So is K-Pop cool again?
Ever since the midpoint of the year, when a certain Sony animated fantasy movie appeared on the world’s Netflix accounts, I have heard all kinds of publicly-blaring K-Pop music while out and about – and not just songs in English, or the standard BTS/Blackpink-adjacent breakout hits either. I’m not saying the success of K-Pop Demon Hunters directly convinced an entire industry to collectively get its act together and put on a show, but only six of my top fifteen songs this year came out before the movie…
This list is today and always based primarily – if not exclusively – on audio, and I don’t tend to watch music videos at all until I actually write it, so visuals have virtually no bearing on the ranking; the only requirement for consideration as far as I’m concerned (beyond language) is that at one point or another throughout 2025, each song was promoted by itself as a lead track on an audio release of some kind.
Despite their seemingly ever-increasing presence, songs without Korean lyrics in them are not eligible for this list. So that means the fabulous UP by Alyssa Reid and oceanfromtheblue isn’t eligible, and it also means no Twice’s Me+You, no Katseye’s Gnarly, no Miso’s happy, no Monsta X’s baby blue, no Olivia Marsh’s Strategy, and no Boynextdoor’s Say Cheese! But all of those songs are worth seeking out, regardless.
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VR BEST OF 2025 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.
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15. How It’s Done – Huntr/x
I can think of no more fitting way to kick off the 2025 list than with a song from the movie that swept the world off its feet and reinvigorated global interest in K-Pop like it was 2012; the only question is which Huntr/x song to pick. Golden is the, uh, golden child, of course, but it feels a bit too Broadway for this top 15. What It Sounds Like just reminds me of how weirdly quickly the movie’s finale is wrapped up, and Takedown sounds kind of unfinished by thematic design. That leaves just the opener, and the song that turned K-Pop Demon Hunters from a well-animated curiosity with a fun conceit into a genuine musical threat backed by proper industry talent. It’s probably no accident that How It’s Done sounds more like a recent K-Pop song than any of the other Huntr/x tracks, but importantly, it also sounds like a good one.
14. Express Mode – Super Junior
There has to be some level of nostalgic comfort food vibe at work deep within my subconscious whenever a supposedly post-peak Super Junior song finds a way onto this annual page, but I will stop putting the lads on the list when they stop putting out “100% certified slappers”. This long-settled group has made plenty of songs that experiment with unexpected influences, but there’s definitely something about this one that goes just a little harder on the throwback play than SuJu has in recent years: the backing track is all about club motifs, the chanted chorus is heavy on bass and light on melody, while the post-chorus and bridge provide all the tune and vocal highlights – that’s right, it’s the old Sorry Sorry / Bonamana / Mr Simple template, and now that I’ve seen the full video, I’m certain of it. Hey, they’ve still got it.
13. Nero – Blue.D
It’s difficult to exaggerate just how easy it is for me to enjoy a song that features minimalist, high-quality accompaniment paired with a really good voice, but former YG Entertainment splinter label signee Blue.D has released a near-perfect example of that exact production approach. Yes, those awkward moments of English translation are amusing, but I promise you the entire lyrics sheet could have been made up of just the random meows from the bridge and I would not care one bit if that impeccably-mixed guitar was still driving the track. The seemingly 50/50 split between amateurish sing-talking and honeyed high notes out of nowhere simply result in a song that plays like nothing else released this year.
12. Python – GOT7
Mature-age GOT7 seem to have very little interest in the bright and cheery concepts that put them on the map *checks notes* ten years ago?! This is fine, of course, but I haven’t had all that much interest in their recent output as a full group as a result – until this edgy, catchy son of a gun. Falsetto vocals paired with low-and-slow percussion is a little-known weakness of mine – thanks 2PM – but the real hook in this one’s tail is the blaring synth drone that coils up before the high-register chorus gets going. If anything, the biggest weakness of Python is that there isn’t more of it; I might have buried the lead at the top of this page, but the average length of a K-Pop song seems to have lowered almost overnight, and even veterans with a decade of performing behind them aren’t immune to the lure of the TikTok-friendly two-minute-thirty runtime.
11. Dirty Work – aespa
Only one straightforward “girl crush” track makes it onto the list this year, and there’s a simple reason for that: the concept seems to be out of vogue amongst the big players in K-Pop, except where attempts at a modern Western-R&B sound are made. Here aespa gives just that a go, complete with an on-trend marbles-in-a-bowl track-fill effect. But I have to say Dirty Work is an admirably restrained slice of production, at no point throwing too much at the mix and changing things up in small ways to keep the deliberate pace of that chorus delivery from getting stale. And it sure didn’t for me: this was the first post-Demon Hunters song I added to my K-Pop playlist as I started to build it in the middle of the year, and it remains here on Christmas Day.
