Red Light Posted December 8, 2019 Posted December 8, 2019 (edited) Spoiler DISCLAIMER: I am in no way claiming to be any kind of authority on anything music-related. I am doing this for fun, because K-pop has been an important part of my life, and because I have way too much free time. While there are objective components that went into the placement of each song (sound mixing, song structure, etc.), the songs that I like and my reviews for them are all 100% subjective. Furthermore, the information I give about the songs in their respective reviews will likely be somewhat misguided, open to interpretation, or just flat-out wrong! Every song review (borrowing a very select few that just have incredibly boring melodies) will contain a link to a hooktheory chord analysis. I have no expertise in music theory and these analyses are pure, uneducated guesses. I used it as a tool to identify the chords of each song, as chord progressions are always the most crucial component for me, but I have no idea how accurate any of it is. It should not be looked at as official information. In the same vein, the genres and labels and other descriptors that I apply to each song are total guesses as well, and should be taken with a grain of salt. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I'm just really good at pretending. 10 years ago, an online friend who I still have contact with to this day sent me a link to a music video called Eat You Up, performed by none other than the Queen of K-pop herself, BoA. By the end of that three minutes and twenty-one seconds, I had fallen in love. By happenstance, like the stars aligned just for me, BoA made a Korean comeback a few short months later with the monster electropop smash, Hurricane Venus. Where Eat You Up was my gateway, Hurricane Venus was the point of no return--because Hurricane Venus led to Dangerous, an even better electropop stomper, which ended up finishing out 2010 as my favorite song of the year. In one of the Dangerous lyrics videos on YouTube, there was a comment comparing it to Nu Abo by a girl group called f(x), so naturally, I went to check it out. And with those few keystrokes, I’d unknowingly fallen into a deep, exciting, and wondrous rabbit hole. Since those fateful summer months in 2010, Korean Pop music has become a major component of my life. Over the decade, I have watched and helped it grow, looking on with pride (or embarrassment) as I witnessed it build further and further into the international force that it is today. K-pop is a fascinating, endlessly thrilling world, taking the best elements of western and eastern cultures and combining them into an addictive juggernaut of top-notch performances, close-knit entertainment affiliations of all kinds, psychotically dedicated fan communities, and best and most importantly of all--interesting, high quality pop music. Now, as hard and bittersweet as it is to believe, the very decade that the whole movement really exploded is coming to a close, and there’s only one way I know to properly give tribute: with the biggest, most in-depth, and most competitive countdown I’ve ever done. However, due to my unavoidable female bias, and subsequent lack of knowledge or insight into the male hemisphere of the genre, I’ll be sticking with what I know... *Note, the screencaps used in the graphic aren't necessarily indicative of what will be in the top 100, although many of them will be. Several of them are just pictures that I liked, however. This is the best of the best--the absolute all-stars league of outstanding musical achievement in female K-pop. In order from 100 to 1, I’ll be pitting these extraordinary songs against each other and seeing where they fall, until finally one last song will be left standing to receive the astronomically competitive crown for Best Song of the Decade. The only rules in place are that they must be 100% female vocals (except for one song I made an exception for ), and must have been released in the last 10 years--2009-2019. I've made 2009 songs eligible because 2009 was such a huge year for K-pop girl groups, and it seemed appropriate. Considering girl groups really took off in popularity in January of 2009, there really isn’t much that could be disincluded. Because outside of the time bracket, all bets are off: Japanese, English, and any other internationally released songs are allowed, so long as they come from K-pop artists. Furthermore, there’s no limit to how many spots any single artist or album can take, nor is there any such restriction regarding the year that it was released in. As far as I’m concerned, this could be a list of 100 Japanese B-sides released in 2009 and it would still be just as valid--the greatest of the great deserve to be recognized regardless of the circumstances they were released under. #100-91: December 11th #90-81: December 12th #80-71: December 13th #70-61: December 14th #60-51: December 15th #50-41: December 16th #40-31: December 17th #30-21: December 18th #20-11: December 19th #10-1: December 20th Starting times should be around 7PM EST and I have no clue how long each round will take. FORMAT: Each round (besides the finale on the 20th) will include 10 eliminations, a recap, and a "Progress chart." The final round on December 20th will also include Album of the Decade, Artist of the Decade, and Best Year of the Decade. REVIEW BINGO: My reviews are long-winded, boring, over-analytical, pretentious wankfests that nobody should enjoy reading besides my multiple personalities. Since I tend to spout the same buzzwords in every review anyway, I made things easier by making a bingo card for people who are still curious, but don't feel like sifting through 7 paragraphs of BS to find out why I like a song: Spoiler EACH TILE EXPLAINED: Unusual Instrument Samples: Included almost solely due to my love for accordions. Sweetune/MonoTree: The best K-pop producers in the game. Miscellaneous Pretentious Weirdness: This is where things like interesting lyrics or concepts go. Rock influence: Pretty self-explanatory. 