The top of the yr countdowns are lastly right here! As at all times, we’ll kick off with the large one: The Bias Record’s high 50 songs of the yr! Every day this week, I’ll be counting down ten of the yr’s greatest, till primary is revealed on Friday.
To be eligible for this high 50 checklist, songs will need to have had a Korean launch as a title monitor, follow-up or promotional video between Dec. 1st, 2024 and Nov. thirtieth, 2025.
Interested in previous countdowns? Try the masterpost right here!
Honorable Mentions
Songs 50-41
Songs 40-31
Songs 30-21
Songs 20-11
10. AHOF – Pinocchio
I’ve at all times thought {that a} group’s first comeback is extra essential than their debut, and if they’ll cement themselves (and their sound) with this monitor that’s often a optimistic signal. Fortunately, we’ve obtained nothing to fret about with AHOF. Pinocchio doubles down on their stirring rock-infused fashion, including massive, singalong refrains and hitting us with that rarest of Okay-pop unicorns: a climactic key change! (full overview)
9. fromis_9 – Like You Higher
Momentum is every little thing for a track like Like You Higher. From the second the chugging percussion opens the monitor, we’re promised a constant wave of acceleration. Years of musical fumbling from producers has made me cynical, so as an alternative of merely having fun with the monitor I’m on pins and needles considering: “Please. Don’t. Drop. The. Ball.” Nicely, Like You Higher by no means drops the ball. It’s one speedy spotlight after one other, pinballing from crest to crest. My favourite little bit of added oomph occurs through the pre-chorus. Right here, most producers would deliver the vitality down and provides the listener time to breathe. As an alternative, Like You Higher whisks us together with an unbothered confidence. (full overview)
8. TWS – Fortunate To Be Beloved
Each Okay-pop group has a fan track. TWS aren’t even two years into their profession and so they have already got a number of. These are sometimes treacly ballads with trite lyrics, laser-focused on their particular intent. Fortunate To Be Beloved manages to transcend each the thought of a rote fan track and its personal reliance on the overused UK storage style development. It does so with that easiest and most essential aspect of songwriting: melody. I’m head over heels in love with this melody. It’s a microcosm of TWS’s common melodic method: ascending traces that hit beneficiant crescendos many times all through the track. That occurs most clearly throughout Fortunate To Be Beloved‘s beautiful pre-chorus, which gives the proper match of track and artist. The group’s unassuming sweetness shines via in each lilting notice. (full overview)
7. CRAVITY – Set Internet G0?!
CRAVITY have been on my radar for a few years now, usually making it to the decrease reaches of this countdown. However of their fifth yr, one thing particular occurred. Perhaps it’s the arrogance that comes with time. Perhaps it’s their need to stake their declare in an business that shortly strikes on to the latest, freshest factor. No matter it’s, the blokes introduced their A-game with Set Internet G0?!. It pulls a pleasant hat trick by assembly and subverting expectations in equal measure. On one hand, it’s the type of mild, funky summer time monitor I have a tendency to like. But on the similar time, it’s a deeply bizarre single, taking part in round with construction and tone in ways in which maintain you in your toes and speeding again for extra. (full overview)
6. Shut Your Eyes – All My Poetry
If given a selection between a banging dance monitor and a gentle mid-tempo, I’ll virtually at all times select the banging dance monitor. That’s simply how my musical thoughts is wired. For a mid-tempo to make it into the highest ten of my year-end checklist, it should be distinctive. Fortunately, All My Poetry is distinctive. The primary time I heard it, I assumed, “Oh, that’s good. They’re mining that mid-00s period of soppy, poppy R&B I by no means actually liked the primary time via. Nicely… at the very least it’s a distinct 2000s facsimile than everybody else in Okay-pop is making!” However then the track grew… and grew and grew every month till I noticed what a sleeper traditional that is. The vocal melody and efficiency glistens and the groove works its means below your pores and skin with such ease. There are specific days — and sure moods — once I’m satisfied this was the very best factor launched all yr. (full overview)
5. NouerA – N.I.N (New Is Now)
A debut monitor is not any place to drag your punches. You should inform us you’re new. The truth is, not solely are you new — that newness is NOW! And don’t cease there. Hit us over the pinnacle together with your newness. There’s a rookie debuting each different week. You should really feel the urgency! NouerA had been fashioned through one of many business’s many audition exhibits, which frequently signify probably the most company nook of Okay-pop. The group may have launched some subdued, trend-chasing monitor and been forgotten as shortly as they got here to be. As an alternative, N.I.N (New Is Now) struts out of the gate with bounding synth and an virtually dizzying swagger. It borrows equally from the previous and the current, all of the whereas forging an immediately recognizable sound for the group. (full overview)
4. The Boyz – VVV
In a yr that felt as if track producers had been consistently pulling issues away from their music, VVV saved piling issues on. It’s a full expertise carnival trip. You get loads of bang on your buck. It’s the longest track on my countdown, but feels as if it passes by in a flash. That is testomony to its timeless momentum. VVV begins robust and by no means lets up. Grooves change into stickier and extra dynamic, vocals achieve renewed ardour, and simply if you assume we’re drawing to a detailed the monitor hits you with one other volley of hooks. It says one thing {that a} group of their eighth yr has the arrogance to stay to their weapons and launch one thing so counter to in the present day’s tendencies. And it’s much more spectacular that — this far into their profession — they unveiled their biggest masterwork. (full overview)
