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.
July 2021 Overall Thoughts
Well, July was… interesting.
And by "interesting," I mean unimaginably dull. Other than a spurt of releases during the first week and a smattering at the end, the month was pretty much devoid of comebacks. This would have made total sense for December, but July is K-pop's big summer month! I guess you can blame the Olympics and music show cancellations.
Given my day job, this scarcity of music happened to hit right when I have the most time and energy to consume new releases. It's a shame, but I tried to make the blog fun even without much to review.
Picking a top three this month felt like finding placeholders for a list that doesn't exist. All three are fine-to-great songs, but none would have made my countdown in a competitive month. One of them isn't even from July! It gets by on a technicality. I could say the same about my honorable mentions. There are a decent amount of them, considering the meager selection I had to pick from. But, none are really knocking my socks off.
Fortunately, J-pop didn't take as dramatic a pause as K-pop, which is odd since the Olympics are actually happening in Japan. There were a few very strong tracks this month, and likely some that I missed. I'm putting Snow Man on top, and if their incredibly fun b-side YumYumYum (Spicy Girl) had more than a special dance video, it would have easily been my pick for July. King & Prince's Namae Oshiete also refuses to leave my mind, and Fantastics ended the month with another strong single.
The K-pop dam is finally poised to burst in August, with almost all of my favorite groups scheduled to make a comeback. It's gonna be a bloodbath in the best possible way, with lots to look forward to. So, let's just pretend that July never happened!
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.6
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
ATEEZ - Dreamers (review)
Exile - Havana Love (video)
Fantastics - Drive Me Crazy (review)
King & Prince - Namae Oshiete / Our Great Journey (review / video)
KinKi Kids - Un/Pair (video)
Ryuji Imaichi - Future Lovers (review) (released in late June, but I missed it!)
Sekai No Owari - Tears (video)
Snow Man - YUAN (video)
TOP J-POP SONG OF THE MONTH
Snow Man - Hello Hello (review)

K-POP
Honorable Mentions
AKMU - NAKKA (ft. IU) (review)
CIX - Tesseract (review)
Jeon Soyeon - Beam Beam (review)
Kim Woojin - Still Dream (review)
N.O.M - Mega Punch (review)
Rain x Monsta X x Brave Girls x ATEEZ - Summer Taste (review)
SF9 - Tear Drop (review)
The Boyz - Drink It (review)
Taeyeon - Weekend (review)
Yukika - The Moment (with Pat Lok) (review)
TOP THREE SONGS
3. AKMU - Hey Kid, Close Your Eyes (ft. Lee Sun Hee) (review)

2. Dreamcatcher - BEcause (review)

1. Brave Girls - Pool Party (ft. E-Chan) (review)

Top Three K-Pop Songs Of June 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of May 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of April 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of March 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of February 2021
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of January 2021
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