The Best K-pop of 2024
What makes something a "Best of" release? To me, I think about this a lot, as someone who is very confident discussing the business of music but not necessarily discussing music itself. I was raised in a home where popular music wasn't listened to, and oftentimes wasn't even allowed. So even though I've spent years attempting to educate myself about music, I doubt I'll ever be confident that my opinions and music taste are legitimate, let alone valuable, or that I can write about them eloquently. These are very silly thoughts I have, because taste is personal, and although we pretend otherwise no Best of List is really anything but a glorified Favorites or Most Popular or Most Generally Acceptable list. That's why in the past, I've branded some Notes on K-pop's end of year lists as "favorite" ones, rather than "best of" ones.
Tamar Herman
This year, though, I'm a bit late and it's March when I'm writing this. So I'm thinking less about what was my favorite song or album last year, and more thinking about what are going to be the ones that I remember the most moving forward. This doesn't mean that there weren't other wonderful songs or albums, but these are the ones I'm still thinking about a few months into the new year. A year that's not been exactly thrilling on the K-pop front yet, but still hoping 2025 delivers a strong year. This was originally called "The Best Musical Moments of K-pop in 2024" but... Don't love that, so this is what we're going with.
Tamar Herman
I want to apologize to readers because I'm late for all the very important end of year list season dates. I don't even have the excuse of "I waited until January because some good music comes out always at the end of December". No, my only excuse is that I have had a harder time making time for writing lately, and I apologize for that. But lucky you, you get some more 2024 Best Of hot takes as an early(ish) 2015 gift! I'm doing things a little bit differently than other lists, so this may read as off-kilter a bit, but I hope you enjoy.
So without further ado... Here are the best & most memorable music moments of 2024, according to me. I've listed them at random.
I previously wrote about ILLIT's "Magnetic" and ATEEZ's "Work" for NME's end of year list, and Katseye's "Touch", Rosé & Bruno Mars' "APT.", Red Velvet's "Cosmic", NCT 127's "Walk", and aespa's "Supernova" for Pop Excellence's so will not be revisiting any of them in-depth here. I will, however, kick off with talking about none other than...
aespa came off as the undeniable queens of K-pop in 2024. With "Supernova" and "Whiplash" dominating, plus "Armageddon" making a mark of its own, the SM Entertainment girl group had major hits and viral trending moments. Armageddon as an album was pretty good, but it took until I saw aespa earlier last month on tour to really fall in love with b-sides like "Set the Tone" and "Live My Life" really coming to life live.
The Whiplash album similarly came to life on tour (I would love to buy a "Pink Hoodie" bedazzled with aespa's members' logos), but the thing that was most surprising in retrospect in 2025 was how good the solos were live. Released on the Synk: Parallel Line single album last year, Karina's "Up" went viral, but after seeing it live I think Winter's concert performance of "Spark" is a real contender for the most-underrated moment of aespa's really good 2024 in retrospect.
TWICE - "Rush" was my absolute favorite moment from a pretty good year from Twice ("Strategy" with Megan Thee Stallion deserves more love). With You-th was overall a really great EP, but "Rush" is as pretty close to perfect as a song can get. Tantalizing while still having a dynamic - while still muted stylistically - bedroom pop melody, this song reflects the frenzied feeling of being driven by love. I think it finds itself reflecting a sonic trifecta representing where TWICE was in 2024: a bit mature, a bit elegant, and still addicting. I kinda wish we had this as a promoted B-side, if not a single, because it would have been excellent to see what Twice did with it during promotions.
Enhypen - "XO (Only If You Say Yes)" is the ode to consent I didn't know I needed, but found myself humming again and again whenever I wasn't listening to something else. "XO" is just so catchy, and it's really a song that gets stuck into your head on first listen. But it's with the additional listens that you really become enthralled by on the subtlety of the smooth synth melody that drives the song, and the breathy vocals that the members' seduce with. I love that it embraces autotune as a tool rather than shy away from it, using the distortion to create echoes that tug at your heart.
Young Posse - "Skyline" is another song on which I was enthralled by sleek synths and quirky vocal distortions. Young Posse typically puts forward their harder, more hip-hop branding and "Skyline" does indeed feature an engaging series of raps and bolder moments. But the song overall is not something I generally associate with their wheelhouse, and instead is more aligned with twinkling, daydream-esque alt-pop than anything else. The vocal layering and back-and-forths between members, especially in their live performance, is a joy.
Jin - "Another Level" feels like it's literally on another realm of existence from the rest of Jin's solo debut EP. It's like he decided to keep things light and Happy in alignment with its title except on this song, which is dramatic and intense in the most glorious of ways. It reminds me a lot of BTS's "Black Swan", offering the same sort of aural desperation and angst, this time bolstered by gritty rock riffs. I saw someone describe this symphonic rock track as Jin's Evanescence moment, and kind of love that imagery.
