The Top Three K-Pop Songs of July 2021

At the end of each month, I look back at my three favorite title tracks by K-pop artists. I take my own ratings into account, but there’s a bit of wiggle room as certain songs tend to grow or fade.

July 2021 Overall Thoughts

Well, July was… interesting.

And by “interesting,” I mean unimaginably dull. Other than a spurt of releases during the first week and a smattering at the end, the month was pretty much devoid of comebacks. This would have made total sense for December, but July is K-pop’s big summer month! I guess you can blame the Olympics and music show cancellations.

Given my day job, this scarcity of music happened to hit right when I have the most time and energy to consume new releases. It’s a shame, but I tried to make the blog fun even without much to review.

Picking a top three this month felt like finding placeholders for a list that doesn’t exist. All three are fine-to-great songs, but none would have made my countdown in a competitive month. One of them isn’t even from July! It gets by on a technicality. I could say the same about my honorable mentions. There are a decent amount of them, considering the meager selection I had to pick from. But, none are really knocking my socks off.

Fortunately, J-pop didn’t take as dramatic a pause as K-pop, which is odd since the Olympics are actually happening in Japan. There were a few very strong tracks this month, and likely some that I missed. I’m putting Snow Man on top, and if their incredibly fun b-side YumYumYum (Spicy Girl) had more than a special dance video, it would have easily been my pick for July. King & Prince’s Namae Oshiete also refuses to leave my mind, and Fantastics ended the month with another strong single.

The K-pop dam is finally poised to burst in August, with almost all of my favorite groups scheduled to make a comeback. It’s gonna be a bloodbath in the best possible way, with lots to look forward to. So, let’s just pretend that July never happened!

Month Cumulative Rating: 7.6

(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)

J-Pop Highlights

ATEEZ – Dreamers (review)

Exile – Havana Love (video)

Fantastics – Drive Me Crazy (review)

King & Prince – Namae Oshiete / Our Great Journey (review / video)

KinKi Kids – Un/Pair (video)

Ryuji Imaichi – Future Lovers (review) (released in late June, but I missed it!)

Sekai No Owari – Tears (video)

Snow Man – YUAN (video)

TOP J-POP SONG OF THE MONTH

Snow Man – Hello Hello (review)

K-POP

Honorable Mentions

AKMU – NAKKA (ft. IU) (review)

CIX – Tesseract (review)

Jeon Soyeon – Beam Beam (review)

Kim Woojin – Still Dream (review)

N.O.M – Mega Punch (review)

Rain x Monsta X x Brave Girls x ATEEZ – Summer Taste (review)

SF9 – Tear Drop (review)

The Boyz – Drink It (review)

Taeyeon – Weekend (review)

Yukika – The Moment (with Pat Lok) (review)

TOP THREE SONGS

3. AKMU – Hey Kid, Close Your Eyes (ft. Lee Sun Hee) (review)

2. Dreamcatcher – BEcause (review)

1. Brave Girls – Pool Party (ft. E-Chan) (review)

Top Three K-Pop Songs Of June 2021

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Top Three K-Pop Songs Of April 2021

Top Three K-Pop Songs Of March 2021

Top Three K-Pop Songs Of February 2021

Top Three K-Pop Songs Of January 2021

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