The High Three Ok-Pop Songs of January 2025

On the finish of every month, I look again at my three favourite title tracks by Ok-pop artists. I take my very own scores into consideration, however there’s a little bit of wiggle room as sure songs are inclined to develop or fade.

January 2025 Total Ideas

It’s a brand new yr! Nevertheless it… type of doesn’t really feel prefer it but? Sandwiched between Western New Yr and Lunar New Yr, this January was largely sidelined with out many new releases. I’ve watched Music Financial institution each week since 2014 and discover its weekly line-up to be an excellent barometer of the place Ok-pop is at any given time. This month, about 50% of every new episode was full of ballad and trot singers. There simply weren’t sufficient idol comebacks to match the working time.

This was in stark distinction to January of final yr. It’s laborious to consider, however practically a 3rd of my prime ten 2024 Ok-pop songs got here from final January. Past that, there have been a whopping six (!) different January releases that made my prime 50. That may definitely not be the case this yr. this by way of an optimistic lens, I assume it means we are able to solely go up from right here.

The order of my prime three Ok-pop songs is likely to be stunning this month. Battling it out for the highest spot was a comparatively generic model of a music type I have a tendency to like and a quirkier model of a music type that doesn’t all the time enchantment to me. In the long term, “quirky” ended up profitable, which may usually be the case since idiosyncrasies are what are inclined to maintain a music recent after its newness has worn off. With that mentioned, I don’t see any of my prime three tracks difficult the higher echelons of my year-end countdown in December.

J-pop had a stronger January, with one new single I completely adore and some extra that I discover very strong. My prime choose is my favourite observe on this whole round-up. There are a bunch of thrilling comebacks on the horizon so I’m hoping the trade regains my consideration after a considerably middling 2024. And talking of different music markets, Finland was my large winner this month. New songs by Neea River, Nelli Matula and Erika Vikman completely dominated my January. Straight 9’s throughout the board for these tracks. Let’s deliver a few of that power to Ok-pop!

As for the weblog itself, this month noticed the debut of a brand new characteristic: my weekly Ok-pop round-up! Sundays are actually your go-to spot for a weekly abstract of latest Ok-pop and J-pop singles. I used to be additionally capable of full my recaps of Ok-pop’s year-end festivals with MBC’s delayed Gayo Daejejeon.

As underwhelmed as I used to be by January, I really feel like there’s rather a lot to look ahead to in February and past. With none disruptions in promotions (I hope!), the discharge calendar ought to begin to fill out. We’ve already acquired some thrilling issues promised for subsequent month. Comebacks for ONF, IVE, ZEROBASEONE, RESCENE, Chungha and seemingly all of BLACKPINK are on the horizon. Plus, there’s SM’s new lady group looming within the distance. I hope at the very least one in every of these new releases knocks it out of the park!

Month Cumulative Ranking: 7.9

(compiled by averaging the scores of each Ok-pop evaluate from this month)