At the end of each month, I look back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists. I take my own ratings into account, but there’s a bit of wiggle room as certain songs tend to grow or fade.
June 2025 Overall Thoughts
We’re now at the midpoint of 2025, which means I’ll be publishing my mid-year countdowns this week and will have more to say about the year overall. For June specifically, the month kicked off in a very underwhelming fashion but grew much stronger as it went on.
Refreshingly, this was the first month in a long time where girl groups released some of my favorite songs. I really enjoyed songs by fromis_9, Hearts2Hearts, H1-KEY, ILLIT, ITZY and Primrose. That’s more girl group tracks than I’ve enjoyed all year, all condensed into the space of one month! I love how these songs each sound different from one another. A certain subdued energy has plagued so many recent releases and it’s nice to finally hear more diverse genres. We even had a short string of summer-themed tracks during the second half of June. You know how much I love a good summer song!
With that said, June 2025 still pales in comparison to June 2024, which single-handedly delivered four of my top ten songs of 2024… including number one! That definitely wasn’t the case this year. Instead, these past few weeks resulted in many songs rated in the 8.5 – 8.75 range, making my top three quite competitive. It’s great to have a healthy collection of 8’s and they tend to get a lot of play from me, but it’s the 9+ rated tracks that truly get me excited. We just haven’t had many of those this year and most have been missing the “+” — just barely edging into that top tier rating rather than surging up to legendary status. Sigh. I really want a song to totally knock my socks off… and not just because it reminds me of something else I’ve enjoyed in the past.
I really struggled picking my top song of this month. The top two are essentially a tie. I’ve switched their places back and forth over and over and my favorite changes several times a day. It’ll be interesting to see which ultimately ranks higher on the year-end chart, as this is often a more accurate reflection of a song’s longevity. For now, I’m just happy to have both in my library (along with my fantastic third place choice!).
J-pop was fine this month. It’s been “fine” all year, which has caused me to disconnect from the industry in a way I haven’t in a long time. Very few songs have stuck out to me in any meaningful way, even from artists I generally love. I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but I’ve rarely been this apathetic about J-pop’s status before. Meanwhile, global pop was on fire… so much so that I had to publish three separate round-ups to include all the highlights.
Looking forward, this July already seems more stuffed than last year’s. I guess we can thank the absence of the Olympics, which caused a definite slowdown of releases at the midpoint of 2024. I’m happy to see so many full albums scheduled (Twice, TXT, Super Junior, D.O, VIVIZ, NCT Dream, Chanhyuk, EPEX) and there are a few debuts (AHOF, 1VERSE) and first comebacks (Close Your Eyes, ifeye) I’ve got my eye on. Then there’s that mysterious bit of funk guitar ATEEZ teased at the end of their Lemon Drop music video and The Boyz’ follow up to their best ever single. Between all these scheduled releases and the ones that have yet to be announced, there has to be at least a few standouts, right? Hope springs eternal.
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.7
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week One
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Two
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Three
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Four
TOP J-POP SONGS OF THE MONTH
3. TWS – Hajimemashite (Nice To See You Again) (review)
2. Fujii Kaze – Hachiko (review)
1. Ado x Jax Jones – Stay Gold
Honorable Mentions
ALLDAY PROJECT – Famous (review)
ATEEZ – Lemon Drop (review)
Catch The Young – Ideal Type (review)
H1-KEY – Summer Was You (review)
ILLIT – Do The Dance (review)
ITZY – Girls Will Be Girls (review)
J-Hope – Killin’ It Girl (ft. GloRilla) (review)
JAESSBEE – My Summer Manual (review)
NouerA – N (Number Of Cases) (review)
NOWZ – Fly To The Youth (ft. Yuqi) (review)
n.SSign – Itty Bitty (review)
ONEUS – X (review)
OX:N – You (review)
Primrose – Cinema (review)
QWER – Dear (review)
XLOV – 1&Only (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
This Week In K-pop: Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4
This Month’s Global Pop Round-Up: Pt.1 / Pt.2 / Pt.3
TOP THREE SONGS
3. CRAVITY – SET NET G0?! (review)
2. Hearts2Hearts – Style (review)
1. fromis_9 – Like You Better (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of May 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of April 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of March 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of February 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of January 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of December 2024
2010-2024 Archive Here
