The High Three Okay-Pop Songs of April 2025

May 1, 2025

4

On the finish of every month, I look again at my three favourite title tracks by Okay-pop artists. I take my very own rankings into consideration, however there’s a little bit of wiggle room as sure songs are likely to develop or fade.

April 2025 General Ideas

Oof. What a month. Okay-pop in 2025 hasn’t been overwhelmingly superior to this point, however we have been on an upward trajectory by means of March. Sometimes, April ushers within the trade’s spring season and we begin getting comebacks positioned for summer season ubiquity. As a substitute, this April was effectively under common, delivering one clunker after one other.

We reverted again to a few of the trade’s worst tendencies: drained-of-its-color “beigepop” for the women, shout-chant posturing for the boys. An enormous swath of April’s releases may comfortably slot into these two sonic archetypes, and as somebody who listens to each new launch intimately it’s each exhausting and uninspiring to listen to slight variations of the identical template time and again. I do know the Okay-pop trade loves following (and following… and following…) tendencies, however I swear it was once extra musically adventurous than this.

Due to this sense of sameness, songs that stood out or delivered a punchier vitality immediately discovered a spot on my playlist. I do know the feedback have been blended on this weblog, however I completely adore TWS’s most up-to-date tackle their signature melodies with Countdown. It’s simply my most performed track of the month and provided the form of bombastic, singalong hooks I are likely to covet. I additionally need to highlight the newly-debuted Shut Your Eyes, who took a equally melodic strategy however in a very completely different approach. By drawing upon a mid-to-late-2000’s r&b sound, they immediately set themselves other than the group. I’d like to see extra of this from Okay-pop. The style itself doesn’t even matter so long as the songwriting is robust and the sound isn’t only a regurgitation of what each different Okay-pop act is peddling.

For the primary time this 12 months, there have been really extra J-pop highlights than Okay-pop. Whereas I couldn’t even cobble collectively a high three for J-pop in March, I had greater than sufficient selections this month. It’s been a gradual begin for J-pop in 2025, so I’m hoping this represents the start of a wanted shift.

Looing ahead to Might, I’m hopeful that Okay-pop’s prospects may even strengthen. We’ve obtained large comebacks on the way in which from RIIZE, BOYNEXTDOOR, Seventeen, Jin and plenty of others. No less than a few of these are sure to hit, proper? Proper?!?

Month Cumulative Score: 7.5

(compiled by averaging the scores of each Okay-pop assessment from this month)