I remain optimistic because… I always do. With so much uncertainty swirling around the industry and the world at this moment, I’m not entirely confident we’ll see that kind of redemption in the very near future. That stretch of disappointment broke with an incredible October 2019. So, where do we go from here? My current thoughts on K-pop strongly mirror the way I felt throughout most of last summer. I think most of us can agree that it deserved this dubious honor. For the first time in over four years, a song received a score within the 2’s. In fact, many of the month’s b-sides were stronger and more interesting than the title tracks they supported.įebruary 2020 also resulted in a new low on my ratings scale. If my monthly round-up accounted for b-sides, GFriend’s stellar Labyrinth would also find a spot in the top three.
And, most of the notable boy group comebacks (BTS, The Boyz, Pentagon, AB6IX solos) fizzled to some degree. To be fair, female-fronted releases outnumbered their male counterparts this February, which is relatively rare in K-pop. The tracks that salvaged February were almost all from girl groups, and they make up my entire top three this month. I’m not a fan of either of these trends, and that’s made the past month kind of demoralizing. Specific trends (moody for boy groups, over-caffeinated chanting for girl groups), held the industry captive, making it difficult to distinguish one song from another. But, too many of the comebacks felt like copies of each other. There were a few bright spots, and my top choice of the month was a very easy pick. Sadly, the actual music coming out of K-pop agencies this February felt uninspired. Hopefully, things will improve quickly and we’ll be back to normal soon. Health and safety is far more important than pop music, but it’s impossible not to feel a sense of gloom hovering over K-pop as a whole. I predict a thin slate of releases in the coming weeks, as avenues for promotion are narrowing. What to say about February 2020? As the month went on, it became increasingly hard to feel invested in the K-pop industry when the bulk of South Korean news centered on the country’s Covid-19 outbreak. I take my own ratings into account, but there’s a bit of wiggle room as certain songs tend to grow or fade. At the end of each month, I look back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists.