At the end of each month, I look back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists. I take my own ratings into account, but there’s a bit of wiggle room as certain songs tend to grow or fade.
July 2026 Overall Thoughts
I really don’t want to be a buzzkill, but now that we’re well into the second half of 2026 I’m dismayed that this appears to be the weakest K-pop year since 2020 — perhaps since long before I started this blog. It’s certainly been the most underwhelming summer I can remember in K-pop. There haven’t been any real highlights, but what makes this year so unique is the number of truly awful songs that have been released.
July used to be my favorite month in K-pop. I think I got spoiled by the July run of 2014-2017, with each year delivering a consistent slate of some of the best K-pop songs ever. In comparison, this July felt like a yawn followed by a whimper and interspersed with a sigh. Most of the big names sat the month out and the overall excitement around the industry felt surprisingly muted. Music shows were cancelled thanks to the World Cup, comeback announcements were infrequent and the top charting songs were either from months or years ago.
A number of groups I’ve loved in the past (AHOF, NouerA, The Wind, BBGirls, Sunmi, Hyolyn) made comebacks this month, but only one impressed — and even then it was a small step down from last year’s material. However, beggars can’t be choosers so they end up in my top spot by default.
Mid-July was particularly dire, with two weeks in a row at a sub-7.5 cumulative rating (7.43 and 7.25 to be exact). When your “top” rated song of the week is only at 8.25 (later downgraded to 8), you know you’re in trouble. This used to be the month of summer bangers for the ages. Now, we’re lucky if we get a few idols shouting “whipped cream! whipped cream! big dream! big dream!” at us.
You know I love stats, so I took a look at the number of 9+ rated songs released each of the past ten summers. Of course, 9+ rated songs aren’t the only songs worth listening to, but they’re the ones that get me most excited and a string of them constitutes a very strong period for K-pop. Looking at all the 9+ rated songs, including title tracks, b-sides and Japanese releases by K-pop acts/acts who perform on K-pop shows, here are the numbers for each year released between June 15th and the end of August:
2016 – 14 songs
2017 – 18 songs
2018 – 7 songs
2019 – 6 songs
2020 – 12 songs
2021 – 12 songs
2022 – 15 songs
2023 – 11 songs
2024 – 6 songs
2025 – 10 songs
2026 – 1 song (so far)
So yeah, you can see the issue here. For 2026 to measure up to even the weakest summers of the past decade, August is going to need to hit us with five 9+ rated tracks. I would love that to happen, but I’d be shocked if it does. And that one 9+ rated song of this summer? It was RIIZE’s Soar, which wasn’t even promoted.
Picking a top three this month felt like filling slots simply because they needed to be filled. I like all three songs but none are highlights in even an already weak year. We’re in a major slump, which was predictable given how all the reliably great groups of 2026 seemed to make their comeback between April and mid-June this year, leaving a long stretch of diminishing returns before they presumably (hopefully?) return in the fall. What makes a K-pop group “reliably great” is entirely subjective, but I wish the industry would spread my favorite acts out a bit more so that we don’t end up with these long doldrums.
J-pop had a stronger top song this month but was overall just as uninspired as K-pop. And surprisingly, global pop also seemed to take the month off. I loved Madonna’s album and cheered the long-awaited return of Serbian superstar Jelena Karleusa, but other than that my playlist was pretty empty. What the heck is going on?
In an effort to inject some positivity, I’ll share a few non-music things I’ve been enjoying this summer. For geek nostalgia, X-Men ’97 has been firing on all cylinders. For a riveting revenge drama, I’ve been loving Thailand’s Payback. For a big-screen epic, I thought The Odyssey was absolutely excellent. And for a fun reality dating show Stand Bi Me has been very charming. No spoilers on any of these, please!
Okay… back to music. I wish I could say I had high hopes for August, but the distinct lack of comeback announcements over the past week or two makes me fear next month might be even more barren than this one. I’d love to be wrong, as August has proven a big standout in recent years, but my optimism about the state of K-pop is at an all-time low at the moment. I really need something or someone to reignite the spark. Who or what will it be?