80's Synths: Dreamy analog synths that emulate New Wave/Post-Disco-era synthpop. Unusual Harmonies: Each review will also come with its own chord analysis (read the disclaimer at the top), so this tile is reserved for the songs I found to apparently (APPARENTLY) have unusual or dense chord extensions. Weird genre/subgenre: When it's not simply trend-chasing and bandwagon-jumping, one of K-pop's greatest strengths is its willingness to experiment. Hard Bass Kick: Self-explanatory. Orchestral strings: Violin solos and string ensembles go here. Gay electropop: Y'know. Not just regular electropop but that high-energy, sassy, fierce electropop that you'd hear in a drag show or a circuit party. Secondary/applied chords: The most important tile of all; practically a requirement. The Wiki explanation is hard to understand but basically the point is: secondary chords allow for semitonic progressions in the melody. This, for me anyway, tends to make the songs sound more emotional and powerful. Released before 2016: Not that songs released in 2016 or after are inherently better, it's just a common theme I noticed when looking at all the songs. Me sounding like Patrick Bateman: The free space tile. References Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, who often went on long, pretentious rants about manufactured pop music, speaking as if Huey Lewis and the News were akin to Mozart. Nobody paid attention to these ramblings but himself. Proper climax: A song that doesn't just loop its chorus a third time and call it a day. Even just a few ad libs can make all the difference. Mature/dark/edgy/sexy concept: This one I'll admit I didn't have very strict criteria for. There are some songs I arguably could have marked as mature but I didn't and vice versa. Oh well, it's my rate, isn't it? Plain dance-pop I don't want to label as dance-pop: I seriously HATE the term dance-pop but every now and then there's nothing else to use. It's such a catch-all term that practically has no meaning or criteria besides being uptempo and catchy. Unfortunately, some songs don't have much in the way of synths, basslines, guitars, or any other influences, and dance-pop is the only gray area it falls under. Dirty bassline: Not just any bassline. Usually some kind of distorted saw wave bassline. Chances are if this one is checked off, the "Gay electropop" tile will be checked off as well. Heavy snare/clap: Self-explanatory. "Dreamy," "Trippy," "Hypnotic," etc: Pretty self-explanatory. Will often correspond with the "80's synths" tile. Narcissistic lyrics/themes: Songs about how hot they are, how out of a boy's league they are, etc. Structural instability: I Got a Boy probably came into your mind immediately, but there are some other less obvious ones. Other retro styles: And by retro, that's accounting for anything all the way back to when humans didn't know they were supposed to wash their ass. Miscellaneous jazz genres: When K-pop goes jazz, it usually leans towards swing, but there are exceptions. Swing: My biggest weakness, besides secondary chords. Unfortunately very uncommon. One of my greatest wishes going into the 20's is that we repeat the roaring 20's and have a huge electro-swing era. "25 or 6 to 4" progression: My nickname for a melody that descends one whole tone from the root note, and then two or more semitones. As you'll hear, the hook of Red Light ("kyeojyeosseo red light") is actually identical to the 25 or 6 to 4 progression. ARTIST BIOS: TIER 5 ARTISTS Spoiler Started out in the forgotten 2007 girl group SWAN before finding her niche in 2009 by specializing in traditional Korean trot music. It’s basically a yearly routine for her at this point to rack up any and all awards given out for Best Trot Song. After literally a decade, she finally released her first full album early this year. Basically the Korean answer to Beyoncé, in that she always overshadowed the other members of her group (4Minute), and her solo work was just as successful, if not more successful, than anything released by that group. Weirdly enough she was the first female K-pop soloist to have a MV hit 100 million views. Also notable for making a cameo in the music video for the song that shall not be named. Started out in the prehistoric girl group Fin.K.L all the way back in 1998, but it was 2003 when she absolutely exploded in popularity, to the point that it came to be known as “The Year of Hyori.” By 2006, she was the highest-paid female singer in South Korea. In 2013, after releasing the incredible Monochrome album, she went on an abnormally long (for K-pop standards) hiatus. However, she finally made a triumphant return in 2017 with one of the best full-length albums of the year. The most impressive vocalist from my favorite group of all time, f(x). Understandably puts her vocal chops to work in boring ballads, but she also had a weirdly great fluke EP in 2016 that I ended up being more impressed with overall than the album released by f(x) several months prior. SM has wasted a lot of talent by leaving f(x) on the back burner, but mismanaging Luna was an especially heinous offense. Rookie who got her start as a finalist on Superstar K (basically the Korean version of American Idol/Pop Idol, etc.). Her 2018 single Is Who was in my top 5 favorites of the year, and I’ve only grown to appreciate it more in 2019. The most successful solo act to have branched out from one of the most successful K-pop groups of the decade, the Wonder Girls. Notably played the bass during the latter part of the group’s life. Probably the closest thing South Korea has to a Madonna, debuting in the early 90’s and known for her provocativeness. After nearly a decade of musical inactivity, she made a triumphant return in 2017 with the excellent mini-album series, The Cloud Dream of the 9 Parts I and II. One of those groups that’s all but unrecognizable from their original conception. Actually really cool when they started out, distinguishing themselves as a legitimate girl band with a live music gimmick that nobody else was doing. They flopped like this for about two years and then pivoted to just being sexy instead. Today they’re one of K-pop’s most popular girl groups, although I much preferred them in their original incarnation. Cube’s ugly duckling group, CLC had an awkward and uneasy start that they were rescued from after the disbandment of their seniors, 4Minute. Starting at the beginning of 2017, they rather transparently became 4Minute’s replacement group, and totally blossomed in that newfound identity. As a 4Minute fan, I can honestly say in the best way possible that CLC is all but officially 4Minute but with a name and lineup change. They’re getting all the great bangers 4Minute would have gotten and making it their own with a slight touch of elegance and beauty that 4Minute never really went for. By far one of my favorite third generation girl groups and, since 2017, they may arguably have the most consistently good discography. Another one of my absolute favorite girl groups to debut in the past few years. Probably the most consistently and