10. Bad Desire (With or Without You) – Enhypen
There’s a bit of turn-of-the-century Timbaland spice to the percussion and buzz on this one, and I for one will never complain about that; what really elevates frequent honourable mention kings Enhypen into this top 10 for the first time, however, is unquestionably the addictive vocal staircase at the apex of the chorus, which is touched up with just enough production effects to match the vibrato-esque synth rotating around headphones in Dolby Audio. On that note, it’s also got a really fun stereo mix in general: the whispers on chorus wind-down actually gave me ASMR the first time I listened with a proper setup. And I have to say, I do enjoy the silly CG landscapes in the video.
9. Psycho – Cooing
Jaunty, brassy K-R&B is still somewhat of a rarity in the scene, and to be fair it is hard to pull off without the right voice. Well it turns out Cooing, an under-the-radar vocalist with a stage name that doesn’t mesh super-well with English grammar, definitely has the right voice: lashings of 2013-17 IU permeate Psycho, somehow the longest song on this year’s main countdown at a mere three-minutes-twenty-three. Despite a glorious key change and moments where Cooing’s voice seems to merge seamlessly with a trumpet blare, the second verse is the highlight here: the percussion doubles up, left-field high-notes swoop in, and Cooing hits the smoothest “uh-oh” of the decade.
8. Music – Big Naughty ft. Lee Chanhyuk
OK, this one feels like a deliberately extreme test of that preference I have for backing-track minimalism that I’ve been harping on about for the last few years. Several seconds of Music’s backing are entirely missing, well, music, and as Tim Curry showed the world at the start of Rocky Horror‘s signature piece fully forty years ago, that can sometimes be a very good thing. Big Naughty – who is somehow known primarily as a rapper – absolutely slaughters the vocals from low growl to falsetto even when there is absolutely nowhere to hide on the track, and Lee Chanhyuk provides a cool-toned change-up before a supreme push at the end that has well and truly earned the right to end abruptly.
7. My First Love Song – KickFlip
Another fresh boy group packing a cheerful song practically bursting with sonic sunbeams, My First Love Song is actually pretty far from an accurate title: JYP Entertainment debuted the novel skateboard-themed Kickflip with no less than three mini-albums in one calendar year, and this absolute seat-launcher came from the most recent one. It’s especially weird given the super debut-coded MV, complete with member name cards, but I digress; this song rocks. It gives me first-year B.A.P Crash/Stop It vibes, except it’s probably a better song than either of those. It’s certainly higher-energy with cleaner production, and I haven’t skipped it on any playlist yet.
6. Blue Taxi – Ian Moon 99
I remain glad that I decided to scrap my arbitrary “music video required” rule for singles a couple of years ago, because the Korean music industry continues to produce low-budget bangers that tend to work fantastically as pace change-ups in lengthy countdown playlists like this one. Ian Moon 99’s Blue Taxi is one such tune, and my word is it a buttery-smooth listen. Influence-wise it seems to come straight out of the production era that gave us the likes of The Moody Blues’ The Other Side of Life and The Cars’ Drive, but of course its relaxed vibe also owes a lot to the ever-popular Japanese city pop trend – so it’s an amazing touch that Moon chooses to alternate English, Korean and Japanese lines throughout the song.
5. Soda Pop – Saja Boys
Hey, we do one song per artist here, not one song per musical film, and Saja Boys’ Soda Pop is a no-notes textbook K-Pop toe-tapper that I absolutely knew would make my top ten as soon as I heard it. I know it’s the exact narrative point of the song to sound exactly like the ideal Korean mass-market chart-topper, but that doesn’t mean that’s an easy thing to just create out of nowhere – yet the K-Pop Demon Hunters production and performance team (including former K-Pop Star podium-sitter Andrew Choi and the always-welcome Kevin Woo) reminded the rest of the industry what a genuine pop masterpiece looks like. A catchy whistle, a range of vocal timbres, proper harmonies, a freaking key change, easy! Come on, people.
4. Nerdy – ifeye
I hope you like your vocals airy and your rhythmic backing cavernous, because ifeye’s Nerdy practically glides by on a storm cloud that can’t be bothered to start any rain. The bass sounds like its cheating at times, taking up multiple channels to produce a low thunderous rumble beneath one lone drum, but it clashes so magnificently with the ever-rising chorus vocals that the track ends up much greater than the sum of its parts. The clincher, naturally, is that final chorus, which teases a key change before swapping in a straight-up euphoric harmony. And this was ifeye’s debut song! Statistically, and sadly, they probably won’t beat it.
