Once again, pardon the interruption while I post my annual thoughts on female Kpop.
2021 was really a very good year, especially considering the financial state of many labels, some of whom had severely limited means of supporting their acts. Hopefully, those groups whom we did not see much (or at all) this year will return with hits in 2022.
3rd gen groups continued to wane, which is a natural part of a healthy pop culture. It is primarily through attention turning to new voices and new perspectives that the art continues to optimally grow. And wow! Weren't there so many new groups with great songs this year? I was consistently impressed with the rookie-rookies, sometimes most particularly those who are thus far getting overlooked, as you'll see below, but also with many more for whom I ran out of room.
Producers backed off the Ableton Wavetable and the Latin beats just a bit, favoring more negative space and more acoustic sounds for a quarantine-friendly sound. Personally, I miss the overabundance of club bangers, and I have to keep reminding myself that there's likely a bumper crop of those that are being held back in anticipation of the masses returning to the dance floors one day on some distant future planet. With so many groups going in so many directions, we got to hear a more diverse range of pop sounds this year than we have in a long time, and a lot of it was really really good.
And there are a lot of really really good songs that aren't on my list, simply because this is a list of my favorites and I'm more a fan of some pop subgenres than others. But mostly I'm a fan of great songs, and my bias tends towards that, rather than any loyalty to those groups whose wonderful members I stan. Sadly, some of my very favorite performers miss this list, as I'm sure all of your favorite performers and songs have missed my list.
With all that as caveat, these were my favorites from the year, ranked:
[A playlist of my 33 favs can be found here on my YT channel, along with my year-end playlists from the past many years]
20. TRI.BE: 'RUB-A-DUM'
All these new groups have questionable to downright awful names, but so many of them are loaded with both talented and skilled performers and also good songs that are genuinely attempting to differentiate the group from every other group. TRI.BE at least utilizes the group name to clue us in on their overall musical concept. They bring the polyrhythmic drums, and by and large they make them work, no more so than on this infectious bop.
19. IVE(아이브): 'ELEVEN'
Yeah, I don't know about this name at all, but Starship really nailed the group casting, ensuring that Yujin and Wonyoung's fellow members were strong enough and featured enough to keep IVE away from the pattern of post-IOI groups being permanently unbalanced. Plus any song with a pre-chorus ritard that works is worthy of recognition just on that basis alone (special kudos to Rei for nailing that "난 몰랐어 내 맘이 이리 다채로운지" line each time).
18. (여자)아이들((G)I-DLE): '화(火花)(HWAA)'
This is a great song, even if it is mostly revisiting the early singles. Jeon Soyeon, secret heroine of Kpop, deserves a free pass though, especially since, wow this group got so so screwed over this year on a bafflingly epic level. Did all that bullshit makes sense to Koreans? ‘Cuz to most international fans, the fallout was an unrelenting sequence of WTFs. This is unfortunately a major 2021 theme.
17. PIXY(픽시): 'Wings'
Two of my favorite groups are Dreamcatcher and EVERGLOW, so PIXY, as a stylistic mash of these two legends, immediately got me right in my intense witchy girl crush soft spot. This debut song is really strong, and ALLART Ent has matched each of their excellent song choices with outstanding talent in every aspect of the group concept production, especially in wardrobe and choreo, but most especially in grabbing Cherry Bullet outcast Ella, who is my performer of the year, as an ace who lights up every single moment of every performance with just the perfect amount of emo. It's no shock that PIXY are criminally ignored at home, which is why it's really a pretty big head scratcher that, until recent weeks, ALLART, who obvs dumped a lot of money into these productions, didn't have a better (and better funded) international marketing plan. Hopefully their pockets are deep enough to buy PIXY more time to catch on with all the EVERGLOW fans.
16. [HyunA&DAWN]: 'PING PONG'
Yeah, so international fans are going to have no clue how this whole thing was perceived in Korea, and that's probably a good thing. It's always so special to see a couple perform together when they're able to bring their private sparks into their performance energy and we all get to bask in their love, and now we finally can see that in some really distinctive and edgy Kpop. Yaaay!
15. 퍼플키스(PURPLE KISS) 'Zombie'
Purple Kiss' debut concept was well done, but not particularly fresh. So I was pleasantly surprised by this autumn hit, where they're clearly allowing themselves to just have fun with a super catchy tune and maybe find their unique flavor that way. But yeah, this is mostly about "Bae bae bae, bae bae bae bae bae bae bae."
14. PIXY(픽시): 'Let Me Know'
If 'Wings' drew on Dreamcatcher, 'Let Me Know' brought the EVERGLOW vibe to the fore (mostly with the Wavetable and the group vocals, though also too the rock beats), but in an interesting twist, did so without sounding anything like BLACKPINK, which really reassured me that PIXY are carving out a distinct niche, and one that is exclusively forward-looking.
13. BIBI(비비): 'BAD SAD AND MAD'
BIBI is real cool. I wish she was my best friend. I was so happy seeing her in HYO's single. And this little haymaker really nails everything I love about her and pushes it all way past most listeners’ comfort zones and right into the black heart of mine.