3. TWS – Countdown!
Countdown introduced a problem I’d by no means skilled earlier than on this checklist. It’s my most performed track of the yr, however the model I’ve performed is my very own three minute twenty second concoction that provides an additional synth breakdown earlier than verse two and an prolonged outro. Compared, the formally launched model of the track feels incomplete, but it’s the edit I have to think about when crafting this checklist.
Regardless, both model of Countdown boasts my favourite intro of the yr. It by no means fails to excite my ears, mixing the group’s intensely melodic method with stabs of jubilant guitar and percussion. Since Plot Twist hit it massive final yr, many more recent boy teams have transitioned to a brighter sound, however few are as completely matched to the vibe as TWS. They sing as if they’ll barely include their pleasure. It’s exclamation level after exclamation level with this track, and that pleasure feels genuine and earnest, permitting the listener to decrease their guard and shove cynicism to the facet. Like so many nice pop songs earlier than it, Countdown‘s vitality pulls you away from the calls for and doldrums of your day and factors towards a distinct, extra colourful and impassioned actuality. (full overview)
2. TWS – Overdrive
I don’t like putting the identical artist back-to-back on these countdowns, particularly this near the highest. Nevertheless, I waffled between this and Countdown as TWS’s final 2025 title monitor and will barely select the victor. I’ve performed each to loss of life, in any case. Overdrive ekes its technique to the highest because of its sense of completeness. That is pop track construction doing every little thing you’d hope it might. Dynamic verses collide with a mammoth refrain earlier than making room for a meme-worthy hook that’s change into extra viral and ingratiating by the day. We get an explosive bridge and a well-defined climax and thru it all of the track by no means wavers.
Nevertheless, it’s the small print that gave Overdrive such longevity on my playlist. Its rugged guitar riff is contrasted by shiny, bubblegum melodies, forging a stress that provides the track actual chunk. Its pre-choruses and second verse are brief and snappy, injecting simply sufficient structural variety to present Overdrive‘s massive melodic centerpiece as a lot of a wallop as attainable. And above all else, the track merely sounds monumental. It’s a coiled spring of hovering vitality, bounding with eagerness to placed on a present and please its viewers. (full overview)
1. AHOF – Rendezvous
Standards for my high track of the yr generally is a bit nebulous. I’ve obtained some agency information to drag from: my score and overview on the weblog, play rely numbers from my music library. However when it comes right down to it, the highest spot turns into extra of a sense. Rendezvous was not my most performed Okay-pop track of the yr. And when trying again at previous lists, it should be the primary primary ranked track whose preliminary score landed under a “9.” But, once I lined up this yr’s choices, no checklist made sense with out Rendezvous on the high. A high track of the yr requires a way of gravitas. It will possibly’t be slight or just verify off a listing of musical tropes and tips I are likely to take pleasure in. It must imply one thing… even when that that means is a bit undefinable.
To be clear, Rendezvous is filled with musical tropes and tips I are likely to take pleasure in. It does what so a lot of these unbelievable second-to-third gen Okay-pop songs do, weaving sentimental melodies with angsty rap in a means that’s designed to bolster and regenerate the strengths of a track moderately than merely give its numerous performers disconnected moments to shine. It builds to a number of distinct climaxes, beginning with an anthemic refrain and constructing to a cathartic, multi-part finale. It impressively introduces a ragtag group of distinct Okay-pop characters, assembled from a number of corners of Asia as an all-star, international group.
However when it comes right down to it, Rendezvous simply gives extra than what most of 2025’s musical output appeared keen to present. It sprints proper previous the three-minute mark and virtually to 4, taking its time to construct surroundings and story. It delays its payoff till the best second, beckoning its listener deeper into its world moderately than insulting their consideration span. In a panorama of truncated TikTok highlights, I’ll take Rendezvous‘s sense of open, cinematic marvel any day. (full overview)