Also, congrats to "Super Tuna" finally, finally getting a formal release. Truly one of my favorite moments of 2024!
NCT's entire discography - Somehow, last year was both not so great for NCT as an act, but was pretty damn fire when it came to music. Like a cosmic alignment bringing everything together and casting good music across the NCT-verse, 2024 was a gift in Ncity with every team producing music along with solo albums. And all those albums were really good. I was starting to write out this list and realized I was going down it with multiple albums from different units and soloists, because SM honestly did really know what they were doing last year musically.
Jaehyun's J and Yuta's Depth were two of my favorite albums to review last year, but Taeyong's Tap was also up there, and Doyoung and Ten had really great tracks on their solo albums. But NCT Dream's Dream()scape and Dreamscape combo may be the best, and perhaps most confusingly named, album duology SM's done in ages. (The parenthesis apparently stand for an 'e'.) Walk from 127, Give Me That from WayV and Wishful from NCT Wish all became albums that epitomize each subunit, and ended up on multiple repeats across the year. Essentially, it felt like I'd have to start picking and choosing children to write about and decided not to, so I just am saying "NCT had a great year musically." Going to leave you with the glory of NCT Dream's "icantfeelanything", which you should pair with the anxiety-fuelled "No Escape".
(G)I-dle - "Super Lady" maybe is trite as an idea that we've seen before, but there is absolutely nothing that pumps me up more than the opening notes and Soyeon's opening declaration of "I am the top, super lady". Bold EDM thrills and proclamations of feminist supremacy blend for a tried and true power anthem, bolstered by sassy, building verses. It's a call to arms - literally - , and I think it's in the smaller moments beyond the chorus where this song really becomes super. The pre-chorus especially, performed first by Miyeon then Yuqi elevates the track, and, of course, it ends with chanting march.
RIIZE - "Impossible" proved that the group had staying power. I know that sounds mean, but they needed a big win this year (despite internal upsets) to show their worth as SM's next big they. They had previously already had a great start to the year with the success of "Love 119", but "Impossible" felt like a classic house-inflected SM Entertainment song to be a springtime, breezy dance track. It's groovy in a way that feels easy, but then you realize how many synths and beats are playing around with each other as the distorted, energetic voices of the members' propell the track forward. It's honestly euphoric, one of those songs that you hear and immediately are humming, dancing along to it every time you hear it. I think it really solidified what a great RIIZE song could be, and I hope we hear more of this style from them in 2025.
Purple Kiss - "Encore" is perhaps my favorite Purple Kiss track ever, which is saying a lot because this girl group has released a lot of really quality music. I love the creeping opening, playful and taunting, with plinking strings duelling with vocals that steadily build, pulling upon one another to a crescendo of the chorus. The chorus, boldly explosive and then sleekly seductive, brings me back time and again to this very underrated track. It may be titled "Encore", but it really feels like the star of the album. "Sing more, Encore" indeed.
Yves - "Viola" was a late arrival in November, and it was really a fierce contender for song of the year in my opinion. It's a very 2024 song in that it has the same sort of dramatic, sassy styling you may associate with Charli XCX's Brat releases, but Yves' makes it her own, using the song's 3 minute airtime to vacillate between air verses, bold beat drops, and the earworm "I just need some space" declaration. She performed this twice at her NYC show in January, and it was an absolute joy to dance to both times.
ARTMS - <Dall>. Speaking of the artists formerly known as LOONA, ARTMS is up there along with Yves for having some of the most engaging music of 2024. As an album, <Dall> felt like one of the most cohesive projects of the year coming out of K-pop (along with some others on this list). "Virtual Angel" as a single has the sort of twinkly pop feel to it that it feels like it maybe should be the soundtrack for a magical girl cartoon, and that's perhaps because of the sense of echoing breaths it's built upon. This sort of airy electropop permeates the album, revisited by various genres and stylistic feels (it gets a bit R&B on "Distress", for instance) in a way that feels like it's Loona's earlier music elevated for the ARTMS era. My personal favorite track on the album is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which feels like a sweeping, soaring experiential track that kicks off calmly and then blasts off towards spacey desperation. It's a magical experience, honestly, and I wish all songs sounded as good.
Key - Pleasure Shop is the elevated house music that I felt 2023's Good & Great was approaching but pulled a bit short from. It's six tracks of sleek music that feels like some fever dream of a night out at 3am vogueing (maybe drunkenly) on a dance floor, and basks in nostalgia the way all of Key's albums have, feeling timeless and subtly effervescent. And then it all ends on the desperation of "Novacaine", which hit particularly hard to me as someone born the literal same week as Key and feeling like I too am "out of time".
