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.
January 2026 Overall Thoughts
January can be quite exciting for new music. After a year has wrapped up and its songs have been celebrated, we turn the page and look forward to new opportunities. We’ve had some very strong Januarys in the past few years (2024 and 2021 come immediately to mind) and these often portend a strong year to come.
Sadly, this year’s January was the weakest I can remember in a long time. Maybe… ever?
I said the same about last month and couldn’t even pick three songs I thought were worthy of a “top three” placement. I won’t play that card again, even if nothing really stood out enough to warrant a celebration this month.
From a numbers perspective, January’s cumulative rating is the lowest since May of 2020 — a month that was marred by infrequent releases. As far as Januarys go, this was the lowest ever on The Bias List except for the very first month of 2016 right after the blog’s launch when I was still figuring out my ratings system and tended to rate songs much lower than I do now. As a reminder, that January gave us GFriend’s Rough — one of the best songs of the past decade. No such luck this year.
It’s funny. I actively follow more K-pop acts than ever before, yet they all seem to go into hibernation for months before making comebacks at the same time. This has led to a few bursts of excitement each year, interspersed with vast stretches of nothing. We’re in one of those stretches now and I’m not sure relief is on the immediate horizon. Even the one comeback I had been looking forward to next month (TWS) turns out not to be a comeback at all but a re-release of an old track in a new language. We’ve got some big names lined up for February but so far none of the teasers have grabbed me and the artists themselves have a pretty spotty track record. Also, February is traditionally quite slow with the Lunar New Years celebrations necessitating another short hiatus for the industry.
The thing is, I can deal with a low-rated month as long as it bears a few highlights. In fact, this type of month is preferable to the ones that offer a ton of decent material but no knock-it-out-of-the-park standouts. January was both underwhelming and lacking highlights, making it a bore to cover on the blog. I tried to provide interesting commentary to uninteresting songs, but there’s only so much I can do with the material I’m given!
My top three songs of January are a fine bunch. I don’t think we’ll be seeing them in any year-end countdowns unless 2026 continues to be very week (please, no!). I’m pretty confident in my top choice and less so in numbers two and three. Both songs are very recent. One has grown on me, the other has fallen. We’ll see where things stack up in a month or so.
Thankfully, it was actually a pretty strong month for J-pop. I really like all my top three and even have some honorable mentions (XG’s Hypnotize, mostly). Also, my absolute favorite J-pop song of January (Kento Nakajima’s Kesshou) was ineligible since it doesn’t (yet) have a music video. Hopefully it’ll get promoted in February so I can celebrate it more.
As I wrote earlier, I’m feeling pretty pessimistic about February’s chances to turn K-pop’s non-momentum around, though I’d love to be proven wrong. With TWS off the table, we’ve got some big-name artists scheduled (BLACKPINK, IVE, ATEEZ) that could go either way. ZEROBASEONE’s farewell singles have left me cold so far so hopefully the last one will buck that trend. All I know is I really need a couple of 9+ rated highlights to reignite my excitement. It’s been far too long!
Month Cumulative Rating: 7.3
(compiled by averaging the scores of every K-pop review from this month)
J-Pop Highlights
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week One
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Two
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Three
New & Noteworthy J-pop: Week Four
TOP J-POP SONGS OF THE MONTH
3. HANA – Cold Night
2. PIGGS – Firedance Saga
1. STARGLOW – Star Wish (review)
Honorable Mentions
Apink – Love Me More (review)
ChRocktikal – PEACE (review)
CNBlue – Killer Love (review)
dodree – Just A Dream (review)
idntt – Pretty Boy Swag / Yes We Are (review / review)
n.SSign – Funky Like Me (ft. Peak & Pitch) (review)
Waker – Like That (review)
This Month’s Risers and Fallers
This Week In K-pop: Week 1 / Week 2 / Week 3
This Month’s Global Pop Round-Up
TOP THREE SONGS OF JANUARY
3. 8TURN – Bruise (review)
2. KiiiKiii – 404 (New Era) (review)
1. EXO – Crown (review)
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of December 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of November 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of October 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of September 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of August 2025
Top Three K-Pop Songs Of July 2025
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