A promising rookie makes their first comeback after 11 months on hiatus—aka, the Pop Excellence end of year K-pop list is back!
If you missed last year’s list, or if you’d like to reread it in anticipation of the upcoming results, you can check out the Pop Excellence Favorite K-pop Singles of 2022 posts starting here. If you would like a quick summary instead, I’ve assembled a group of music writers who are passionate about K-pop—14 people this year!—and together we voted to create a list of our favorite K-pop singles of 2023, then write a ton of blurbs about the songs that emerged as our favorites.
Intro and Honorable Mentions | 20-11 | 10-1 | Individual Ballots | Stats and Wrap-up
Despite my usual aversion to end-of-year-list intros, I found myself writing a substantial one anyway. If you would like to skip directly to today’s songs, you can click here!
The way the list works is as follows: each of us submitted a ballot of 20 songs where our number one single was worth 20 points, our number two got 19 points, and so on down to each number twenty vote receiving 1 point. I then tallied all these points (with the help of Excel) to find the highest-scoring songs. The eligibility period was the full calendar year—none of this voting in mid-November nonsense. Like last year’s list, I kept eligibility criteria very open as to what qualifies as a K-pop single to include relevant Japanese and English-language releases, Korean pop by non-idol artists, K-R&B and K-HH artists adjacent to the K-pop conversation, and pre- and post-release singles that got enough promotion to be notable. (This last category in particular was a whole thing… eventually I just gave in and let people vote for pretty much anything, because it made more sense and was easier for me than imposing arbitrary restrictions.) If you’re most interested in seeing people champion lesser-known singles outside of the standard K-pop conversation, be sure to check out Thursday’s post with our individual ballots!
Today’s post will cover a few honorable mentions whose point totals put them just outside the main Top 20 cutoff. Tuesday will feature songs #11-20, and Wednesday will be #1-10: each will drop around 12:30 pm eastern time on this blog.
This list was created in the spirit of The Singles Jukebox, so it’s not enough to just vote and be done with it—there are so many K-pop best of lists out there already, and if I’m going to add yet another one to the pile, I need to make sure it brings something new to the conversation. So once I had the results ready, I then assigned at least two people to write about each entry in the top 20. (Most of the top 10 songs actually ended up with three blurbs or more! Say thank you to the writers for indulging me.)
I did this in order to encourage us to look at these songs not from a flat, determinist perspective of good or bad, better or worse, this one interpretation or nothing, but from a more unique and personal approach. K-pop as a genre thrives on detail, and every K-pop comeback has so many layers to its creation: the music production, the vocals, the choreo, the videos, the costuming, the concepts, the variety—a great K-pop comeback is supposed to be something you can dig into almost endlessly and keep finding new, delightful facets to entertain yourself with, and I wanted our write-ups to reflect that complexity. There are so many pairings of blurbs in the list this year that reveal much more about the song together than they would alone: some explore the same idea from differing perspectives, while a couple say completely different things about the same song. We’re all just fans who want to see the genre thrive, and I love how these blurbs put our opinions, values, and experiences in playful but thoughtful dialogue with each other.
When contributors submitted their ballots for this list, they also had the opportunity to write some brief commentary alongside their votes. (You’ll get a chance to read these when individual ballots are posted on Thursday.) One of the patterns that struck me when I looked through these comments was that multiple people said 2023 felt like a bad year for K-pop—or strange, or weird, or in some way just felt off. And what I think that comes from is a lack of defining narrative.
What really happened last year in the chaotic world of Korean idol pop? Well, the same groups that rose and dominated critically and/or commercially in 2022 continued to do so in 2023. On a sheer volume level, there were a lot of comebacks, but many of the second comebacks squeezed into the latter half of the year felt like going through the motions. (There is not a single song from Quarter 4 on this list.)
There were far fewer notable debuts, although most of the ones that did make an impression were anticipated rookie boy groups, which is one of the few trends that actually felt different from 2022. This is reflected in our results, with male artists overall doing much better in the vote than last year—although considering that only one (1) boy group made the top 20 in 2022, the bar could literally not have been lower. But hey, they cleared it, and hopefully these boy groups beginning to make an effort to catch up to the forward-thinking rookie girls will forecast more interesting things for K-pop men in 2024.
But other than that, 2023 was a lot of the same. Most of the biggest hits were direct follow-ups to the biggest hits of the year before (“Ditto” > “Super Shy,” “Tomboy” > “Queencard,” “Hot” > “Super,” etc.), and no particularly new musical trends came to refresh the ones we were still clinging on to (so much UK garage). There were a lot of big moments, but not many that felt new.