12. 체리블렛 (Cherry Bullet): 'Love So Sweet'
Fact: not all of the Cherry Bullet members are super likable. Also fact: they don't have to be (just see the entire history of British Pop/Rock for myriad examples). But the genius choice of the super dry, super minimal post-chorus, triggered by an isolated, oh so intimate "sweet," is as undeniable as pop music gets, and the group nails the performance too.
11. HyunA: 'I'm Not Cool'
Full disclosure: HyunA is one of my heroes. She is an ARTIST. She is a visionary genius who gives no fucks and does it all in the epicenter of pop and can we just stop and appreciate getting to be on the planet at the same time as her? I'm just overjoyed that she was (mostly) able to stay healthy enough this year for us to get to bask in her glory.
10. Dreamcatcher(드림캐쳐): 'BEcause'
Siyeon's "I LIKE YOU!!!" in the last chorus bumps up by several notches this relatively lightweight confection, marking the latest step in the gradual softening of our favorite metal coven with genuine glee.
09. EVERGLOW (에버글로우): 'FIRST'
I freely admit that, even as a huge EVERGLOW fan, I have zero clue as to whether any of their songs will stand the test of time. They could all be so much lesser than they've felt like they are, but also too they could just as easily end up sounding so much better with the hindsight of twenty years or so. We'll see. "First" seems like maybe the epitome of this phenomenon. I've decided I'm gonna really really like it anyway. Buy-in confirmed.
08. DreamNote [드림노트]: 'GHOST'
Another excellent offering to join the Dreamcatcher subgenre, only this sees a group effectively reinventing itself, as opposed to debuting straight into it. A really fearless move when you think about it, and really well-executed too, especially at that budget level. Sadly, not enough people are noticing DreamNote's little triumph. Hope they're able to hang on even just a little longer.
07. EVERGLOW (에버글로우): 'Pirate'
The way Aisha says the title word is absolutely everything that's at all important in pop music, and she deserves a special lifetime achievement award specifically for that performance of that word. The vast majority of super talented performers will go their entire career without a moment of such perfect transcendence. Again, I admit that I have no idea whether the rest of the song is super great or decidedly not great, but it so does not matter.
06. CHUNG HA 청하: 'Killing Me'
Wait, isn't the IOI ringer supposed to be a dancer and a dance music diva? You mean she's also awesome at these intimate pandemic bedroom pop dramas too? As usual, our favorite famous Texan (OMG easily our favorite famous Texan) reveals yet another wing in her absolutely unfair mansion of talent.
05. 이달의 소녀 (LOONA): 'PTT (Paint The Town)'
Orbits rejoice! Orbits PANIC! At long last, LOONA gets a track that stands alongside the best of the predebuts ("Butterfly" is wonderful, amazing really, but it is definitely its own different bird, and as such, IMO, was never going to break the group wide open. Feel free to completely disagree). 'PTT' is a great one, and plus also too it's actually competently mixed and mastered so we can actually hear all of our girls' wonderful voices, at long long last. And BOOM, the song is blasting up the charts, and then some staffer gets COVID and it's like "Sorry girls, you have to all go home now and take your great song with you. Hope you can survive to have another comeback! 'Kay bye!" Extra points for utilizing Wolf Girl to hammer the coda deep into our souls forever.
04. Dreamcatcher(드림캐쳐): 'Odd Eye'
At least since 'PIRI,' Dreamcatcher has been consciously bending back into pop trends. They really don't have to. Regardless of their current sales/popularity, what they have accomplished artistically positions them as the godmothers of an entire pop subgenre. That is an unassailable currency, a wave they will be able to surf forever. So why are they doing it? Who knows, but let's just assume it's because that's where they really want to go with it creatively. Then the question becomes,"Well are they doing it well?" And I'm pretty sure the answer is still yes. Maybe it's not as resounding a YES! as it was last year with the all-timer 'Scream,' or even the excellent 'BOCA,' but still, right? But still, ...right?
03. PIXY(픽시): '중독 (Addicted)’
As you may have gathered, I was fairly blown away by PIXY's first two singles. But when this song dropped and took every aspect of what they were after up like several levels, that's when they really separated themselves from the pack of outstanding rookie groups in my estimation, and became a group I desperately wanted to see succeed financially, so that I could see just how much further they could take it all.
02. PIXY(픽시): ‘Bewitched’
And then I got Fairyforest: Temptation, and um, 'Addicted' isn't even the best song on it. I'm actually kind of speechless about this song. I love it so much, I feel like anything I could say about it would just come out all wrong and detract from how overwhelmingly epic it actually is. But apparently it's going to be one of those perfect songs that future generations will put at the tops of all the rankings and shake their heads in disbelief that it wasn't a hit, and I'll be all like shrugging in agreement with them cuz it's just bewildering to me.
01. CHUNG HA 청하: 'Bicycle'
But of course Dallas won my heart before the year even really got started. OMG everybody just shut up for one minute and sit back and listen/watch as this woman RIDES.
