The 100 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time: Introduction and Rules
Readers, over the past two months, I have worked to create a list of my favorite K-Pop Songs of All Time. For over ten years, I have enjoyed K-Pop, seeing it blossom into a global genre with millions and millions of adoring fans. I have found K-Pop songs I love, made friends over the genre, and seen legacies built over the years. Some of the songs that have made me feel the most are from K-Pop. Given all I have felt and seen, I thought it was finally time to create a ranking of my favorite K-Pop songs of all time.
I don't claim this ranking is perfect, no ranking of this can be perfect. I can only claim that I did my best to provide my personal opinion, with my personal biases, from my years of enjoying Korean music. There are many more boy band songs than girl group (I just prefer their general soundscape), and many songs come from the second generation (2005-2013).
In a way, K-Pop is a bit of a misnomer here. I have included Korean songs outside of the idol sphere, and songs released nearly a century ago. The end result is a list full of songs that left their mark on me. I hope you, the reader, enjoy this list. You may (and almost certainly won't) agree with my ranking, but that is what makes a personal list like this so wonderful.
With that said, let us enter the rules and regulations for what has been qualified as K-Pop for this list.
- Any musical piece released in South Korea, or any of its direct predecessor states, AND/OR is predominantly in the Korean language, Jejuan, or any of their dialects.
- The musical piece must be lyrical in nature.
- Any song, single, or b-side, is eligible.
- This list is MY personal opinion.
- Song rankings may have changed since previous lists and/or reviews.
- The criterion for "the greatest" is a mix of my personal experience, the overall songwriting (lyrically, compositionally, and performance-wise), and the influence of the track in question.
- A song refers to a particular recording of the track and not the basic composition.
- Only one entry per composition.
With all this said. The list will begin tomorrow. For songs 100-11, they will be grouped into daily posts of 10 (100-91, 90-81, etc.). For the top 10, however, each song would get a post of its own.
I hope all of you enjoy this list over the days! Please give your thoughts in the comments, and I will gladly reply when free.
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Will be tuned in for this omg!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Una! Hope you enjoy :)
DeleteI'm glad that you have pursued this project after me and Nick. I think your list will really provide a different perspective to what the genre has done over its history, and what the socio-cultural changes have impacted over the songs that Koreans sing. I'm excited to see the top spots.
ReplyDeleteThanks StillBangtan! My list certainly would provide a different perspective than yours and Nick's, as I am sure you can see from the recent posts. I don't think history and socio-political trends were a major influence on my picks, but oftentimes in good songs, you can see the influence of the situations for the song. Case in point, honorable mention #125 (Lee Jeong Sook's Thinking of Elder Brother) is about the Korean independence movement, written in a subtle way to escape censorship.
DeleteBtw, you still need to finish your top 100, only 10 songs left!