At one point when discussing his groups’ concept during this night’s episode, VERIVERY’s Dongheon mentioned “night hags.” I thought to myself: “Why, that’s the perfect description for what I briefly became after watching episode three’s ranking!” I’ve pulled myself back from the brink of last week’s rant-a-thon. That ranking disaster, coupled with some convincing internet … Continue reading
Since the start of The Bias List in January 2016, I’ve always looked back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists each month. Now, it’s time to look even further into the past, one month at a time. And, yes, the top three rankings count toward The Bias List’s personal artist scorecard! March … Continue reading
I’ve written at length about survival series, along with my distaste for them and the culture they foster. Learning that Road to Kingdom would feature eliminations was a gut punch. That constant threat of danger is meant to make the series more thrilling, but all it does is frustrate. It’s absolutely cruel that these groups … Continue reading
After sharing my thoughts on the Queendom finale songs last year, I regretted not writing more about the show as it was going on – especially since I enjoyed it so much. That regret didn’t quite spur me to cover Road to Kingdom’s premiere episode, but now that we’re in full performance mode, I plan … Continue reading
Most of the time, a k-pop group’s title track is the best song on their album. But, sometimes b-sides deserve recognition too. In the singles-oriented world of K-pop, I want to spotlight some of these buried treasures and give them the props they deserve. It’s been heartening to watch Oh My Girl finally secure a … Continue reading
Over the years, I’ve been asked several times to create a post where I reveal my previously-reviewed songs that I would now bump up to a perfect, 10/10 rating, allowing them to officially join my Legendary Songs category. I guess it took a global pandemic for me to finally spend the time to compile this … Continue reading
In a perfect world, Oh My Girl would have had a big, Remember Me-style comeback track waiting to be released just after their successful run on last year’s Queendom. Maybe their agency didn’t expect them to do as well as they did, but waiting nearly six months to capitalize on their boosted profile seems like … Continue reading
Different groups are loved for different reasons, but one of my favorite concepts within pop music is the “imperial phase” — a (usually) brief era when every promoted song an act releases is absolutely superb and iconic. This got me to thinking: what are K-pop’s greatest imperial phases? I combed through my exhaustive playlists and … Continue reading
Since the start of The Bias List in January 2016, I’ve always looked back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists each month. Now, it’s time to look even further into the past, one month at a time. And, yes, the top three rankings count toward The Bias List’s personal artist scorecard! September … Continue reading
Since the start of The Bias List in January 2016, I’ve always looked back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists each month. Now, it’s time to look even further into the past, one month at a time. And, yes, the top three rankings count toward The Bias List’s personal artist scorecard! July … Continue reading
Since the start of The Bias List in January 2016, I’ve always looked back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists each month. Now, it’s time to look even further into the past, one month at a time. And, yes, the top three rankings count toward The Bias List’s personal artist scorecard! April … Continue reading
Ever since their debut in 2017, I’ve felt that WM Entertainment’s promotion of ONF has been kind of lackluster. Their first few years saw a dearth of comebacks, just as the group needed to start building a fanbase. 2019 was better in this regard, offering two mini albums and a consistent sound. Then, WM started … Continue reading
2013 was a high-concept, musically diverse year in K-pop. Hip-hop hadn’t yet taken over, and melody was still king. Instrumentals aimed for the rafters of stadiums, bringing in explosive guitar, sledgehammer beats and bombastic electro riffs. Songs played around with structure in artful, unexpected ways, often polarizing opinion before unveiling themselves as future classics. Here … Continue reading
2013 was a high-concept, musically diverse year in K-pop. Hip-hop hadn’t yet taken over, and melody was still king. Instrumentals aimed for the rafters of stadiums, bringing in explosive guitar, sledgehammer beats and bombastic electro riffs. Songs played around with structure in artful, unexpected ways, often polarizing opinion before unveiling themselves as future classics. Here … Continue reading
Honestly, I came into tonight’s festival feeling pretty pessimistic. KBS’s Gayo was largely forgettable, and tonight’s line-up was missing some of my favorite acts. But, MBC ended up balking expectations and being the most enjoyable of the three gayos overall. When I think about it, this isn’t too surprising. I’ve always loved MBC’s more intimate … Continue reading
This is always one of my favorite end-of-year posts, as if gives me the chance to write about a vital facet of K-pop that I rarely touch on throughout the year. Visuals can make or break a song’s legacy, and these ten videos helped to improve and expand their already-strong soundtracks. + Make sure to … Continue reading
This is always a difficult list to form. After all, there are way more b-sides than singles to choose from each year, and with K-pop’s love of promoting genre trends, the most interesting music is often hidden within albums that not every listener bothers to check out. Today and tomorrow, I’ll be counting down my … Continue reading
The end-of-year festivals officially kicked off this Christmas, with SBS’s Gayo Daejun once again opening the three-night festivities inside the immense Gocheok Sky Dome. Unfortunately, this year’s proceedings were marred before they even started, with Red Velvet’s Wendy suffering a horrible accident during rehearsals. I’m sure that idols were (understandably) concerned about the safety of … Continue reading
2019 was a great year for albums, with an onslaught of full-length releases coming in its second half. Given this, I decided to so something different this year. It seems unfair to compare mini and full albums, since it’s obviously much easier to craft an excellent, filler-free mini than it would be to stretch that … Continue reading
This particular countdown tends to be polarizing. How do you judge a “best artist,” after all? To be clear, this isn’t an objective list. It’s not based on facts and figures. Nor is it a straight-up bias list, though bias definitely plays a big part. My criteria for this category is simple, and encompasses three … Continue reading