RM - Right Place, Wrong Person is an album that utilizes jazzy, moody hip-hop to ease you into its anxieties about perceptions, careers, and life at large, past, present, and future. RM has frequently emphasized his collaborators on albums, and I've always thought it helps give him room to shine even brighter than when he stands in the solo spotlight. In a way, it reminds me of RM trying his take at what Epik High has always done: collaboration as a vehicle for inspiration, each feature an inflection point through which RM can explore some new facet of the feelings he's hoping to reflect on the album. But while my initial favorites on the album were indeed his collaborations, particularly the lackadaisical "Around the world in a day" featuring Moses Sumney, ultimately my favorite was the RM solo track "Groin" with its syncopated gritty riff, jocular raps, and fuck it all attitude. What a goddamn mood.
The Yoon Protest soundtrack - Technically not a singular music release, I think the moment of people coming together to stand up to fascism and using K-pop as its soundtrack was something we shouldn't leave behind in 2024's memory but bring with us forward into 2025 and beyond.
Kep1er - Kep1going On was not remotely close to an album I expected to be enthralled by. I'd always enjoyed Kep1er's singles, but their albums hadn't really quite won me over. I expected this to be an album dedicated to their fans after confirming that they'll be staying together beyond their initial MNET-dictated contract terms (although it would be two members' last album), and to be par for the course, with a very listenable album but nothing truly exciting. I was an idiot. and I apologize for my underestimating Kep1er so much. Not only did the sleek synthwave single "Shooting Star" take over my heart, from the very first almost hesitant moments of opener "Last Carnival" to the peppy closing notes of the reflective penultimate "Dear Diary" (it's followed by Korean versions of two previously released songs), it's full of particularly perfect pop moments. I think this album proves more than anything that Kep1er needs to stay together.
Rescene - Scenedrome. I feel like there was a major moment last year when all the pop music lovers I knew who don't always have the time of day for K-pop's latest releases were talking about the new group Rescene and their four-song EP. It's the sort of pint size confection of electropop near-perfection, wrapping its 11 minutes of music in crisp verses and melodies that refuse to leave your ears for hours, concluding with ethereal, yet sassy, "Pinball".
Babymonster - "Forever" is classic YG Entertainment girl group: it's hip-hop inflected "girl crush" bravado, full of "Better Than Thou" attitude. And yet, it feels so fun that I can't help but feeling like it lives up to its title: it's a classic, eternal surefire K-pop sound, plus some quirky distortions, that I can't help but loving and wanting to dance along to fo-o-o-r many hours.
Stray Kids - Hop (SKZHOP HIPTAPE) three pretty good songs and then eight really damn good solos from all of the SKZ members. Over the years, Stray Kids have made it clear that they know what they're doing as a group to go to the top of the game (they were some of K-pop's biggest sellers last year, after all). But the thing that they've made even clearer is that the sum is only as solid as the part of its whole, and everytime the members get a chance to shine in the solo spotlight it's like supernova brightness levels achieved. Hop elevates everything Stray Kids stands for as individuals, each with their own distinct style and preferred genres, who have come together as a cohesive whole. It makes sense, then, that the title is a reference to the Hanja character "合", which means "unity".
IVE - "Accendio" had the best music video take K-pop's had on magical girls in years, and for that alone I love it. It's also a great song, with a chorus that does some absolutely glorious change-ups and stylistic shifts that I just really think we all need to be paying more attention to. But if you watch one music video from last year, watch this one.
Kiss of Life - "Igloo" solidified the hot girl brand of KIOL after they previously won over the hearts by heating up the summer with "Sticky". They're the closest thing K-pop's seen in ages to this generation's Sistar, and I think it's a crown that's been passed perfectly: Kiss of Life is charismatic and sexy as they taunt over the thumping bass, truly feeling like they're melting everything down in their path.
Yena - "Nemonemo" is the kitchy video game soundtrack sounding glitchpop (or Vocaloid) that K-pop in recent years has avoided, but as the 2020s overwhelm with a sense of existential grim... The world needs a star like Choi Yena to consistently deliver quirky, funky dance tracks.
TOMORROW X TOGETHER - "The Killa (I Belong to You)" is an homage to moody feels and hypnotizing Afrobeats wrapped around Yeonjun and Soobin's rich vocal tones. As the two of them are my favorite voices in TXT, it's no surprise that "The Killa" has wrapped its warm grip around my soul. There's something just so alluring about this song, it's subtle but addicting.
