Battle of the B-Sides: Yena, Lee Hi, Diva, Kara, The Boyz

K-pop’s title tracks might gain most of listeners’ attention, but many album tracks are worth equal spotlight. I call these “buried treasures.”

Beyond this, K-pop’s albums deliver thousands of additional tracks that settle for a more limited audience. It’s these songs that will become a part of my “battle of the b-sides” feature.

In this feature, I’ll be putting on my A&R hat and taking a listen to five randomly-selected K-pop b-sides. I’ll write a mini review for each, including a Bias List rating, and rank them from least to most favorite. The winner will join a special Bias List B-side playlist. Think of it like my own little agency, hand-selecting songs I’d like to pitch to my nonexistent artists!

You can check out all rounds of my Battle of the B-sides here!

Yena – LXXK 2 U (2022)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIz_Wv5ROO0
This is a solid example of the bright pop-rock sound Yena debuted with. She’s gone a bit quirkier than this since then, but her colorful vocal and personality fit this style well. The song itself is more straightforward than I would like and the production is similarly unadventurous. It’s a decent b-side but lacks the wild sense of abandon that it could have. She also performed this one on music shows, even though it’s technically not a single.

Lee Hi – What Is Love? (2021)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3SqQREA2Y
I feel like I’m always talking about “vibes” these days. There are few artists vibier than Lee Hi, and that characteristic doesn’t always go down well for me. There’s no denying she has a wonderful voice, but a song like this is so muted that it almost fades into the background. It’s vibe music through and through, well-suited as the soundtrack to a moment but not particularly interesting on its own. It’s almost difficult to come up with something to write about this, honestly. It’s just so hushed and the melodies are so simple and repetitive.

Diva – Rumor (2001)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xf1c-9GuIc
Ooh, we’re going far back in time with this one! Diva was a great first-gen group with quite a few highlights to their name. When listening to early K-pop, I love to trace how its sounds influenced later generations. You can hear touches of Sistar and Girl’s Day and all those great second/third-gen groups in Rumor’s melodies, though this song has a simpler – more primordial – execution. I’m most intrigued by the surprisingly robust guitar riff that opens the track and reappears several times. It almost feels ripped from a different song entirely!

Kara – Binks (2010)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lriFCzIcU0s
It’s always nice to revisit some early Sweetune as part of this feature. Binks is far from Kara’s best song and finds the production team operating deep within their treacly sweet mode, but the melodies are sound and the production has that lush fullness you’d expect from a Sweetune track. Kara don’t ever get enough recognition for their vocals, but the gorgeous blend of their voices really makes this chorus come to life. I also love the electric guitar that comes in for the song’s finale.

The Boyz – They See Me Dream (2024)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMkKC1bNQy8
The Boyz have released some of the best K-pop of this decade but their albums are also full of music I find less intriguing. I’ve never found them all that convincing on more sultry, mid-tempo material. They See Me Dream feels very much like album filler, driven by a fitful sound that constantly feels as if it’s going to build to something bigger than it does. This makes for a somewhat frustrating listen, though I enjoy some of the textures they’re playing with here.

Fifth: Lee Hi – What Is Love?
Fourth: The Boyz – They See Me Dream
Third: Yena – LXXK 2 U
Second: Diva – Rumor

First: Kara – Binks

Congratulations to Kara’s Binks – the sixty-eighth winner of my Battle of the B-sides!

Readers, what do you think? Did you discover any hidden gems? Leave your own ranking in the comments!