Yet every year has gems, and I believe that we’ve put together an excellent list despite what I think is safe to call a strange transition year in K-pop. Like last year, we voted in a spread of songs that are diverse in both artist and tone—okay, there are a ton of rookie girl groups, but we do have representation from second, third, and fourth gens, as well as a mix of soloists and groups and a handful of picks that haven’t received much recognition elsewhere. And we love a banger, but there are a couple tracks that strip it back or slow it down as well.
In short, our contributors have cool, wide-ranging taste in K-pop (at least when we’re not too busy preaching about how our singular boob is hot), and we’re all passionate about the things that make K-pop music compelling and unique. This list is the result of a collaborative, numeric vote, but more importantly, it explores the personal side of our favorite K-pop singles of the year: the ways they resonated with us and the reasons we think they shined.
Now let’s get into the songs! Note that for today, the honorable mentions only have one blurb each instead of two, because I had to be somewhat reasonable about how much work I assigned each writer. (The word count per song will go way up starting Tuesday.) But all these individual blurbs are from people who ranked each song highly on their ballot, and we had plenty to say about their excellence!
Honorable mentions
Key – Killer (36 pts)
Not a Thriller cover—well, kind of?
[Note: the number in parentheses next to each writer’s name is the spot they placed that song on their ballot.]
Anna Katrina Lockwood (2): Key knows how to manipulate tension. Not just create it—a relatively common skill in K-pop—but to deploy different levels of tension, with differing characters, depending on his song’s needs. This doesn’t always work out, such as on the overwrought “Gasoline,” but “Killer” hits the mark: it expresses tension as a motivating force, a song set on its course yet still uneasy. It sounds haunted, like Key is being pursued by the ominous arpeggio throughout. Sonically, this is comfortable territory for him, with many of the hallmarks of 80’s synthpop like slightly shit drum machines and stupidly epic synths. New ground is not being broken here, but “Killer” is nonetheless a gem and a true pleasure in a year with precious few of those from male idols. Key is a true K-pop fan as much as a performer, and he loves to examine the context in which his art exists: even when he’s not nailing it, he’s interesting, and when he hits, he’s more fun than anyone.
Purple Kiss – Sweet Juice (37 pts)
Fourth gen’s resident spooky girls come back better than ever—
Kayla Beardslee (8): Purple Kiss’s first few comebacks oscillated between dead-serious witchy aesthetics (the dramatic violins of “Ponzona,” the Savage-at-home clanging drop of “memeM”) and more lighthearted, accessible takes on the supernatural (the cheerful background “Aaah!”s of “Zombie,” the Billie Eilish-goes-goofy aesthetic of “Nerdy”). These two impulses were equally strong, but none of their singles were able to marry the two halves of the group’s identity—until last February. Enter “Sweet Juice,” Purple Kiss’s best title track yet, a song that finally succeeds at bringing together dark and light. A twinkling, almost harp-like synth riff entwines with foreboding violins as the song tries to convince us of the phrase “sweet juice,” landing aesthetically somewhere between ambiguous vampirism and general magnetically powerful attraction. Purple Kiss’s performances are breathy, warnings delivered in a hushed voice—as if they don’t want you to heed the words, just the sounds—and the vocal line climbs and descends the tricky turns of the chorus with effortless elegance. (Even main dancers Dosie and Ireh get some substantial lines to dig into.) The music does in fact sound sweet, even enchanting, but occasionally a strange sound warbles in the background of the verses and breaks the spell as something approaches. “Sweet Juice” rises and falls hypnotically, smooth and sumptuous and cascading towards an alluring destination, yet it’s coiled with the tension of a snake. Who knows when it might wake up and strike as you reach for the pretty image before you?
H1-Key – Rose Blossom (38 pts)
Released in the first week of January 2023: it doesn’t get much earlier than that!
Michelle Myers (1): Good judgment from Young K, handing this one off. The song’s central image, a rose growing in a crack in the sidewalk, is saccharine and trite enough that only a struggling rookie girl group could pull it off. Enter H1-Key, who debuted in the Year of NewJeans with an anachronistically sexy MV and then promptly lost a member to a genuine scandal. Their ace member is an emotionally labile Ningning-doppelganger called Hwiseo, but the best part of “Rose Blossom” is the expressive rapping from the youngest member, Yel. Never mind that Young K wrote those verses just a bit too low for her range: Yel scrunches up her face and goes for it anyway. She insists she’s been through the wringer, and even though I don’t believe her, I’m endeared by her youthful posturing.