STAYC - "GPT" is a song that I think a lot of people overlooked as a bit banal and par for the course of StayC in this era where they seem to not necessarily know what musical direction to go in (though recent teasers me think they're about to evolve in a new way). But since the very first Disney-like dreamcore notes of "GPT", I felt that this song's frenzied synths and cloying verses captured something special; this is musical excellence. It may feel like the standard minimalist style a lot of K-pop girl groups are doing at the moment, but it's almost like a negation of the trend because it's trying so hard as if to get somewhere else but then reigns it in, pushing and pulling at its constraints. Maybe it's a commentary on the title, referencing the robotic, unemotional ChatGPT AI as a stand-in for an unrequited romance. GPT stands for "Generative Pre-Trained Transformers", which means that it's able to only create based on patterns and information it's been trained on, and "GPT" has taken the trending sounds of the moment and elevated them. Music is a collaborative art that grows with each new iteration of interpreting different sounds, and I think there's something charming about all of this.
IU - The Winning is only five songs long, but it does a lot of heavy lifting to reflect where IU is at nowadays: there's the elegant, romantic "Love Wins All" (along with an excellent music video co-starring BTS's V) alongside the uplifting "Shopper" (with another glorious music video, this one directed by and co-starring DPR Ian), while the sassy "Holssi" projects boldness and "Shh.." featuring NJZ's Hyein, Roller Coaster's Wonsun Joe, and narration by the iconic Patti Kim, glorifies womanhood and the women in IU's life. Then it all ends on "I stan U", a track dedicated to the relationship between an artist and fans, especially when face-to-face, particularly in concert. It's short, but rather than feeling brief the music and messages linger.
ONF - "Bye My Monster" on first listen made me think of classic second generation boy band songs, especially releases by Beast/Highlight and Infinite. There is a sense of gravitas and drama in "Bye My Monster", which is dominated by orchestral rock and sleek harmonizing between the members. It's a classic, timeless K-pop, and not one we hear a lot of nowadays, and ONF's vocals make it a really nice return to what once defined the K-pop world.
Nayeon - "ABCD" Is one of those songs that's very, very good, but that I think the impact of the choreography outweighs the music: K-pop has spent decades between the push and pull of sexualizing without being sexual, and at some point many artists cloy at that. It often makes some of the most impactful moments in artists' careers, and I think that's the case here. Nayeon spends the music video performing while reflecting many types of femininity, as she dons everything from school girl uniforms to ballgowns that feel reminiscent of previous TWICE concepts to what looks a lot like the outfits Girls' Day wore for their seductive 2013 hit "Something". But ultimately it's in a white tank top, cutoff jean shorts, and LVMH knee pads where Nayeon makes her now-historic crotch grab, which got censored from being aired on Korean TV shows. "ABCD" came out a year after Hwasa was vilified and investigated for similar gestures that emphasize a woman's sexuality. Although it may not have been intentional, Nayeon, a Twice member's release feels like less an "ABCD" and more a pretty big "FU" to those who came for Hwasa, a Mamamoo member; girl groups may be girl-ish, but girls grow up even as the tries to police them into staying a certain way.
Le Sserafim - "1-800-hot-n-fun" is a song that feels like a night out in your early post-grad days condensed into just under 3 minutes. It's a bit flirty, a bit sexy, a bit confident, and a whole lot of fun. It's all in English, which helps in the realatability factor, but this is an experience that transcends any language, and the playful rockishness of it all really sells the vibe. "Where the heck is Saki?" was my question of the year.
NMIXX - "Run For Roses" is a rare show of countrified K-pop, and I think that NMIXX sells it extremely well. It's groovy and confident, with its chanting pre-chorus bolstered by fiddling strings, before rising to the melodious chorus. NMIXX are one of the most vocally talented girl groups in K-pop nowadays and I think it's rare to find a song where they don't sound good, but this is a song that feels like they're the only group around that could possibly feel off in a way that feels authentic. I'd love to see more of this from them personally: a song that explores a genre rarely seen in K-pop, and how NMIXX interprets it in their own way. They are aiming to be known for MIXX-pop, after all. Let's mix it up some more, because they can certainly pull it off.
Seventeen - "Maestro" arrived about half a year after the group released "God of Music", and I love the general theme the group was going for as an act in the K-pop world recognized for crafting their own sound since Day 1. It's brilliant to see how they utilize the literal linguistics of music as a metaphor for their career and rise, as they simultaneously released a music video that's a commentary on the computerization of the music industry. There's a bombastic swagger to it, but with the final beats, it feels like Seventeen lays down the law.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed these musical moments, and so many more, from 2024. Again, I apologize for taking so long to publish this.
