Feature

I.O.I: A Career In Song Ratings

Posted on by 35 Comments

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 I.O.I’s placement on the ULTIMATE ARTIST RANKING page!

I.O.I: A Career In Song Ratings

The Breakdown

Highest Rated Songs

Very Very Very

Lowest Rated Songs

Downpour

Imperial Phases

None

Slump Phases

None

Rating Average: 7.88

Overall Trendline:

35 thoughts on “I.O.I: A Career In Song Ratings”

          • I mean, it’s not an official tweak. It’s more like grading on a curve, since imo the overall quality of K-pop music has declined over the years. Those older songs need to be boosted to match my more “friendly” grading system used now. Otherwise, this blog would be depressing to read because you’d be getting so many 6s and 5s if comparing new music to older songs that I graded poorly back then. Hopefully that makes sense.

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            • It’s interesting to see how songs like ballads or mid-tempos or just songs that were too loyal to the trends of those times would get a 5.75 or below (in some cases even a 3.75) would now be in mid-7s, while songs that you now give in 3s or 4s would have gotten 2s or even 1s if they were released in 2016-17. It’s like after the pandemic + influences of NCT and NewJeans (during the pandemic/barely out of pandemic era) really shifted a lot of things and caused the market to become even more saturated and it’s harder to have varied ratings now.

              I still notice instances where you can be a bit stricter with songs that follow the current trends (like TUNEXX’s debut or Everglow’s Code or HITGS’ Charizzma all getting high-5s to low-6s even if none of them are overly offensive, just boring and trendy), which pretty much parallels to how harsh you used to be to songs that followed the tropical trend in 2017-18 even if most of them were just alright. So it’s pretty much history repeating itself but a lot worse this time cause of the oversaturation of the industry now as compared to a decade ago. It’s also interesting to see how groups like NCT/NewJeans that were the pioneers of their sound would have gotten in 8s in earlier times but with the oversaturation, they would barely get 7s or 6s now (I remember you mentioned how you would have appreciated Ay-yo more if it weren’t for the oversaturation of that sound), adding to the already existing problem in the industry. Not sure if I made any sense but yeah 😭

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  3. Come on, Nick! I’m usually not picky about this kind of stuff, but… you post BigBang’s total singles average with an OT5 photo (who’s that fifth BigBang member again? Never heard of him… cough cough sarcasm 😏) and then you use an OT7 photo for I.O.I 🫤? You’re missing four members there! 😅

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  4. Damn, the way they rose from being Enemies of the Blog (they would have been an 6.71– rounded off– if we went by your initial ratings) to a decent Middle of the Pack, you really were incredibly strict with your ratings back then 😭 but yeah, they have had alright songs, nothing too strong but not very weak either

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          • I don’t know about Nick, but for me it’s X:IN, with an overall average of 4.50 for singles. I’m ranking the average of some artists, like Nick (many more artists still need to be added), and I’ve noticed that the problem with this aggregate average is that usually a group of mediocre songs with one terrible song pulls the overall rating down significantly. So even if the group is… competent, let’s say, having a single with a very low rating weighs heavily on their performance 🫤…

            That’s why it’s bad to rate a group with few songs as well as a group with mediocre songs, some good ones, and one truly terrible one. In fact, with only a few competent singles, a group can still have a very high rating, like UNB…

            So, in the end, it’s better for us to evaluate a group based on our own criteria as fans, right?

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            • For sure! That’s why this is just one fun little way to rank acts. It’s not the be-all-and-end-all because it doesn’t take into account albums/b-sides/overall bias/number or releases/etc.

              However, the rankings have been pretty spot-on so far when it comes to my feelings about acts. I am considering an extra criteria for “legend” (or even maybe “favorite”) status, though, requiring an act to have a certain amount of releases before being eligible. Take The Wind, for example. I haven’t calculated their rating yet, but most of their songs have been rated 9+ on this blog. Yet, it seems silly to put them in the “legends” category alongside Infinite, SHINee, etc with only a few songs under their belt. If they suddenly disbanded and released no more music, it would still feel weird to put them there. I may eventually develop a category completely outside of the ones I have now for these cases.

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              • Maybe in cases of groups like The Wind, you can make a “Potential” category? Like groups who have a short but solid singles run but not qualified enough as legends or even favourites, it could work well for groups like them or rookies like Riize or TWS

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          • Going with Nick’s reviews, I was referring to X:IN, they have an average of 5.80, their highest rated song was a 7.75 and the lowest was a 2.75 😭 and they’ve mostly scored in the 6s

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  5. Very Very Very is a straight-up 10 for me; it’s the greatest Twice-sounding song out there, and like a cross between Wonder Girls and early Twice – both of which were written & produced by JYP, of course.

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  6. Dream Girls was a rough debut for such a hyped group. I’ll always be sad that IOI had no time to develop and were broken up just as they began to hit their stride. It’s been lovely to see them back together, even if the new song wasn’t my style. Just seeing how happy they were together was enough for me. IOI were one of my first favorite kpop groups along with gfriend, oh my girl and BTS.

    Speaking of songs that are not my style, Nick, I don’t know if you’ve seen the concert performance of AHOF’s new song, but if you haven’t, you might want to sit down first.

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    • personally I’ve always liked Dream Girls, it’s k-pop at its messiest, but it’s so fun.

      as much as how good the lineup was, it really is sad that they were the very first group because they were basically the test subjects. I hate that the 4 girls’ companies removed them from the group temporarily because of a contract loophole.

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      • did smth happen after pinnochio??? i don’t follow AHOF much but rendezvous sounds so much different (and is a million miles better) than…the new song.

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        • Haha I assume it’s just a pre-release and the title track will be more of what we’re used to from them. For some reason every boy group has to have some boisterous hip-hop track as part of their discography even if it doesn’t make sense with their overall concept. This one sounds especially bad, though.

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          • I sure hope you’re right! It would be really weird to perform the title track at a concert before its release…
            But then again, the whole comeback feels weird to me. Like supposedly it’s happening this month but we haven’t even got a release date or any other info yet. That’s why I worry that it might just be a (bad) single drop…

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    • I only remember I.O.I because of the event in this video(The curious thing is that I.O.I ended up getting kind of “stuck in time,” right? Many people remember their historical impact more than the music itself. Sure, the group existed for less than a year, but it revealed artists who later became successful in other projects, like Chungha, Somi and Sejeong.Actually, BlackPink should be here, right? The problem is that they’ve always been kind of… excluded. Kind of treated like “VIP artists”, thanks to YG, even though, well, some of their singles haven’t proven their true talent):

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      • Yeah, the fact that they only got to exist for a year is kind of one of the things that’s most notable about them, oddly enough. They’re the origin of the whole survival show trend but they didn’t really get to reap the benefits of it at all. But they were up there with these iconic girl groups at the time, that’s a testament to how big they could have been. I remember feeling so proud at the time…

        Of course Blackpink wouldn’t have participated in something like this due to the exclusivity YG preferred for them, but you also have to admit it just wouldn’t have fit with their concept at all.

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    • Please don’t tell me they’ve pulled a NouerA now 😭 what’s with 2025 rookies debuting with a fresh (in context of the current state of kpop) sound only to switch later, thank god for CYE, KickFlip and H2H though even if I don’t wanna jinx it 😩

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