Crunch on This: Top 50 Songs of January (1 Viewer)

[CrunchyLegend]

Now that I've had a chance to catch up on everything released so far this year, no thanks to my extremely broken Youtube subscription feed, it turns out that this hasn't been such a terrible year for Korean music at all, so I will be doing this series of posts ranking the top 50 songs each month. January and February will be posted now since I'm all caught up, and future posts will appear a week or so following the end of each month. More info is in the FAQ, followed by rankings and monthly awards.

Spoiler: FAQ

What is this? My entirely subjective, unscientific, and unbiased ranking of the top 50 new singles and title tracks each month from all genres of Korean music. The top 25 songs are posted with videos and the rest have links to their MVs, and there are awards for artist, discovery and genre of the month. Every three months I will also include a quarterly list ranking the top 100 songs of the year.

Why do this? To scratch an itch for obsessing over lists, to force myself to not slack on keeping up with new releases, to point people at some good songs they might have missed, and to give attention to some of the great Korean music out there beyond the bubble of kpop.

Where do I find these? Mostly Youtube channels like Poclanos, 1theK, Genie, Stone, WLK, Danal, Mirrorball, Super Sound Bugs and danielions, as well as smaller channels, channels for specific record labels or artists, and a bit of Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

Why is this weird? I use the earliest date recorded for a release or MV, so you may see some songs appearing in a different month than expected. It's just a way to stay consistent, but it can yield some strange results, for example, the MVs for N.Flying's Rooftop and Chungha's Gotta Go being dated 12/28/2018, making them technically ineligible for this year's rankings.

If you want to be tagged for future posts (or removed) just let me know. If I already tagged you, you've either shown interest in the wider world of Korean music, or I just wanted to bother you.

💜 - Kpop
🎤 - R&B
🕶 - Hip hop
🎹 - Ballad/vocal
🎞 - Soundtrack
💽 - Electronic
🎸 - Rock
🎵 - Indie/alternative pop
These icons look terrible on night mode btw

#50 to #26

50. Ooa - Time to Love 🎵
49. Younghertz - ... 🕶
48. Favorite - Loca 💜
47. jeebanoff - B.T.N (Better Than Now) 🎤
46. Zayvo - Horse 🎵
45. Lee Aram - Pretend 🎹
44. 9z - Reason 🎹
43. Nieah - Deserve It (ft. Syler) 🕶
42. Cherry Bullet - Q&A 💜
41. greenblue - Atlast 🎹
40. SOMA - Motorcycle 🎤
39. City Alone - Mirror 💽
38. Cherry Coke - Bathe 🎤
37. Punchnello - Blue Hawaii (ft. Crush & Penomeco) 🎤 🕶 💽
36. rosy - beloved (ft. LilMoney) 🎵
35. Junoflo - Statues 🕶
34. Shirosky - Feel Inside (ft. Ripley) 🎤
33. Shaun - Bad Habits 🎵
32. Doha - 몽어 (꿈꾸는 물고기) 🎵
31. Seventeen - Home 💜
30. Lulileela - Someday 🎵
29. slchld - foreign (ft. oceanfromtheblue) 🎤
28. Huta - Ya 💜
27. some:r - dear 🎹
26. Loco - It's Been a While (ft. Zion.T) 🕶

#25 to #1

25. Ha Sungwoon - Don't Forget (ft. Park Ji Hoon) 💜




24. Baksal - Clock Flower (ft. Rose Bed) 🎤




23. WJSN - La La Love 💜




22. sucozy & ohmadmoon - Martini Haze 💽




21. Brady - Want to Be 🎤




20. Bambi - No Mercy 💽




19. Haruna - Like a Movie 🎹




18. EB - Sweet Stranger (Best Chicken OST Part.1) 🎞




17. Punchnello - Winter Blossom (ft. Saay) 🕶




16. Kyung Dasom - Your Time 🎵




15. Jvcki Wai, Young B, Osshun Gum, Han Yo Han - DDING 🕶




14. ta U - Midnight Moon 🎤




13. Apink - %% 💜




12. S2REN - Sadream 💽 🎤




11. Bomin - Can't Love 🎤




10. Motte - Send-Off (My Strange Hero OST Part.7) 🎞




9. Lulileela - Goodbye, My Love 🎵 💽




8. BewhY - My Land 🕶




7. Co-Tech - Poison (ft. Jiho) 🎤




6. RooRee - Meteor 🎤




5. Code Kunst - XI (ft. Lee Hi) 🎤




4. Shaun - Terminal 🎵




3. ONF - We Must Love 💜




2. Lulileela - Goldfish 🎵 💽




1. Park Jimin - Low Voice (The Last Empress OST Part.4) 🎞




ARTIST OF THE MONTH: Lulileela gets an easy win with three songs on this month's list and two in the top 10. Only a year removed from her solo debut and she's already showing remarkable growth in her songwriting and production. Honorable mentions go to Shaun, who started the year off with a bang, dropping three MVs on New Year's Day, and Punchnello, who had two songs ranked, both with assists from some very capable artists in their own right.

