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.
August 2026 Overall Thoughts
The less said about August, the better. These past few monthly round-ups have been kind of depressing, so I’m going to try not to dwell on the negative too much. If you want more of that, be sure to check out my summer 2026 post-mortem, where I go into the issues that have made this summer in K-pop so bad. And sadly, August was the most underwhelming month of all.
It’s funny, because August is also KCON month for me, and that event naturally reinvigorates my excitement for K-pop. Because of this, August felt like a tale of two emotions. I was so happy to see some of my favorite acts performing live, but the actual music that came out of the month dulled that thrill.
My very small list of honorable mentions (and no 9+ rated songs) speaks for itself, so let me focus on a few great things that happened this month. First, Sweetune made their long-awaited comeback as producers and it seems that they’re here to stay. This is an extremely exciting development that will hopefully bear fruit as the months go on.
Second, Korean artists released some nice highlights in Japan this month. My top two J-pop songs are both from K-pop acts and there’s even a “9” rated song in there (despite the initial rating being 8.75). When it comes to K-pop right now, it feels like there is a small handful of acts I can count on to consistently release strong material. When they’re active, K-pop is really fun. When they’re inactive, things become more hit and miss.
My top three songs of the month are interesting because two come from acts who have never gotten close to topping my monthly charts before. This is a fun development, made possible by an overall weak slate of releases.
Looking forward, the final quarter of 2026 has a lot to make up for. I can’t say I see much in September that gets my heart racing so far, but those aforementioned “reliably great” K-pop acts must have one more comeback in them before the end of the year, right? So, this could be a situation where we see a very strong Oct/Nov that helps buoy 2026’s overall prospects at the last minute. If not, I’m afraid we’re looking at the weakest K-pop year in memory.
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.4
(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
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Five
TOP J-POP SONGS OF THE MONTH
3. One Love One Heart – Ups&Downs
2. RIIZE – Sunburst (full review)
1. TWS – Soda Soda (full review)
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
aespa – Switchblade (ft. Ty Dolla $ign) (review)
ALPHA DRIVE ONE – Born Dire (review)
ARTMS – Blue Blood (review)
Hanbin – No Fear (ft. punchnello) (review)
Jun. K – Your Lips (ft. Wendy) (review)
KiiiKiii – Pop Off Pop Off (review)
NEXZ – Saucin’ (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
This Week In K-pop: Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4 / Week 5
This Month’s Global Pop Round-Up
TOP THREE SONGS OF AUGUST
3. TNX – Die Another Day (review)
2. Odd Youth – Can’t Go Back (review)
1. NOWZ – Achilles (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of July 2026
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
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
KiiiKiii won August. Who else has had SWEET SOUR’s hooks stuck in their brains all month?
I think Vision Wings is still my fave, but Achilles is close.
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Okay, because this month has been shit musically, let’s just discuss how our month went, I’ll go first!
It’s been an okay month. Senior year at college started earlier this month and I’m already waiting for graduation. It’s really humid here for a mid-30 degree weather, and I’ve been hoping for rain but well… Had an okay birthday, but at least I got myself a lego set as a birthday tradition that started since my 18th a week earlier (it’s an otter set, I love otters!). But I mostly spent my month contemplating life decisions and re-binge watching The Simpsons anyways, I forgot how funny some of the scenes were like when Milhouse sends Lisa’s love letter to Nelson and the latter thinks it is from Milhouse or when Homer tricks Jay Sherman into telling Patty and Selma that Macgyver is gay, I spent a good 30 minutes hysterically laughing at them. Also, it’s uncanny to have my age start with a 2 now…
As for music, Achilles and Can’t Go Back are this month’s highlights. Die Another Day is an honorable mention. Also, the fact that one of the songs in the HMs was released back in MAY says a lot about this month. And that pretty much covers it
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loved can’t go back! my favorite of the month for sure
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Mine also
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Yep, this month was interesting and not in a good way (I’m looking at you, Skidbi!!) but surprisingly, there were some good bsides though. 3 months left, 3 months to redeem this oddly lackluster year for Kpop.
1st: Tws – Soda Soda(Literally the best song of the month was a jpop release to me. The energy is contagious and was a great way to end off summer.)
2nd: Nowz – Achilles(nice and funky. Needed to be more developed but the daft punk-esque beat was good.)
3rd: Artms- Blue Blood(kept hearing this song on ads and now I just can’t stop thinking about it. It’s short, yes, but the drive and ethereal feel on this song was amazing!)
Honorable mentions:
Can’t Go Back – Odd Youth, Surfin’ Boy – Red Velvet, Die Another Day – TNX, Saucin’ – Nexz, Tuide – Sun Kiss(im in the minority tbh).
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honestly non kpop artists have made this year for me 😭 underscores n slayyyter releasing the best music of their career frost children n ikedas fantastic eps n jane removers legendary live run/remixes oh ive been eatingggg
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