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.
October 2025 Overall Thoughts
October started slow as Chuseok celebrations caused a week or so of inactivity, but the month picked up steam after that. In fact, I think I set a blog record on the 23rd with nine (!) separate reviews in one day. Thursdays (or Fridays depending on your time zone) have become one of the industry’s busiest release windows as big-name comebacks align with the release schedule of Western pop projects.
Despite a packed second half of October, the month didn’t quite deliver the way I had hoped. As with much of 2025, there were many solid/strong songs but very few knockouts. Some comebacks I had been looking forward to underwhelmed and there weren’t many surprises to make up for that.
Because of this, my top pick of the month absolutely cakewalked to number one. There really wasn’t any competition for me and I’m glad to see the song start to gain virality/popularity in Korea. It’s been rattling around my head for three weeks now and only gets better the more I hear it. The other two spots in my top three are filled by very different artists — one yet to officially debut and another who has made a huge breakthrough in their fourth year. Close runner ups would probably be &TEAM and Xdinary Heroes.
J-pop was pretty barren this month, at least when it came to fantastic singles. Because of this, two of my top three slots went to a single K-pop artist who released Japanese material. I don’t know what’s going on with J-pop this year but it’s gone from being one of my favorite music markets to a real slog. Everything just feels recycled and predictable.
We’ve got one more month before eligibility for my year-end countdown closes. November has some slack to cover and the release slate seems packed so far. I’ve started thinking about this year’s top ten in a nebulous way, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens when I finally sit down and think about it seriously in a few weeks. One thing’s for sure: 2025 has been a year of contrasts. In some ways, I’m more engaged in K-pop than ever before. In others, K-pop itself (ie: the music) has been largely disappointing.
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.7
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week One
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Two
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Three
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Four
TOP J-POP SONGS OF THE MONTH
3. NAQT VANE – Visions
2. TXT – Where Do You Go? (review)
1. TXT – Can’t Stop (review)
K-POP
Honorable Mentions
BABYMONSTER – We Go Up (review)
Close Your Eyes – SOB (with Imanbek) (review)
Hearts2Hearts – Focus (review)
HITGS – Happy (review)
Joochan – Rise & Shine (review)
Kim Lip – Can You Entertain? (review)
Kino – Dirty Boy (ft. Jamie & Uwa) (review)
LE SSERAFIM – Spaghetti (ft. J-Hope) (review)
MEOVV – Burning Up (review)
MiSO – Spotlight (review)
NEXZ – Beat-Boxer (review)
NMIXX – Spinnin’ On It (review)
Wonho – If You Wanna (review)
Xdinary Heroes – ICU / Lost And Found (review / review)
&TEAM – Back To Life (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
This Week In K-pop: Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3 / Week 4
This Month’s Global Pop Round-Up
TOP THREE SONGS
3. NMIXX – Blue Valentine (review)
2. AM8IC – Buzzin (review)
1. TWS – Overdrive (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of September 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of August 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of July 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of June 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of May 2025