unmitigatedly dark-themed act in K-pop today, if you can even count them as K-pop, at this point. Their metal-driven discography is like KARA on meth and they’re basically a goldmine for anybody wearing tired of all the aegyo running rampant. Unfortunately not commercially successful but... they’re basically a horror-themed group, so they couldn’t have been expecting #1’s. Sadly short-lived, but very successful sub-group of Girls’ Generation, with a much stricter focus on vocals. (Basically, SM had a board meeting about SNSD one day and said, “Hey! Let’s take the ones who can actually sing and make a new group!”) Usually retro in sound. It was basically SM’s own MAMAMOO before MAMAMOO actually existed. Their second EP in 2014 was great, but their debut EP in 2012 was fantastic. One of the best second generation sub-groups to come about, second only of course to Orange Caramel. If nothing else, Miss A had the debut that every group dreams of: When their debut single Bad Girl Good Girl was unleashed on August 1st, 2010, it instantly skyrocketed to #1, making them the fastest girl group to ever snag a #1 single. Even more impressively, it maintained that position all the way through to September, breaking the record at the time for most consecutive weeks at #1. For the next five years, everything Miss A touched turned to gold, even ending their unfortunately short careers with a graduatory #1 hit in 2015. I’m actually a big Miss A fan and think they’re horribly underrated, so it sucks they don’t have more than one song in the rate, but that one song does go very far. This depressingly unsuccessful group debuted in the fog of the 2009 girl group wave and valiantly tried to break through for seven years before finally hanging their hats up in 2016. Most tragically of all, their best work was their biggest commercial failure, and likely a deciding factor in their disbandment. SISTAR actually played a role in my gateway to K-pop—not because of their music, but because of a video that went viral in August of 2010 where member Bora broke her thumb on stage. Not long after that incident, SISTAR exploded into one of the most wildly successful girl groups of the 2010’s. Beginning on August 7th, 2011, every single song that SISTAR ever released earned a #1 spot; a streak that continued all the way until May of 2017 when they formally disbanded. They’re probably most remembered for the way they practically made summer their own trademark—like clockwork, they had one comeback a year; nine times out of ten between June and September, like they built their whole career around it. Unfortunately these summer singles were always pretty bland and forgettable for me, but thankfully, there was one glorious exception—and anyone familiar with SISTAR’s music and with me probably knows exactly which song I’m talking about. Not to be confused with MAMAMOO, who will have two places in the countdown. This group is unfortunately pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things (oddly enough their debut EP was #1, and they never came close to replicating those numbers again), but I really like them. Besides the aforementioned MAMAMOO, the talented ladies of SPICA were in a league of their own, vocally. And their discography was oriented towards putting that talent to good use—from their unconventionally edgy debut with the intense, rock-driven Russian Roulette in 2012, to the awesomely bleak Painkiller, to the soulful Motown throwback You Don’t Love Me in 2014. Spica would never find great success, but their talent earned them a pretty loyal fanbase. Rounding out the one-and-done nominees is a surprise wild card song that I made a special exception for. It belongs to an underrated, unique group starting with an S, will be a part of the top 50, and it will be the only hint of any male vocals in the entire rate (key word being hint). Which song was special enough that I was willing to break my own rules to honor it? TIER 4 ARTISTS: Spoiler Initially conceptualized as the Korean Pussycat Dolls, Afterschool faced an uphill battle when they debuted in January of 2009 from the very modest Pledis Entertainment. But it was later that November when they went a more subdued, mature route with the mid tempo comeback Because of You that their careers supernova’d to a level of success that no one could have seen coming. In spite of their humble background, Afterschool competed with the best of them, and the sub-group they spawned in 2010—Orange Caramel—is arguably the most iconic sub-group of all girl groups in K-pop. In terms of live performance, Afterschool were unparalleled, employing novel gimmicks such as pole dancing and marching band incorporation. They also had a modestly successful career in Japan that culminated in 2014 with Dress to Kill, which as far as I’m concerned, is one of the best full-length albums from any K-pop artist ever. Their name was an abbreviation for Exceed In Dreaming, and that ended up being oddly prophetic, as EXID is K-pop’s most heartwarming rags to riches story: A B-tier group from 2012 on the edge of disbandment after two years of flopping, releasing a last ditch effort single in August of 2014 and randomly going viral with it months later, finally reaching #1 in the first week of the following year. EXID never had any other huge hits outside of Up & Down, but with the help of a very sizable and loyal fanbase, they continued on a very respectable path of funky dance-pop that came to a bittersweet close this May. The opposite EXID scenario. Ironically, their biggest triumph was their pre-debut single, which, thanks to a boost from collaborating with cultural juggernaut IU, was the only time the group ever entered the top 10. Their final release in 2016 peaked at #84, understandably bringing things to an end. Relatively successful group that debuted in 2010 and gradually gained steam until their peak in 2014. At their best, they had a really weird, unintentional niche where a lot of their singles had world-class climaxes—songs like Twinkle Twinkle and Expectation house some of the most exciting key changes of the decade, the aggressive bass pumper Nothing Lasts Forever takes a bizarrely tragic melodic direction after the second chorus, and their final comeback I’ll Be Yours contained one of my favorite bridges of the decade. Let’s just say that, in spite of only having two songs in the countdown, they’re going to have a head-scratchingly high average. One of K-pop’s most unlikely successes. Debuted in summer of 2014 with the crooning Motown throwback Mr. Ambiguous and, to even