DISCOVERY OF THE MONTH: Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a big fan of kpop boy groups, but ONF's We Must Love managed to worm its way into my brain like no other idol track this year apart from Loona's Butterfly. Maybe not a revelation for bg fans, but definitely one for me. An honorable mention goes to RooRee, another vocalist in the same vein as Jinsil and Leebada, my favorite vein, I might add.

GENRE OF THE MONTH: No genre really stood out as particularly dominant this month. R&B led the way but that's likely to happen quite often, given that it's my favorite Korean genre. Instead, I'll give the award to soundtracks, with three worthy songs in the top 20 and the #1 song overall. It's easy to dismiss OST songs as an endless procession of forgettable ballads, and truth be told, they usually are, but there are definitely some gems to be found amongst the sleeping pills.

Spoiler: Tags

@4Ren @baekk @Chahee @Son Na Eun @deadstar @Golden_Wishes @Grazil @igloo @infire707 @Jichuus @la_mort_pour_vous @lalaloveloona @lexusuwu @Lilac @notthatmarko @QueenGirlCrush @Reo @Walnutt @zodiark

 

[yeji]

omg you like BewhY‘s song
bless you Crunchy. I always knew that you have taste

 

[CrunchyLegend]

omg you like BewhY‘s song
bless you Crunchy. I always knew that you have taste

It's a really good song. February was a great month for hip hop tho, posting that in a few.

 

[yeji]

It's a really good song. February was a great month for hip hop tho, posting that in a few.

true. So many good hip hop songs were released.

 

[Lighterxx]

awww you didnt listened the album...

 

[CrunchyLegend]

awww you didnt listened the album...

Which album? I haven't had a chance to listen to many yet, still catching up with singles. I would love to include b-sides but that would mean listening to more music than there are hours in the day.

 

[Lighterxx]

Which album? I haven't had a chance to listen to many yet, still catching up with singles. I would love to include b-sides but that would mean listening to more music than there are hours in the day.

its ok!! this one, i just said it because i believed any song from album is FAR better than Home lol


if you are lazy,

Good to Me, Shhh, Getting Closer are my faves lol

 

[CrunchyLegend]

its ok!! this one, i just said it because i believed any song from album is FAR better than Home lol


if you are lazy,

Good to Me, Shhh, Getting Closer are my faves lol

Oh, yeah, Home seemed a little softer than a typical Svt track, it was still decent though. I don't listen to boy group albums really, but I've been meaning to make an exception for Svt for a while, so I'll definitely give it a listen.

 

[Administrator2]

Okay, but where is Chungha?

 

[CrunchyLegend]

Okay, but where is Chungha?

Noted in the FAQ spoiler, but her MV is dated 12/28/2018, so she's lost somewhere in December with N.Flying. Tbh she would have been somewhere around 27 or 28. Great song but it exposes her vocals too much.

 

[Administrator2]

Noted in the FAQ spoiler, but her MV is dated 12/28/2018, so she's lost somewhere in December with N.Flying. Tbh she would have been somewhere around 27 or 28. Great song but it exposes her vocals too much.

huh?

 

[Administrator2]

Oh you mean this date. This almost always shows date before the premiere. I think it's the date of registration within MNet. Interesting.

 

[CrunchyLegend]

Oh you mean this date. This almost always shows date before the premiere. I think it's the date of registration within MNet. Interesting.

Yeah, it's the only way I could think of keeping consistent time frames for everything without having to do a lot more work figuring out release dates for smaller artists, since the Youtube posting date can be very wrong. This way I can just check the date on the MV, Melon, or Soundcloud and be done with it. Chungha and N.Flying are the only well-known artists that were impacted by it, and they would've been middle of the pack for the month anyway. After January everyone will at least be listed, if also sometimes in the wrong month.

 

[mirella]

15. Jvcki Wai, Young B, Osshun Gum, Han Yo Han - DDING🕶

You like this song? Yay! But Jvcki's autotune though
This is a good list I'm going to listen to the ones I haven't yet.

 

[CrunchyLegend]

You like this song? Yay! But Jvcki's autotune though
This is a good list I'm going to listen to the ones I haven't yet.

Like she's ever going to not synthesize the crap out of her voice

The song was good though and it's clear she's a good rapper even if she has some inexplicable need to sound like low quality text-to-speech, and the rest of that crew was good too.