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.6
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week One
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Two
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Three
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Four
TOP J-POP SONGS OF THE MONTH
3. Ozaki Takumi – Sonzai Shoumei (full review)
2. NXON – Ride Or Die (full review)
1. PG – Superstar (full review)
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
BABYMONSTER – I Like It (review)
DAILY:DIRECTION – Down With It (review)
fromis_9 – Vitamin ME (review)
Hui – BINGO (review)
Huta – Icy & Spicy (review)
KARD – Back To Life (review)
NouerA – .exe (review)
One Pact – U So Hot (review)
Peak & Pitch – Tell Me (review)
RESCENE – Pretty Girl (review)
TRENDZ – On My Knees (review)
VAYONN – MUAH! (review)
Young K – Shut The Door (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
This Week In K-pop: Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4
This Month’s Global Pop Round-Up
TOP THREE SONGS OF JULY
3. Ascender – We Belong Together (review)
2. Wonho – Don’t Wake Me Up! (review)
1. AHOF – Run To You (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of June 2026
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of May 2026
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of April 2026
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of March 2026
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of February 2026
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Yeesh and I thought 2019-2020 summer was awful… I mean, at least if we consider mid-June to end of August as summer cause in India, we consider April to June as summer while July to mid-ish September is monsoon (even then here it is starting to get less rainier and more humid/hot so thanks for nothing climate change). So, at least for me, TWS, NEXZ, Seunghan and SHINee gave some summery bangers before monsoon got dire… (hope I didn’t rub salt on your wounds with that 😭)
But yeah, I feel like the World Cup has definitely affected the comeback schedules given back in August 2024, the first half was also sparse due to the Olympics. Now that it is over, I hope K-pop gets its wheels spinning but I doubt it’d happen, considering the lack of comeback announcements…
Anyways, my top song is Don’t Wake Me Up! I haven’t listened to Run To You since release day tbh.
I hope August does something good, please, I can’t let my birth month be this bad and August also has had a good streak of releasing good (sometimes excellent) songs. Man, this makes my atheist ass pray for a miracle 😩
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And yep, I agree that The Odyssey was a fantastic movie. Looks like between this and Riize’s Odyssey (both the album and song), someone has to name their song “Odyssey” for an August comeback to bless our ears and so we can get a SOTY contender.
And tbh, kpop has been dire so lately, I went back to my Simpsons hyperfixation and started binge-watching it again from the beginning (last time I binge-watched the whole show was during the pandemic)
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The Simpsons is such a huge part of my life and was my main source of pop culture knowledge as a kid!
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Summer 2019 was fantastic in my books. There was Stray Kids’ Side Effects, WJSN’s Boogie Up, TRCNG’s Missing, and Seventeen’s Hit.Granted, it’s not much but these were all great songs, some I bumped to a 10 that carried summer.
Even 2020 had One(Lucid Dream), which is probably my most played Golden Child song as of right now and 100% a 10.
This year hasn’t given us a single song worthy of a 10.
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This month hasn’t done much for me. My top 3 were all enjoyable but they don’t come close to being contenders for top 10.
AHOF – Run To YOU
VayOnn – MUAH!
Rescene – Pretty Girl
August could go one way or the other. We have Red Velvet and NCT 127 returning, which I’m excited for. There’s also Stray Kids and Enhypen, but those could go one way or the other. And KiiKii’s new album looks promising. I’m hoping Alpha Drive One can also finally release something good.
I think it’s worth noting, for me at least, there were at least six different songs that carried summer last year.(Like You Better, Style, Set Net Go, BTTF, Rendezvous, Everglow) This year I can only think of two. What a tragedy.
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Totally get your underwhelming… Personally I feel like this July is just passing so slow. Somehow I also realize that I’m less attached to this year’s K-Pop and all my recap was, well, older releases between 2014~2017’s, this really shows there’s nothing exciting news in recent K-Pop.
Out of the topic, what do you think about Ariana’s latest album? Though I always in love with her voice, the only highlight so far is the bad thing (bunny hop).
