either serviceable but unremarkable or downright unlistenable
i guess i’ll post some examples so yall can know what im talking about
but what do yall think?
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I am not the right age for nerdcore, but if this scratches your itch even if it isn’t a 9, by all means. I have plenty of songs I listen to which I love or at least flike which are hardly high scorers.
Adding: 2019 for my kids was the era of Stampy Cat which was certainly nerd-adjacent.
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I mean….I like Discord, the most famous Brony fan song. It’s a banger. I haven’t listened to a lot of others, but The Living Tombstone has some fun ones and their songwriter has gone on to compose the soundtrack for Hazbin Hotel which exists in the same “cringe but free” adjacent space as nerdcore, albeit …evolved and elevated into actual Broadway theatre level production. I dig it.
besides this I was around just before the big nerdcore boom with the Homestuck fandom which had many fan-contributed instrumental EDM albums (including Megalovania and such before it was “cool”), and one of my favorite parts of the fandom was its embrace of anything and everything by association with the comic, not just songs specifically about the lore. One of the bigger fandom songs was actually a ragtime ditty from 1912 called “I’m a Member of the Midnight Crew” and it became a rallying cry at conventions lol.
To try and tie this back to kpop, there was definitely a pipeline for me personally of instrumental video game music (esp Zelda OSTs) —> Homestuck and other fandom instrumental music —> my initial interest in kpop blossoming because of the unique production and songwriting styles. Such as some of the MCND songs here for example lol.
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