The top of the yr countdowns are lastly right here! As all the time, we’ll kick off with the massive one: The Bias Record’s prime 50 songs of the yr! Every day this week, I’ll be counting down ten of the yr’s finest, till primary is revealed on Friday.
To be eligible for this prime 50 listing, 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 by 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 all the time thought {that a} group’s first comeback is extra vital than their debut, and if they’ll cement themselves (and their sound) with this monitor that’s normally a constructive signal. Fortunately, we’ve received nothing to fret about with AHOF. Pinocchio doubles down on their stirring rock-infused type, including huge, singalong refrains and hitting us with that rarest of Okay-pop unicorns: a climactic key change! (full evaluation)
9. fromis_9 – Like You Higher
Momentum is every part for a tune 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 a substitute of merely having fun with the monitor I’m on pins and needles pondering: “Please. Don’t. Drop. The. Ball.” Effectively, 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 throughout the pre-chorus. Right here, most producers would deliver the vitality down and provides the listener time to breathe. As a substitute, Like You Higher whisks us together with an unbothered confidence. (full evaluation)
8. TWS – Fortunate To Be Cherished
Each Okay-pop group has a fan tune. 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 Cherished manages to transcend each the concept of a rote fan tune and its personal reliance on the overused UK storage style pattern. It does so with that easiest and most vital 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 strains that hit beneficiant crescendos many times all through the tune. That occurs most clearly throughout Fortunate To Be Cherished‘s beautiful pre-chorus, which gives the right match of tune and artist. The group’s unassuming sweetness shines by means of in each lilting observe. (full evaluation)
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. Possibly it’s the arrogance that comes with time. Possibly it’s their need to stake their declare in an business that rapidly 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 sort of mild, funky summer time monitor I have a tendency to like. But on the identical time, it’s a deeply bizarre single, enjoying round with construction and tone in ways in which preserve you in your ft and speeding again for extra. (full evaluation)
6. Shut Your Eyes – All My Poetry
If given a selection between a banging dance monitor and a mushy mid-tempo, I’ll nearly all the time 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 listing, it have to 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 cherished the primary time by means of. Effectively… not less than it’s a special 2000s facsimile than everybody else in Okay-pop is making!” However then the tune 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 method below your pores and skin with such ease. There are specific days — and sure moods — once I’m satisfied this was one of the best factor launched all yr. (full evaluation)
5. NouerA – N.I.N (New Is Now)
A debut monitor isn’t any place to drag your punches. You should inform us you’re new. In actual fact, not solely are you new — that newness is NOW! And don’t cease there. Hit us over the pinnacle along with your newness. There’s a rookie debuting each different week. You should really feel the urgency! NouerA have been fashioned by way of one of many business’s many audition exhibits, which regularly signify probably the most company nook of Okay-pop. The group may have launched some subdued, trend-chasing monitor and been forgotten as rapidly as they got here to be. As a substitute, N.I.N (New Is Now) struts out of the gate with bounding synth and an nearly dizzying swagger. It borrows equally from the previous and the current, all of the whereas forging an immediately recognizable sound for the group. (full evaluation)
4. The Boyz – VVV
In a yr that felt as if tune producers have been continuously pulling issues away from their music, VVV stored piling issues on. It’s a full expertise carnival journey. You get loads of bang on your buck. It’s the longest tune on my countdown, but feels as if it passes by in a flash. That is testomony to its timeless momentum. VVV begins sturdy and by no means lets up. Grooves turn out to be stickier and extra dynamic, vocals acquire renewed ardour, and simply whenever 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 right this moment’s developments. And it’s much more spectacular that — this far into their profession — they unveiled their biggest masterwork. (full evaluation)
3. TWS – Countdown!
Countdown offered a problem I’d by no means skilled earlier than on this listing. It’s my most performed tune 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. As compared, the formally launched model of the tune feels incomplete, but it’s the edit I have to contemplate when crafting this listing.
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 huge 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 comprise their pleasure. It’s exclamation level after exclamation level with this tune, and that pleasure feels genuine and earnest, permitting the listener to decrease their guard and shove cynicism to the aspect. 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 special, extra colourful and impassioned actuality. (full evaluation)
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 spite of everything. Overdrive ekes its technique to the highest due to its sense of completeness. That is pop tune construction doing every part you’d hope it will. Dynamic verses collide with a mammoth refrain earlier than making room for a meme-worthy hook that’s turn out to be extra viral and ingratiating by the day. We get an explosive bridge and a well-defined climax and thru it all of the tune by no means wavers.
Nevertheless, it’s the main points that gave Overdrive such longevity on my playlist. Its rugged guitar riff is contrasted by vibrant, bubblegum melodies, forging a pressure that provides the tune actual chunk. Its pre-choruses and second verse are quick and snappy, injecting simply sufficient structural variety to provide Overdrive‘s huge melodic centerpiece as a lot of a wallop as potential. And above all else, the tune merely sounds monumental. It’s a coiled spring of hovering vitality, bounding with eagerness to placed on a present and please its viewers. (full evaluation)
1. AHOF – Rendezvous
Standards for my prime tune of the yr generally is a bit nebulous. I’ve received some agency knowledge to drag from: my ranking and evaluation on the weblog, play depend numbers from my music library. However when it comes all the way down to it, the highest spot turns into extra of a sense. Rendezvous was not my most performed Okay-pop tune of the yr. And when wanting again at previous lists, it have to be the primary primary ranked tune whose preliminary ranking landed beneath a “9.” But, once I lined up this yr’s choices, no listing made sense with out Rendezvous on the prime. A prime tune of the yr requires a way of gravitas. It may’t be slight or just verify off a listing of musical tropes and methods I are inclined to take pleasure in. It must imply one thing… even when that that means is slightly undefinable.
To be clear, Rendezvous is filled with musical tropes and methods I are inclined to take pleasure in. It does what so lots of these unbelievable second-to-third gen Okay-pop songs do, weaving sentimental melodies with angsty rap in a method that’s designed to bolster and regenerate the strengths of a tune somewhat than merely give its varied 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 crew.
However when it comes all the way down to it, Rendezvous simply gives extra than what most of 2025’s musical output appeared prepared to provide. It sprints proper previous the three-minute mark and nearly to 4, taking its time to construct surroundings and story. It delays its payoff till the simplest second, beckoning its listener deeper into its world somewhat than insulting their consideration span. In a panorama of truncated TikTok highlights, I’ll take Rendezvous‘s sense of open, cinematic surprise any day. (full evaluation)