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And in case if y’all wanted to what’s my July recap (did anyone asked?), here’s my top 3 for this month, basically just the familiar tracks here in Thebiaslist:
1. Girls’ Day – Don’t Forget Me
2. Gfriend – Rough
3. AOA – Heart Attacl
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all 3 are some of my most listened to songs
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I sampled Ariana’s album and it sounds incredibly boring to me. However, I’ve never been a big fan. What’s up with all of the mainstream pop these days being so slow, melodically dull and depressing?
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it’s a good year if you’re into Y2K, hyperpop or mellow 80s…
Between KiiiKiii, ILLIT, RedRed, the amazing Aespa bsides (like Orbit Pop) and ear worms like Suddenly, I’m enjoying 2026. But I get that there’s no big bold tune storming over the charts like in the past.
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3. AHOF — Run to You
2. BABYMONSTER — I Like It
1. NouerA — .exe
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yep these are my top three as well! i’d probably switch I Like It and .exe for my own list, but they’re all pretty interchangeable tbh
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Also NoerA .exe. Love it.
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I’ll give my Top 3 to the vocalists because why not?:
Kihyun – So Good
YoungK – Shut the Door
Y – Blue Moon
Honorables for my BG nugus:
8Turn – Stagefright
OnePact – U So Hot
NouerA – Exe
DailyDirection – Down With It
The Wind – Party Like a Rock Star
Ahof – Run to You
Trendz – On My Knees
Vayonn – Muah!
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Nick, which song do you prefer now?
Robyn – Dancing On My Own
or
Foxy Shazam – Oh Lord
these are top 2 songs from your 2009 ranking from #1 Hits From Another Planet, I’m genuinely just curious lmao
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That is very hard! Dancing On My Own is definitely the more iconic song while Oh Lord remains pretty obscure. I haven’t listened to either in quite some time. If I’m being totally objective it would be Robyn because of the influence it’s had, but I might still prefer the Foxy Shazam song. Ugh, you’ve stumped me!
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I am going with Wonho and JY-Papi and moving onto next month.
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Adding – while I was typing I called up JY-Papi on the music shows, and … … the pants. JYP and pants, again. It’s like he has on a turquoise mesh body suit on, and then over it, shiny gold pants with slits up the sides. And a vest in a contrasting red color. It’s … it’s a look. Ah, JYP, thank you for being you.
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Same thing at waterbomb. I like the song, I like him, I can handle the top, but the bottom is criminal.
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I haven’t really listened much to any songs released this month, they just haven’t caught my attention or ear (which is a shame because I’ve been instantly enamored by AHOF’s first two releases). Instead, I’ve been listening to some of last months’ releases and past Kpop releases. Here are my top three (most listened to) songs for this month:
Honorable mentions
Also Nick, if you enjoyed the mystery of Payback, I recommend “Reset: The Series”. If I could spoil it a little bit, it’s like a murder mystery.
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Pop! is great. I love the beatbox ending and also On & On is a staple on my summer playlist. You got great taste!!!
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Sadly, July imo was one of the most lackluster months of 2026 since February.
1st place was the only song I genuinely enjoyed, while 2nd and 3rd were just out of not having anything else to put, not because I enjoyed the songs a lot. Even Ahof’s comeback didn’t do much for me, even though I love Rendezvous and Pinocchio.
1st place: On my knees – trendz (sounded like ahof’s sound and how i wanted run to you sound. Never heard of this group before I saw Nick’s review on this. A good pleasant surprise.)
2nd place: vitamin me – fromis_9 (decent and i liked the production flourishes in the chorus. Not no Like You Better, but i’ll take it)
3rd place: super junior 83z – promise (a nice youth drama-esque ballad for us ELFs. the music video felt so summery in the best way possible)
Honorable mentions: run to you-ahof, babymonster – i like it.
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I guess it came out too late to have time to grow, but Young K’s Shut The Door has been stuck in my head for days now (definitely helped along by that fantastic vocal challenge for it that’s been going around on social media!)
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I’m pre-emptively counting Shinee’s Atmos as my SOTY, calling it now. It might have been released before the summer solstice but June is still a summer month to me so it counts.
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