the group’s surprise, garnered decent success with it. Their hype snowballed until eventually paying off in the triumph of their excellent 2016 album, Melting. During this phase of their career, MAMAMOO were consistently doling out the best retro pop in the business. Today, they’ve branched out to doing a little bit of everything, which is great and obviously much more logical than confining themselves to jazz and soul for every comeback, but I do admit to yearning for the early MAMAMOO days of yore. By far one of the biggest and most influential groups of the decade. If somebody were to ask you to name three of the most iconic second generation girl groups, 2ne1 would be one of the universal answers. In four short years, they racked up 16 top 5 hits, including 9 #1’s. To go with those chart numbers, they accumulated a total of 62 awards during their whirlwind career, including a record four grand prizes from the Mnet Asian Music Awards—Artist of the Year and Album of the Year in 2010, and Song of the Year for both I Don’t Care in 2009 and I Am the Best in 2011. I Am the Best would come to be their most iconic work, and before the days of BTS and Blackpink, was one of the most globally successful K-pop songs. TIER 3 ARTISTS: Spoiler The most successful soloist from one of my favorite groups of all time, the Brown Eyed Girls. Evidently GAIN is at the heart of much of the group’s artsiness, because her discography is one of the wonkiest in all of K-pop. She’s done everything from a dedicated tango mini-album in 2010 to a song about abusive relationships in 2014 to an entire EP in 2015 revolving around biblical metaphors. On a purely objective level, in terms of sales and awards and cultural impact, Girls’ Generation are probably the champions of second gen girl groups. Their breakthrough single in January of 2009, Gee, is one of the most well-known, legendary, and culturally significant K-pop songs of all time, to the degree that Ivy League schools have highlighted it in their studies on Korean culture. In fact, K-pop may not be where it’s at today without Gee—Google statistics show the song as the initial source of online K-pop buzz and globalization in 2009. They went on to break more records in Japan, where they became the first foreign girl group to have three #1 albums. Last but not least, on literally the first day of 2013, they achieved the impossible by reaching a secondary peak in their career almost matching the heights of Gee—the Korean Bohemian Rhapsody, I Got a Boy. Girls’ Generation were what got me irreversibly hooked on K-pop back in 2012. I can remember working with my best friend in Australia for hours trying to figure out how to gift me their Japanese album on iTunes, which wasn’t (and still isn’t to this day) available on iTunes, I can remember having I Got a Boy on repeat 24/7 for pretty much all of 2013, and if there were a corkboard of significant components of my life in the 2010’s, the nine lovely ladies would be one of the biggest pictures... I pay them all this tribute now because, in general, their music wasn’t all that good. Horribly underrated group with some serious classics under their belt like Mister in 2009 and Step in 2011. Extremely notable for their success in Japan, where they were just as popular as they were in South Korea: in April of 2011, they became the first foreign girl group in the history of Japan to debut at #1, not to mention the first foreign girl group to reach #1 at all in over 30 years. Pretty much every one of their hit singles was produced by Sweetune, and the KARA-Sweetune combo is one of the all-time dream teams in K-pop. Most notable to me for the rock tinge underlying most of their biggest hits, as is usually the name of the game for Sweetune, but KARA seemed to always get the cream of the crop. Their overall sound has yet to be replicated and I miss them terribly. f(x)’s little sisters. They even garnered some hate when they debuted in 2014 because it was so obvious that SM was grooming them to be their new pet queens of quirk, but nearly everyone changed their tune the next year when Ice Cream Cake came out. Designed for versatility, their group name is a juxtaposition of a “Red” side of music—bubblier, more upbeat, colorful songs—and “Velvet”—a more mature, understated side usually associated with R&B and midtempos. Today they remain the only third generation girl group from SM, and as such they’re the company’s top priority, undertaking their most ambitious year yet in 2019 with a whopping three mini-albums. In the second generation of K-pop groups from around 2007-2015, there were three main titans who represented the three biggest entertainment agencies in the industry: Girls’ Generation represented SM, 2ne1 represented YG, and the Wonder Girls represented JYP. And, in fact, that was exactly how the pecking order went when Billboard ranked top 10 girl groups of the decade, with Wonder Girls coming in at #3. Even in spite of being one of the most successful K-pop groups of all time, I still feel they’re not given enough credit. Before Gee kicked the girl group smashes into high gear in 2009, the Wonder Girls had paved the way with Tell Me in 2007. When they released an English version of their iconic Nobody in fall of 2009, they became the first K-pop group to chart in the US. Later on, when they returned from a hiatus in 2015, they took it to a whole different level that few groups ever attempt—they learned how to play their songs live, and became a legitimate girl band. Their most defining quality that I’ll remember them for is that when it came to 80’s synthpop, no one could touch them. Of all the disbandments that happened between 2015 and 2018, theirs was by far the most devastating. Underdog group from Cube Entertainment that specialized in super manic electropop at the beginning of their career and pivoted to heavy hip hop later on. Almost all of their singles were incomparably aggressive and harsh and I always thought of them as being like 2ne1 on crack. Jokingly referred to by many people as HyunA and Her Backup Dancers. For some annoying reason, their worst songs ended up being their only #1’s. While they peaked commercially in 2014, the pinnacle of their career was February of 2015 with Crazy, which is widely considered one of the most outstanding girl group songs from one of the most competitive years in all of K-pop. In 2017, they underwent an unprecedented full-member-lineup-change and became known as CLC. Criminally underrated girl group who had a string of great collaborations with Sweetune. One of