Zerobaseone – In Bloom (39 pts)
Seems like everyone’s blooming these days—
Anjy Ou (5): If you told me in 2022 that Mnet’s latest survival group would put out a debut single with A-ha’s “Take On Me” sampled over a breakbeat, and that I would love it, I would not have believed you. But here we are in 2024, and I still listen to this song a few times a week. It’s catchy and earnest and the aural equivalent of delicious: I love it like I love ice cream. The lyrics are sweet and yearning in a good way—“I’ll give you every first” is particularly adorable—and the melody makes you feel like you’re dancing along a flower road, except the road is actually an LED screen, and you’re actually racing along on a motorbike. Or maybe a bicycle. Either way, it’s excellent! K-pop boy bands are SO back.
Key – Good & Great (41 pts)
Fighting 해야키—
Anjy Ou (9): Yes, “Good & Great” is fun and catchy, and yes, Key sounds amazing as usual, but what’s most notable about this song is the honesty of it. It’s so rare in this day and age to have someone open up about their struggles, let alone structure a whole comeback around it, but Key does so with his usual breeziness—so breezy that you almost miss the point. We hardly think of someone like Key, who’s beautiful, talented and rich, as having really fucking hard days, but if this song is anything to go by, it happens more often than you’d suspect. So listen up, reader. If you only take away one thing from this song, let it be this: you are worth it. You are worth every big and little step, every struggle, every hard won victory that you steal from the world as you try to build yourself a life worth living. You may not have Key’s particular blessings, but your existence on this earth is itself a gift. Give yourself some grace and be grateful for just being you, both as who you are now and all the ways you can still grow and change and thrive. It’s never too late, you can still do it—I believe in you! Just say the magic words a few dozen times a day until it’s true in your heart.
NewJeans – Cool with You (43 pts)
Y’all heard of this group?
Michael Hong (2): New love is nervous jitters, the woozy sensation of falling deeper, and the vertigo that comes with getting to know someone new. “Cool With You” combines all of that into Get Up’s most realized expression of a crush—a shaky 2-step pattern that sounds like a weak attempt at quelling an anxious heart, verses to quash the cynics, and the spiraling run of a chorus that nestles into the perfectly fitting embrace of an oh so delicately delivered “you.” NewJeans play cherubs to Jung Hoyeon’s Cupid in the song’s music videos, and they similarly assist a budding romance on the track itself, offering charming assurances through glassy harmonies and ad-libbed directives. Despite the song’s urgency, it’s really the details that make “Cool With You” such a captivating portrait of romance: the tiny hiccup when Danielle assures, “I don’t care what other people say,” the lovesick sigh as Hyein exalts, “I think I like your point of view”—the words that make your heart skip laced with such pining candor.
Click here to read about entries #11-20 on the main list!
Like last year, I’m also going to share a short Twitter thread each evening with some thoughts, trivia, etc. about that day’s results. Link to tonight’s thread here, with some comments on the honorable mentions and things to look out for in the top 20.
Contributor credits
Kayla Beardslee has a radio show called Pop Excellence that airs weekly on WHCL.org. (Check the home page of this blog for the most up to date schedule: the current time slot is Wednesdays from 1-2 PM Eastern.) She is also on Twitter @kaylabeardslee.
Michael Hong runs a newsletter about Mandopop called Mando Gap and is on Twitter @michaelhongo.
Anna Katrina Lockwood is on Twitter @Anna_K_Lockwood.
Michelle Myers runs a K-pop newsletter called RMXBB.
Anjy Ou is on Twitter @mellowyel.
Not every contributor was assigned a blurb for Day 1, since there were only so many honorable mentions to go around. Joshua Minsoo Kim (@misterminsoo), Mo Kim (@loonacademia; mokng.com), Ryo Miyauchi (@sneeek; This Side of Japan), Rachel Saywitz (@thatchicksaywat), and Abby Webster (@absterwebby) also worked on the list, and you can look forward to reading their blurbs starting tomorrow!
Also voting were Juana Giaimo (@juanagiaimo), Crystal Leww (Twitter and Threads @crystalleww, Instagram @crystallnet), Jack Wannan (@jackwannan), and Iris Xie (@irisxie; Singles Jukebox writing here). They didn’t write any blurbs, but their ballots were important to this list as well.
See you tomorrow for the start of the top 20!
Pop Excellence 