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 BABYMONSTER’s placement on the ULTIMATE ARTIST RANKING page!
BABYMONSTER: A Career In Song Ratings
The Breakdown
Highest Rated Songs
Lowest Rated Songs
Imperial Phases
None
Slump Phases
Dream -> Like That (2023-2024)
Supa Dupa Love -> Sugar Honey Ice Tea (2025-2026)
Rating Average: 7.39
Overall Trendline:
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Damn, Babymonster? They are barely a 2 year old group (3 if we count Dream and Batter Up) 😭 but yeah, they are given such subpar material for their potential, minus Forever, it’s just sad.
Anyways, my average would be a 7.44
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I’m curious what’s the minimum number of years a group has to be active and/or what’s the minimum number of TT’s released that would make them qualify for this feature?
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Right now I’m cutting it off at 2023 debuts but that may change soon because it’s fun to see where newer groups stack up against older ones. I don’t have any hard rules yet except I’d rather not do too many acts who are consistently releasing new music because then I have to go back and update their ranking often.
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That is way higher than I thought, but on the other hand, they have released genuinely good music that can sorta differentiate them from BP.
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Morning Nick! Are you planning on reviewing Merry Go Round by BTS now that it has a music video?
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I don’t know, since as of now the music video isn’t available to most people (including me)
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im not even joking and my irls clown me for this but i do genuinely love sheesh as a song (…and there goes the credibility of my opinions LOL)
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It definitely has a guilty pleasure charm. Though it’s my lowest rated song here, I’d actually prefer hearing it to some of the others that are just dull.
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rare aesthetic: having less career time than BlackPink, more singles, and still managing the feat of being worse than them in quality
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im currently going through the history of boy groups and one group i wanna talk about as westlife, which is one of ireland’s top boy groups
one thing i noticed abt the group is how many ballads there are in their discography, ya know the typical everyone singing in unison to a slow r&b instrumental, to me a lot of them tend to sound the same and can get a little saccharine at times, like once i was looking at the music video thumbnail for flying without wings thinking it would be an upbeat pop song but bam its yet another ballad
even the ones that have more of a beat to them tend to sound like a not-as-good backstreet boys, they just make me wanna put on i want it that way or shape of my heart
guess i’ll drop some of the songs i listened to and liked:
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Have you seen the Boyband Forever documentary? (That’s a link to part 1; in part 3 they feature Brian McFadden from Westlife.) I recently felt compelled to watch it because I saw Five in concert when they came to Australia last month. I try and go see ‘legacy’ artists when they come my way on the never-ending heritage circuit, but since a lot of the time they’re usually a generation or two (or more) before ‘my time’ I’m quite used to being one of the younger people at any given gig. But I had a moment at the Five concert when I looked around the arena and saw… myself, basically. Women (and the odd fella) in their late 30s/early 40s. So much latent perimenopause in one room. Five were great and it was just wonderful seeing them as a fivesome again after all they’d been through. I started to tear up when I watched their audition footage in the documentary, though at the same time I realised J’s singing voice – I usually only ever hear him rap – sounds kinda like Ronan Keating from Boyzone.
Five were bad boy poster children for teens in the late 90s. Westlife on the other hand were for their mums, and their aunts, and their grandmothers; Louis Walsh says as much in Boybands Forever, and it was a target market he got very good at aiming at. And it was a market very much worth tapping into since it was still a time when everyone in the family would go buy singles and albums, not just young people and/or music fans. Also perhaps because of all those ballads, Westlife have especially enduring popularity in SEA. It’s funny because they’re part of an era I very much lived through and I do recognise certain members from each group and yet I still occasionally get them mixed up with Boyzone, but maybe that’s more on Louis Walsh than me. Also Westlife are touring my city next month (lots of 25th anniversary tours happening with that late 90s cohort!) and part of me wonders if I’d go back to being in a temporary notionally younger demographic if attended (I’m with you though, I’d take Backstreet Boys over Westlife any day of the week lol.)
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makes sense their music is targeted towards older demographic, a lot of their songs are super adult contemporary sounding
thanks for the documentary recommendation, i might even check out five soon
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Oh you will love Five! It’s like if BSB/Nsync only did upbeat rock/dance/hip-hop tracks.
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Westlife is the first ever western group I’ve heard of when I was only 7, here in my country they are the most famous boy band(another one is bsb), because people here really love adult contemporary even today. I think I can be considered as their fan (Markus Feehily is my bias)since I can sing almost all the songs they have released including those b-sides that no one wants to listen to, but in recent years I found myself lose interest in them, perhaps the reason is I put more attention on songs with well-arranged instruments that can bring strong impact to me.
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When you’re looking like that and World of Our Own is still the most energetic parts in their live concert, I once go to their live in 2023 Beijing and fulfill my dream, it’s quite nostalgic, audience are born mostly in 70s-00s. In my high school years, if you say you love western artists but don’t even know Westlife and their most famous songs My Love and You Raise Me Up, you are not even qualified enough to be a English songs lover.
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could you also do this for WayV as well?
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are you also going to do this for any jpop artists that you’ve covered on the blog? (for example Snow Man, since they have quite a few reviews here)
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Never say never, but I’m not planning on it at the moment.
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T-ara next please
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