Normally, this time of year I’d be publishing a post about my “songs of the summer” for 2026, but the state of K-pop has forced me to write something else instead. Trust me, I didn’t want to!

I’ve been writing about K-pop for a decade now and been a devoted fan for years longer than that. During this period, I’ve usually looked forward to summer as a time for many K-pop highlights. Music during this season is often upbeat, enjoyable and plentiful. Unfortunately, the summer of 2026 stands out in another way. In all my time doing this, I can’t think of a more disappointing seasonal stretch. With this in mind, I offer a referendum on the past few months. What went wrong this year?

1. “No-chorus” choruses

Structurally, this has been one of the trendiest things to happen in K-pop songwriting over the last few months. Rather than write a full, melodic chorus, the majority of songs opt for spoken-word repetition. No matter how great the production might be, this severely limits a song’s potential for me. It makes me feel like I might as well be listening to an instrumental instead. The artist becomes kind of extraneous. Without a melody, there’s no sense of timelessness. It’s just disposable TikTok-bait. And sadly, this TikTok bait has been rewarded with commercial success.

For reference, half of MelOn‘s current top ten songs fall into this “spoken chorus” category. It’s a dire state of affairs and I fear the industry will learn all the wrong lessons from this.

2. Hyperfixation on trends

K-pop has always been trend-conscious, but this summer felt like we were listening to the same 3-4 songs/sounds repeated over and over again. There just wasn’t much variety, and if you’re someone like me who follows (and writes about) every new comeback, the monotony starts to wear on you.

3. Dull, incomplete songs

The vast majority of songs are still restraining themselves these days, whether that be through sound, runtime or melodic variety. So many summer songs capped out at just over two minutes, giving them very little room to progress toward the kind of climaxes that make a great pop song satisfying. More often than not, I felt like I was listening to incomplete ideas hamstrung by a corporate need to fit within our current streaming ecosystem.

In a similar way, too many summer songs felt designed to be played in the background rather than the foreground. I’m not here for background music – especially when it comes to K-pop! Especially during summer!!

4. No highlights

If we count the summer season as kicking off in mid-June, there were no 9+ rated Korean title tracks on the blog this year. Not a single one. Given that summer is usually a high point for me, this is pretty much unheard of. For reference, last year had six 9+ rated title tracks during this same period. 2024 had four. Without big highlights to anchor all the mid-tier music, it was difficult to find a clear path through all the murk.

5. No big hits

If you look at MelOn‘s top ten songs at the end of this summer, only three were actually released this summer. One was released just a few days ago, one is a remake of an old song and the other is… well… bad. The summer’s biggest hit was actually released all the way back in 2024. This sense of stasis mirrors the issues with global charts right now, but it also says something about the (inert) state of K-pop at this moment.

6. Many singles, fewer albums

A pop career is all about context. A so-so single can sound so much better within the context of an album that makes an intentional statement. But with few actual (good) albums this summer, there was no reason to return to so-so singles on their own. Even the strongest songs felt isolated without a larger musical experience to fit within and play off of.

7. World Cup cancellations

Big summer events can affect K-pop’s release schedule, and at least some of this summer’s fate must be blamed on the World Cup, which led to frequent music show pre-emptions during the entire first half of the season. This still doesn’t explain the lack of quality, though!

8. Lopsided comeback scheduling

Everyone has different biases when it comes to K-pop groups, but the way comeback schedules have been working this year, the vast majority of the acts I usually count on for solid material promoted between April and early June. That left us with a vast swath of time without these acts. This stretch just so happened to correspond with the summer season. This is probably just bad luck on my part, but it does feel like agencies need to space out promotions for artists with similar fan bases so they’re not all competing with each other and us fans can enjoy a more consistent slate of new music.