15. IU - Bbibbi: It's an IU track, what's not to like? But really tho, the lyrical content, the backing track, and the vocals… all of it come together to create this catchy hell of a song. I almost debated on keeping it out of my top 15 tbh, but that playful melody in the chorus is one of the best I've heard all year.
14. Oh My Girl - Secret Garden: This song was honestly running in the top 3… in fact, early in the year I pretty much said this is going to be in my top 3… but why the change of heart? Well, Remember Me came on the scene and took what Secret Garden did and basically did it better. As to those specifics, I'll talk about that when I get to Remember Me. Either way, Secret Garden remains as the most beautiful song of 2018 for me. I haven't stopped listening to it since it came out and I highly doubt I'll get tired of it.
13. LOONA - Hi High: You might be wondering why this song is here instead of being at the top considering I'm the resident LOONA theorist of ERA… well, I'm not gonna lie. While it is a fantastic song, I do feel that it's not necessarily what I want to hear from LOONA. Notice that yyxy's love4eva isn't even on my honorable mentions list and that's honestly coz I didn't like it. Both Hi High and love4eva feel like an attempt for capturing the SK audience and while I fully respect and support BBC's decision for that, it's just not really my cup of tea.
12. IZ*ONE - La Vie En Rose: I'm gonna start by saying that I'm a casual IZONE hater. I don't like 3-4 of the members and feel that they shouldn't even be part of the group coz they're garbage and other participants deserved to be in. But LVER is one of the best debut songs for a girl group... it's muuuuch better than Hi High even. What LVER has that Hi High doesn't have is impact, that pre-chorus with Eunbi and Yena's rap just take you by surprise that you suddenly forget that you hate this group lmao. Nah, but really tho… LVER is fantastic and props to OTR for buying it off Cube/CLC and making it IZONE's debut song.
11. SAAY - Encore: What a bop from start to finish. Up tempo R&B jams are one of my favorite genres ever and I don't think a lot of K-Pop artists can nail it correctly, but here's SAAY nailing a niche really really well. The song just speaks to my thot sensibilities and I just want to dance with it in the club or some dance competition. Anyway, the song shines on it own, but the MV is just so fun to watch with the choreography… it might be one of my favorite dance videos of the year.
10. Momoland - Bboom Bboom: Well, what else is there to say about this song? It's a legit bop from Shinsadong Tiger… one of the most fun songs of 2018 if you ask me. Seeing Momoland perform it live at KCON was an experience, the crowd was so into it, your hips can't lie… this song is a bop of the ages.
9. Gugudan - Not That Type: While everyone in November was forcefully consenting to Twice, Gugudan dropped this banger out of nowhere and stole my wig. I'm not gonna lie, the first time I heard this I was kinda meh on it, but about a month after it came out, I came across the song again and hit a realization… that it's fucking amazing lol. This is so unlike Gugudan and so unique sounding from what K-Pop has been doing in 2018. Yes, the anti-chorus chorus is a bit overdone, but Sejeong's barrage of melody in the pre-chorus just zaps your wig outta your head and the chorus ends up serving as the place for the listener to take a break. The verses are a marvel too, the singers nail their part so well, Mina's rap lines are a nice warm-up to Sejeong's pre-chorus and that little call and response in the second verse is quite fun, I honestly don't remember a K-Pop song in recent memory that does something like it. Anyway, Not That Type IMO is Gugudan's best song, surpassing 2017's A Girl Like Me.
8. Pristin V - Get It: Everyone in Korea slept on it, and thankfully some of y'all in here didn't but either way, this to me is probably the sleeper song of the year. Nunu's powerful vocals work so well with Kyulkyung and Roa, while Rena and Nayoung deliver their rap verses in such a satisfying manner… especially that little rap break Nayoung has towards the end. The pared down mix with the subtle dirty bass, finger clicks and Nayoung's breathy rap make for one of the best rap verses I've heard all year. While everyone falls on their feet praising (G)I-dle and Blackpink, Pristin V IMHO delivered the quintessential girl crush song of 2018.
7. Dreamcatcher - What: While I do love You & I, I do felt that it was a bit weak… it sounded too much like an anime song imo and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, I thought that it wasn't the direction DC should be going. Thankfully, their producers agreed and with What, they went back to the harder and edgier sound that Good Night and Chase Me had. Their powerful vocals complement the harder backing track, and Dami's rap verse in the bridge is so fantastically molded with the backing track that headbangs are guaranteed. I hope Happyface/Dreamcatcher continue on with this sound coz it's so obviously refreshing in this cutesy and girl crush world of K-Pop.
6. Oh My Girl - Remember Me: So why did I place this higher than Secret Garden? Well, Remember Me takes the best qualities of Secret Garden and ups it by a couple of notches. Secret Garden from start to finish is so airy, full of whimsy and melancholic feels. Remember Me takes all that and blends it with this upbeat backing track that shouldn't really work, but it does. The upbeat backing track is so fun, and Mimi's rap verses are one of the coolest things I've heard all year… in fact, I'd say Mimi's verses make this song and without it, it'd probably suck. The song feels like a movie where the upbeat sections are the action sequences and the slow sections are the moments of character development. Anyway, this is definitely one of the best entries OMG has done and IMO, it probably should be in the running for SOTY but 2018 was just too dang good so it remains at 6.