those groups that has an unusually large and dedicated fanbase, considering how under the radar they were. TIER 2 ARTISTS: Spoiler In this day and age, as BoA’s heyday has been over for nearly a decade, it could be argued that IU has taken the crown from her as the new Queen of K-pop. That’s fine. All it does is promote BoA to being some sort of mythical goddess or ambassador. The new generation of K-pop fans simply do not understand who BoA is and all that she represents. This is something that inevitably happens between generations—a split forms between new fans who have no interest in K-pop outside of the current bubble, and the old people getting angry at them for lacking respect. I’m not going to turn into the old person yelling at a cloud over these darn kids today. It’s not like I, for instance, have any interest in K-pop in the 90’s, so I get it. Legends becoming forgotten over time is pretty much inevitable. But I will say one thing: the newbie K-pop fans sure are missing out. BoA’s influence on the entire genre of K-pop as we know it pretty much can’t be overstated. It simply wouldn’t be where it is without her. She’s so recognized as a contributing factor to the K-pop industry that she became a shareholder of SM. On top of that, 19 years into her career and she’s still one of the best performers in the business. Her skills as a dancer are breathtaking, her charisma is off the charts, and while her vocal range is her weak spot, her actual pitch and breath control on stage is nothing short of magic. There is absolutely nobody in K-pop and really nobody at all in music today that I have more respect for. One of my favorite groups of all time, and by far the group that I have the most respect for. Professionals of the highest order. Debuted before every other artist in the top 100, all the way back in 2006, and yet they never had a single lineup change. f(x) are remembered today as the “Artistic” group of the decade, but in my mind, the Brown Eyed Girls were always the biggest and bravest boundary pushers. Unfortunately not as appreciated as they should be, partially because they didn’t have comebacks at the same frequency as the other girl groups and slowly faded out of public consciousness. Nonetheless, they’ll always have Abracadabra, which is one of K-pop’s most iconic classics. I HATE the fact that they’re one of my faves and they only have four songs, but A.) one of my favorite songs of theirs, L.O.V.E, is too old to include, and B.) like I said, they didn’t release music as much as the other groups did, so there was less content to include. However, if you count GAIN’s three songs as a part of the Brown Eyed Girls catalog, which I subconsciously do, that knocks their position up to a whopping 7 songs (and would have been 8 if I had let myself include L.O.V.E), which is much better indicative of how I feel about them. After the infamous slippery stage fiasco that skyrocketed them to fame, GFriend had a banner 2016 of back-to-back hits that seemed like could have been grooming them to be one of TWICE’s top competitors. Their success inexplicably began to wane in 2017, but their music has stayed the same: nostalgic, rock-tinged orchestral pop littered with melancholy secondary chords and tempered by the ladies’ soft, angelic vocals. When looking at total discographies, this is probably my favorite third gen girl group overall, with the least amount of songs that I’ve disliked. Another one of my favorite third gen groups, Oh My Girl started off with a whimper in April of 2015 with their basic aegyo single Cupid, and then followed it up that October with a much more mature 180 called Closer—which, I try to maintain a firm belief that music taste is completely subjective and nobody should be judged for their cup of tea—but anybody who doesn’t think Closer is at the very least decent, I hate you. From that point on, the OMG ladies have excelled in similar works: mystical, dreamy synthpop. There may have also been a tiny incident back in 2015 where they flew to the US and got stopped by customs for being mistaken as underage prostitutes. Of all the girl groups of the 2010’s, conjuring up STELLAR’s name may bring up the most universal response of all: “Poor STELLAR.” With 4 songs in the countdown, there will be more than enough time to go over the STELLAR situation, but suffice to say, their (lack of) success story is one of the ugliest in K-pop history. More importantly, it’s one of the most disproportionate to a group’s music quality—STELLAR released some of the very best K-pop songs of the decade and were never recognized for it, so I’m eager to finally give them the credit they deserved. If nothing else, T-ara showed that there’s nothing wrong with delusional ambition: their name came from the goal to become the queens of the K-pop industry, in spite of not being from any of the Big Three agencies and not having any particular reason to have such an expectation. And amazingly, it almost came true—their signature disco throwback hit Roly-Poly was one of the biggest, if not the biggest girl group hits of 2011, and every comeback they made after that was an outright cultural phenomenon... until THE INCIDENT, which I’ll talk about in one of their song eliminations. Moving forward from that, T-ara continued a special connection with hitmaker Shinsadong Tiger and evolved into the decade’s most reliable suppliers of EDM. TIER 1 ARTISTS: Spoiler Arguably the new queen of K-pop, and inarguably so if you look at sales. IU has navigated her career with surgical precision, exploding in popularity in 2010 with the phenomenal Good Day, topping it the following year by basically releasing a sequel, You and I, getting trapped in a girl-next-door image (she was uncomfortably known as “Korea’s Little Sister,”) and easing the nation into a more mature era through one of the greatest K-pop albums ever composed, Modern Times. From there, it was smooth sailing—every single that she’s ever released has been a massive hit (particularly her latest, Bbibbifrom 2018), and her albums are critical slam dunks. It’s hard at this point to ever picture anything being able to slow her down. This isn’t unearned—IU’s mature brand of organic, understated R&B and alternative pop is irreplaceable in the industry. My favorite girl group of all. Without giving too much away, f(x) will be taking up almost a whopping 10% of the countdown; exceeding any of the other nominees by a long shot. f(x) has one of the most unique success stories in K-pop, finding moderate success but critical panning in the early stages