3. Ready 2 Rumble – ALL(H)OURS
As far as I’m concerned, K-Pop is a reliable industry as far as producing bangers goes, mostly because it’s so ridiculously prolific and moves between trends so quickly; individual groups, however, almost never deliver on a regular basis. So I will take any instance I can find of a group trying to build on prior success in anything like the same ballpark, and early-career noisebois ALL(H)OURS delivered Ready 2 Rumble this year on the back of a fantastic 2024 EP that went hard on the lower frequencies at almost all times. In particular, the B-Side Psycho Mantra unearthed a unique double throat growl delivered by members Xayden and Masami, and said growl gets promoted to prime time atop one of the group’s cleanest brash-beats yet. That “all the way” change-up section in the middle of the song also comes out of the blue and elevates the whole piece instantly.
2. Surf – NCT Wish
So who had “third (fourth?) NCT sub-unit makes a Mario Kart song” on their bingo card for 2025? Yeah, me neither. But apparently as NCT Dream gets busy trying to mix their sound up for the seventeeth time in their careers, it falls on comparatively young mini-group NCT Wish to bring the hopecore goods. Surf has an absolutely tremendous pre-chorus that nails every checkmark in the book, and yes, that backing flourish sounds exactly like an alternate-universe Rainbow Road interpretation, but above all the song packs the breeziest chorus of the year by some margin – before and after the extra layer of bass is added at the final stop – and it has lifted my spirits at least a little every single time I’ve heard it.
1. High Horse – NMIXX
We end with a weird one to classify: the magnificently-produced High Horse was first promoted as a standalone digital single without a music video – already an odd move for JYP Entertainment – then repurposed into the opening track of NMIXX’s album Fe304: FORWARD, presumably when someone at the company realised how ridiculously good it is. So there is somewhat of a music video for this, and you can watch that here if for some reason you’re okay with over a minute of cut audio.
Which you shouldn’t be, because by some miracle given the fleet of production credits (oh hey pH-1), High Horse features the most interesting and emotive backing track of the year, the catchiest hook of the year, and the best showcase for vocal talent of the year. All in one song. It’s dainty, then heavy, then goes to another level, all as it regularly takes breaks to remind you that NMIXX’s avante-garde mission statement is a cosmic joke when the members can sing like this. Yeah, nothing else was going to win for me in 2025.
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The link to this whole top 15 as a sequential playlist is right HERE; your wait is over. As expected, it’s even shorter than last year’s record-breaker. Enjoy, or don’t.
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Honourable Mentions
–Fly Up – RIIZE
Listen: HERE
I’m definitely losing my touch – or at least my inner SM fanboy – because I didn’t even know this group existed until I heard this crunchy afterparty-ready ditty. What a guitar lick, though.
–shy girl – SOLE
Listen: HERE
SOLE may have finally departed Amoeba Culture this year, but her ability to recreate nostalgia for older R&B has not waned at all: shy girl comes right out of the early-2000s Pharrell playbook, and it is smooth.
–Heung! – Jeong Dong Won ft. HAON
Listen: HERE
One day I’ll have to accept that I am destined for the life of a trot apologist, because every year I hear at least one example of the subgenre that I cannot get out of my head. This one goes hard.
–Gross – HITGS
Listen: HERE
Perilous chorus pronunciation aside (not the best year for a Tarantino joke), the combination of playground-chant vibes and borderline-industrial backing in Gross is a ton of fun. But man, what a truly awful name for a new group.
–South to the West – An Shinae
Listen: HERE
Veteran doo-wop-leaning indie vocalist An Shinae finally put out a proper EP in 2025 thanks to Psy’s P Nation label, and, uh, where has she been?! The industry needs more casual, confident crooners like her.
–Pretty Please – Hearts2Hearts
Listen: HERE
Looks like SM Entertainment is finally ready to go for the lofty goal of a full-on 2007 SNSD vibe with new group Hearts2Hearts, and Pretty Please is the song that hit that target the neatest in 2025; you just have to get though 20 seconds of the cringiest intro ad-libbing in years to reach it.
–Break Free – Youha
Listen: HERE
It’s hard to believe just a few years ago Youha was spinning one of the smoothest ‘80s deep-synth throwbacks around, because Break Free sees her absolutely nailing a filthy shredding dubstep number. Also, just learned as I was formatting this post that the song is a Borderlands 4 collab – there you go.
–Are You Alive – tripleS
Listen: HERE
Nobody – absolutely nobody – dominates a “La La La” chorus right now like tripleS, and they have somehow found yet another novel way to do one with the echoing, full-fleet harmonic stylings of Are You Alive.
–Beautiful Strangers – TXT
Listen: HERE
1990s EDM piano stays just out of frame on this way-too-short TXT banger in support of an extremely addictive high zipper-tone that for some reason brings to mind a Transformer for me; no, I can’t explain why.
–I’ll Never Love Again – Woodz
Listen: HERE
“Why not wheel in an organ and a choir and do what I did with my killer 2023 B-side Busted, but build it up from a much lower starting energy before I start trying to destroy the mic”? is what I’m sure Woodz said in the studio this year.
Vagrant Rant 