5. Fromis_9 - Love Bomb: My rookies of the year right here. I'll admit, I wasn't sold on fromis_9 during their debut. Glass Shoes was an okay song but I felt that it wasn't too distinctive from the others back in 2017. To Heart was also in that vein, nice cutesy song that everyone and their moms have already done before. It wasn't until almost 6 months later when they dropped DKDK and this gorgeous human being called Lee Romsae appeared on my screen where I was smitten. It helped that DKDK was a fantastic song in it's own right, still K-pop but definitely unique especially against what everyone else was doing at that time. I'd also like to disclose that I got to meet and hi-five them at KCON so I may or may not be biased.
Anyway, fast forward to October and with Gyuri back in the fold they dropped this little bomb called Love Bomb and at first, I was very skeptical of it. It's uncharacteristically fromis but it sounds so alluring… but all my worries was lost and I learned how to love the love bomb when I heard the full song. The way it starts with this machine gun like noise, going to this sorta relaxed verses lulling you in a false sense of security, but the snares kick in and the bomb explodes. A basic ass synth pad anchors the chorus while the chorus gets you in a trance with its repetition before knocking you out of your haze and sending you to the minefield littered with Seoyeon and Chaeyoung's raps before finally kicking you back into the daze. And of course that bridge with Hayoung and Jiwon brings you that false sense of security again… the song feels like you're being forced to walk on a minefield where you can clearly see the mines sticking out of the ground while also showing you that you're almost safe as long as you walk through this path. The production behind the song is insane and I fucking love it… it's definitely one of the more interesting sounding songs of 2018.
4. Red Velvet - Bad Boy: Bad Boy is IMO, the best thing Red Velvet has ever released. It's just soooooo damn good from start to finish. It's got the right amount of sexy and playfulness that I don't think I've heard in K-Pop in recent memory. Sluggi's vocals harmonizing with Wendy's are a delight to the ears and that sultry backing track just hits with the right amount of restraint, it's kind of a wonder how they were able to really keep it from getting bloated. In a year full of high energy music, it's really nice that Red Velvet dropped something chill, to the point that I feel like this might be timeless and their most defining song yet.
3. Shinee - Good Evening: This being right here is not a surprise, and no I'm not getting paid by SM to write this, tho I wish lol. Nah, Good Evening being fucking amazing is a shocker imo. We all know what happened before this song came out and while I wasn't necessarily worried about their musical output, I'll admit that I was a bit skeptical. But here comes Good Evening and all my skepticism was thrown out the well. The song just grooves from start to finish, the vocals are fantastic as always, and it's just so fun to listen to. There's a lot more to this song than meets the ears and I could spit out the word vomit for it, but I'll save my fingers and just urge you to listen to it instead. This is definitely SOTY material and it's my own personal biases that unfortunately placed it 3rd.
2. Chungha - Roller Coaster: I hate that I'm placing this song at #2, coz not only is Chungha my ult(despite the Gyuri avatar as of this posting lol) but I also said that Roller Coaster was my SOTY the first time I heard it back in January of 2018 so I'm sorta biting my own hand by placing this at #2 but the thing is, and I understand this is cheating… I pretty much flip flop between 1 & 2 every hour of every day, and maybe at every minute even. I remember the first time I heard this, I fell in love with the teaser, it sounded so damn good and Chungha looked so good. The song is like a love letter written to disco and eurodance… there's no denying that it's just a ton of fun. It's literally been a year since this came out and I'm still listening to it with such glee, songs like these are timeless classics imo(and it being in the charts- for more than 6 months speaks to that imo) and Chungha absolutely delivered her best with Roller Coaster. Again, in my world this is probably a tie with my #1 song but for the purposes of being consistent, it'll be 2nd.
1. LOONA/Olivia Hye - Egoist(feat. Jinsoul) : And so we've come to #1. Again as I mentioned before, I flip flop between this and Roller Coaster every minute but I'll also admit that I lean heavily towards this song than Roller Coaster on most minutes. No, it's not my love for LOONA nor Olivia being my favorite LOONA member that's influencing that decision. Rather the music is just fucking great. Olly's low vocals are a delight to hear, especially in K-Pop where everyone and their moms are being forced to sing high coz high notes = great singers. But fuck that, that ain't true at all. And that's what we get here with Egoist. BBC didn't force the girl to sing outside of her range but rather she's singing comfortably in her own range and again, it's just a delight to hear. But on top of the vocals is this crazy ass backing track. It takes what was great with Odd Eye Circle's music and combines it with Yves new, creating this sultry yet dark song.
That piano intro is just unnerving and the verses keep this really uneasy feeling throughout, it's kinda painful tbh(LOONA theory says Yves ditched Olly and this is what this song is about so I guess that makes sense lol) and when you finally get to the chorus, using a delayed downbeat to fuck with the listener is just a great idea as it keeps that uneasy feeling while Olly sings about loving herself instead of Yves. But then that dance break, oh my god that fucking dance break. Praise be Yves for bringing that shit in. It's one of the greatest and unique things I've heard in K-Pop and I've been at this for more than 6 years. The random ass time signature changes are wild af and oddly captivating… it sounds like it wants to be a fucking mess but it perfectly highlights that uneasiness the song depicts. But really tho, this uneasy feeling is really the main theme of the song and there's so much of it, from the delayed downbeats, synths flying in outta nowhere, I could go on and on.
I'll just stop here to do a TL;DR and say that Egoist is my SOTY because the lyrics are actually quite nice, talking about loving yourself instead of trying to be loved by another. BBC not forcing Olivia to sing outside of her range was a great idea as Olly's lower register is a delight to hear. And lastly the music is just special and very unique, especially in K-Pop. There's really no other K-Pop song like it and is exactly why I stan LOONA.