of their career and essentially being seen as Girls’ Generation’s ugly stepsisters. This underdog status made their following even more cult-like once they finally had their career-defining hit in 2012, Electric Shock. As though getting a literal jolt from their Electric Shock success, f(x) then stored up enough energy to deliver their final blow: Three full-length albums in three years—Pink Tape, Red Light, 4 Walls. Those three titles spoken together have a similar effect in K-pop circles to god, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost spoken in a row of church pews. Pink Tape, in particular, is so universally recognized as one of the greatest K-pop girl group albums of the decade that it’s almost annoying. By now, some of their fantastic music has inevitably worn with age, but they still have an undeniable legacy of bizarrely universal acclaim in their heyday that left a unique mark on the industry. LOONA aren’t the most consistent group out there in terms of music quality for third generation girl groups. Like Red Velvet, their versatility and lack of default style can be both a blessing and a curse, and makes their frequent comebacks a very high stakes hit or miss. Their misses aren’t worth mentioning and I’ve already forgotten them anyway. The hits are positively genius. The sleek Love Cherry Motion was the original runner-up of my 2017 countdown, while the warm and sentimental Heart Attack won last year’s countdown. The Brown Eyed Girls were innovative, f(x) was artsy, T-ara was versatile, Red Velvet is quirky, LOONA is experimental, and Orange Caramel? Orange Caramel was just plain weird. What are you supposed to say about a group who had a music video where they pretended to be sushi? Orange Caramel started out as a subgroup of Afterschool and blossomed into something so novel that it’s hard to even categorize them. They were just as commercially successful as their home group and, culturally, they maybe even surpassed Afterschool, with the infamous triple “HAH!”s in their Catallena performances being one of their lasting legacies on the internet. Musically, Orange Caramel were intended to be the cute, bubbly yin to Afterschool’s sexy yang. After years of ignoring them due to this reputation, I came to find out their music was far more interesting than it claimed to be on the tin. Looking past the cutesy vocals, Orange Caramel’s songs are loaded with moody secondary chord progressions and, weirdly often, seasoned with a distinct European flavor. I’ll be mentioning this in pretty much every elimination so I won’t go into too much detail right now, but I feel like I’m the only person in the world that’s noticed this about them and the only one that loves them for this reason. Special thanks to the help and guidance of Kpopalypse, who may be short and snarky on his blog, but was incredibly patient and kind to me, very generous with his time and knowledge, and basically a big old teddy bear. All that said, I pray he never finds this mess. ROUND ONE RECAP: Spoiler (Orange bars are for artists that only started out with 1 entry to begin with. The golden crown is for the artist with the most songs left; silver is for the runner-up.) ROUND TWO RECAP: Spoiler ROUND THREE RECAP: Spoiler ROUND FOUR RECAP: Spoiler Round 5 tonight at 8 PM EST! A BLOODBATH! Five artists get completely eliminated! Two songs from the same beloved album get eliminated back-to-back! And coincidentally, a certain violent music video to match the mood of the evening! LET THE GAMES BEGIN! Edited December 15, 2019 by Red Light
Red Light Posted December 8, 2019 Author Posted December 8, 2019 omg wait the rules and schedule banners are so ****ing ugly they looked so much better in the graphics maker wtf Anyway, while I'm waiting, I thought I'd go ahead and post the distribution of songs among the artists. In my past two rates, I've posted the songs that would be included and then eliminated them, but now I'm thinking that removed too much mystery, so this was my compromise: Apologies to Onces and Blinks.
K$Ellie Posted December 8, 2019 Posted December 8, 2019 I don't even stan Red Light like that but I'll be disappointed if it's not #1 LOOΠΔ top tier whew we love to see it I'm more of a 3rd gen stan so hopefully this'll get me into some older bops Poor Twice, they really improved this year and their titles have always been amazing as for BP.... well AIIYL is perfect and I'll leave it at that I gotta get more into BoA, her last 3 minis were really good some bgs are cute too tho, I mean SHINee STOMPS on these of the girls
Red Light Posted December 9, 2019 Author Posted December 9, 2019 2 hours ago, K$Ellie said: I don't even stan Red Light like that but I'll be disappointed if it's not #1 LOOΠΔ top tier whew we love to see it I'm more of a 3rd gen stan so hopefully this'll get me into some older bops Poor Twice, they really improved this year and their titles have always been amazing as for BP.... well AIIYL is perfect and I'll leave it at that I gotta get more into BoA, her last 3 minis were really good some bgs are cute too tho, I mean SHINee STOMPS on these of the girls I disqualified Red Light jfkhdjkfdhkajkfajksdhj It was too obvious a #1 and from what I could tell, it threw ALL the results, not just Song of the Decade but the bonus prizes at the end, too. I like the variety of winners much more now. I've always really really wanted to like Twice and never wanted to be biased against them. The chord progressions in almost all their songs just bore me, except I liked Stuck In My Head from earlier this year. I started getting past my girl group bias at the beginning of 2015 and listening to boy groups a lot more, but unfortunately 2015 was the WORST year to start moving past a girl group bias because they completely ****ing owned that year. But during those few months I was listening to boy groups, SHINee definitely had the best discography. And there's a BTS song called Lie I heard on Pandora one time that I really like.
Red Light Posted December 10, 2019 Author Posted December 10, 2019 (edited) The thing that I was waiting for actually came! Rate starts tomorrow night and should end on the 20th. Big master edit coming for the OP soon. Edit: Oh wait I thought tomorrow was the 11th. nvm, rate starts the day AFTER tomorrow. Tomorrow will be when I make the big edit to the OP, then. Edited December 10, 2019 by Red Light
Red Light Posted December 10, 2019 Author Posted December 10, 2019 3 minutes ago, Hug said: Finally, a rate worth looking out for! $25 has been added to your Venmo balance.
