Feature

I.O.I: A Career In Song Ratings

Posted on by 18 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:

18 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.

            Like

            Reply

            • 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 😭

              Like

              Reply

  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! 😅

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  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

    Like

    Reply

  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.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  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.

    Like

    Reply

    • 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.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.