K$Ellie Posted December 10, 2019 Posted December 10, 2019 On 12/9/2019 at 12:53 AM, Red Light said: I disqualified Red Light jfkhdjkfdhkajkfajksdhj It was too obvious a #1 and from what I could tell, it threw ALL the results, not just Song of the Decade but the bonus prizes at the end, too. I like the variety of winners much more now. I've always really really wanted to like Twice and never wanted to be biased against them. The chord progressions in almost all their songs just bore me, except I liked Stuck In My Head from earlier this year. I started getting past my girl group bias at the beginning of 2015 and listening to boy groups a lot more, but unfortunately 2015 was the WORST year to start moving past a girl group bias because they completely ****ing owned that year. But during those few months I was listening to boy groups, SHINee definitely had the best discography. And there's a BTS song called Lie I heard on Pandora one time that I really like. when you do talentry kii Stuck In My Head is kinda annoying but I also bop to it, it would only be my 4th fave from that mini Welp SHINee's best album (1 of 1) came out in 2016, idk if you've heard it but it slaps Lowkey I don't use their early stuff at all, it sounds so dated Lie is a bop you should check out Pied Piper and Autumn Leaves though, they're their best b-side
Red Light Posted December 11, 2019 Author Posted December 11, 2019 About 3:30 AM and, after about six hours or so, I finally finished editing the OP.
Cazy Posted December 11, 2019 Posted December 11, 2019 On 12/8/2019 at 4:02 AM, Red Light said: In 2017, they underwent an unprecedented full-member-lineup-change and became known as CLC.
Red Light Posted December 11, 2019 Author Posted December 11, 2019 21 hours ago, K$Ellie said: Lowkey I don't use their early stuff at all, it sounds so dated You didn't stan the Misconceptions albums? Can't relate! 11 hours ago, Cazy said: Queens of metamorphosis. Rate might start later tonight than I thought because after editing the OP I pretty much passed out and slept until 3 PM.
K$Ellie Posted December 11, 2019 Posted December 11, 2019 1 minute ago, Red Light said: You didn't stan the Misconceptions albums? Can't relate! ofc I do WSS at least, Dream Girl was meh ugh the OP, putting me to shame I kind of disagree about Loona tho, I think they pull off almost every genre well and there are only about 5 songs in total that I don't use
Red Light Posted December 11, 2019 Author Posted December 11, 2019 4 minutes ago, K$Ellie said: ofc I do WSS at least, Dream Girl was meh ugh the OP, putting me to shame I kind of disagree about Loona tho, I think they pull off almost every genre well and there are only about 5 songs in total that I don't use Oh I thought by early songs you meant pre-third generation (around 2015). There are some songs that will be in my top 100 that I like specifically because they're dated, similar to Lucifer. And I said that about Loona cuz I was not into Broke4Eva and High Balance at all. I thought their EP's were a step down too.
Red Light Posted December 12, 2019 Author Posted December 12, 2019 Just got home! Rate starting now (or in a few minutes) with a short list of honorable mentions.
Red Light Posted December 12, 2019 Author Posted December 12, 2019 I didn't have time to do write-ups for these (and didn't feel like it either), so I'm just ****ting out a quick list of songs that almost made it and moving on. Spoiler Afterschool - Heaven Afterschool - In the Moonlight BoA - Hurricane Venus Girls' Generation - Trick Girls' Generation - Flower Power: I'll never forget right before this came out and somebody uploaded a song from the Powerpuff Girls soundtrack claiming that the song had leaked. Girls' Generation - Boomerang/Talk Talk HyunA - U & Me HyunA & LE - Blacklist: Queens of sounding exactly alike. IU - Dlwlrma KARA - Miss 'U Miss A - Bad Girl Good Girl Oh My Girl Banhana - I'm Not in Love with You RaNiA - Just Go: This is probably the one I'm most sad about not including. As far as I'm concerned, this is #101. T-ARA - Cry Cry Weki Meki - Crush
Hug Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 Of your HMs...I think Iike Flower Power and Hurricane Venus the most. HV would be in my BoA trinity I think (though my knowledge on BoA doesn't go that far so...hehe)
Red Light Posted December 12, 2019 Author Posted December 12, 2019 3 minutes ago, Hug said: Of your HMs...I think Iike Flower Power and Hurricane Venus the most. HV would be in my BoA trinity I think (though my knowledge on BoA doesn't go that far so...hehe) Flower Power is so good and I was so embarrassed that one of my favorite songs of the year was called ****ing Flower Power. This was the PPG song that the false leaker uploaded before it came out jfkhdfjhafjkf
Red Light Posted December 12, 2019 Author Posted December 12, 2019 (edited) Spoiler What better way to kick off my top 100 with the very first girl group song I ever bought? It seems that, though I took a winding path, I was always sort of destined to stan for f(x). If only they had released this as their debut single instead of that horrid La ChA TA. Nu Abo has been a song that I’ve listened to pretty consistently for almost a decade now, and while it of course doesn’t hit quite as hard and utterly possess me the way that it did during my “Honeymoon Phase” with it when I was 13-years-old, it’s held up remarkably well. Yes, it sounds extremely dated at this point, which is almost inevitable, but I miss the days when songs like this were the norm. And, in spite of not exactly aging like wine, there’s something intrinsically more endearing about Nu Abo’s production to me than other songs of the era. For reference, time has not been quite as kind to another one of the earliest girl group songs I purchased, The Boys by Girls’ Generation. Nu Abo is pretty much an amalgamation of all the kinds of musical elements that I wish were still abundant in K-pop today. It sounds totally ferocious, with urgent sirens, and a militantly heavy and slow 95 BPM beat, which somehow makes the song more powerful and intimidating than a more energetic tempo could have ever pulled off. It’s like it’s saying, “We don’t need to surpass 100 BPM to kill you,” and it sounds really badass. Of course, most notable is the wrathful aggressiveness of the melodies. Nu Abo is practically just two chords: Cm in the verses, modulating to D#m in the choruses--and since the modulation in the chorus is just a change in key, that leaves Nu Abo with the bizarre accomplishment of utilizing a single i chord for the entire song (the i-vii°/ii-ii-ib and III-vii°/iv-V/VII-vii°/v chords I included to go with the semitonic builds aren’t necessary). Yet, it achieves more with one chord than most songs can achieve with the standard four or more. The furiously catchy nanana hook that sounds as though it’s pointing and laughing at the listener is one of the most psychotically barbaric-sounding melodies of the decade; a chromatic melody so intense and combative that it sounds less like a pop song and more like a battle cry. The stagnant chord formula along with the dynamic vocal melodies, the pitch-bent siren samples, and the constant audience noise effects in the background, gives Nu Abo an underlying feeling of unruly discord, but it’s nicely produced and never actually gives off any obvious hint of sonic dissonance. The wailing high notes and altered beats in the final chorus help take it to the next level, thus cementing its place not as an honorable mention, but a fixture of my top 100, in spite of its age. And Nu Abo sounds like the kind of song that fought and scraped to achieve it’s placement--there’s so much infectious fire and grit in it that it could make an Amish housewife feel like the baddest bitch on the planet. Edited December 12, 2019 by Red Light
smholiv Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 Ugh I love Kpop Already from your honourable mentions I see multiple great songs. Heaven, Trick, Flower Power are probably some of my top favourites but I love pretty much everything to some degree except the Miss A song
Red Light Posted December 12, 2019 Author Posted December 12, 2019 PRAISE JESUS THE EMBEDDING IMAGE THING ACTUALLY WORKED AND I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH ATRL'S TRASHY OFF-CENTERED YOUTUBE EMBEDS ANYMORE
Red Light Posted December 12, 2019 Author Posted December 12, 2019 5 minutes ago, Harranger said: The quality in this thread 3 minutes ago, minho said: Ugh I love Kpop Already from your honourable mentions I see multiple great songs. Heaven, Trick, Flower Power are probably some of my top favourites but I love pretty much everything to some degree except the Miss A song Here's hoping you like more than just the honorable mentions, then!
smholiv Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 f(x) LEGENDS truly. Nu Abo a fantastic way to get started
Red Light Posted December 12, 2019 Author Posted December 12, 2019 Forgot the bingo card for Nu Abo at first. Fixed now. Spoiler What’s aged even better than Nu Abo, however, is 4Minute’s schizophrenic dance track from the same year. I My Me Mine is practically a personification of the grimey electropop sound that dominated the start of the decade, and I couldn’t have been more in love with it. Edging it slightly ahead of Nu Abo is the fact that, even to this day, I believe it houses one of the finest instrumentals in the rate--an astronomically impressive feat, considering that it’s the fourth oldest song on the list (behind Nu Abo and two songs that haven’t been eliminated yet). The track’s producer, Shinsadong Tiger, has gone through a lot of “Phases” in his long tenure as a K-pop hitmaker--he’s had the disco-tinged phase that made T-ara a household name, as well as the EDM phase that marked their latter years; he had the hilariously formulaic hip pop phase with EXID; and most recently, he’s been milking the saxophone-drenched dance-pop with MOMOLAND. At the dawn of the Hallyu Wave in 2009, however, Shinsadong was obsessed with making songs like this. I My Me Mine is an unstable, ferocious smorgasboard of futuristic sound stems, housing an incredulous amount of details and subtleties that make the composition breathlessly chaotic, yet without ever sounding too cluttered or overproduced. It cracks me up that in the year 2019 we’re having pretty barren dance tracks with severe mixing issues, while producers in 2010 were positively caking their instrumentals with every synth under the sun without muddying up the sound in the slightest. This is one of the best headphone-oriented tracks on the list, with the kind of production that sounds like it were specifically tailored for the purpose of being audibly purr-inducing. The fluidic bassline (as opposed to sharper basslines like that of I Am the Best) is utterly orgasmic, and drives the song from beginning to end. Contrasting this insanely heavy bassline are a barrage of warm synth pads, including a very notable one during the intro that sounds awfully similar to the infamous THX sound test. Also featured in the extraordinary sonic roller coaster are patches of sub-bass, a bevy of transient synth accents like transitionary wind chimes and a descending flute-like synth sample in the chorus, and last but not least, a hard, pounding beat that oscillates through all kinds of unpredictable pauses and fills to aid the glitchy soundscape. To top it all off is one of the very few tasteful instances of autotune in the countdown, bolstering the instrumental’s robotic sound and putting the finishing touches on the futuristic direction. Kicking off their career with songs like this and Muzik, not to mention an identical album track called Highlight, 4Minute seemed, at first, like they were going to be filling what ultimately became T-ara’s niche, by becoming K-pop reliable club queens. (Thank god they didn’t, as otherwise we never would have gotten Crazy.) Throw in the intense i-III-VI-V/i progression in the chorus and I My Me Mine is like pop music off of its meds; a prime example of the kind of high-octane, aggressive electropop that I so desperately miss these days.
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