I didn't know Black Swan flopped it's really good, very melodrama. I also like CFMF, Want to Want Me, Kiss My Lips, Touch, FM (tho its not the best on the EP), and Closer.
The video for this is overwrought in my opinion but the song captures the gravity well. Only thing that kept this off the mainlist were the singers of BTS, they're a bit strident on their parts. Fangirls seem to equate that belting-screeching-falsetto thing with emoting and it's all over this track.
Seventeen - Mansae
K-Pop's first proper reverse harem group delivered two good tracks this year with Adore U and Mansae. They were too samey to justify them both being included, but Mansae edged Adore U out with its funky bassline.
Badkiz - Come Closer
Badkiz continues their streak of good songs with this delightfully cheap mess. The video looks like it was filmed through a glass of warm piss and the song clearly bites off of RedFoo's New Thang, but it speeds it up 10 or 20 clicks as an improvement.
Flowsik - Yah, Nuh
The lyrics to this are awful but the sonic backing is fantastic. It's another trap song but it differentiates itself with a theremin hook and a gradual transition from a minor key to a major one over the course of the song.
Big Bang - Bae Bae
G-Dragon decides to fuck around in front of the mic this time rather than behind the studio console and it resulted in the best Big Bang-related song since Monster.
Red Velvet - Dumb Dumb
K-Pop is a copyist genre, but it's also an imaginative one, meaning sometimes you get stuff like this that substantially improves on the source material. The switches between double-time and half-time are great and the production is awesome. Funnily enough, the rap sections are the best part of this, simply because they're the only parts that don't sound like this.
Pritz - Crazy Cowboy
Didn't quite buy into Pritz's 2014 song Sorasora, but this song has a much more instant chorus with some more of those awesome interludes between the guitar sections.
MAP6 - Storm
I like the extensive piano backing to this a lot, and Storm contains one of the very few decent boy band choruses to be created this year.
Proper chorus - check. Yeah I guess that's good enough for this list.
Flo Rida ft Sage The Gemini, Lookas - GDFR
That horn hook is Flo Rida's first decent riff since... Actually I don't remember any Flo Rida songs so I can't even come up with a decent comparison here, sorry.
Ariana Grande - One Last Time
This and Break Free prove to me that Ariana does this melodic pop thing a lot better than that hip-hop and R&B influenced trash like Problem and Focus. Only thing tragic about this is the wasted potential of this video's set up.
Gwen Stefani - Used to Love You
Sorry, can't tell you how I really feel about this song; Not while Gwen's watching at least, she's making me feel really guilty and uncomfortable right now.
David Gilmour - Rattle That Lock
Nice groove to this, and the choral sections are a nice touch, but man, that video: must've cost a pretty penny.
Kat Dahlia - I Think I'm In Love
I appreciate how this song realizes it's really not that remarkable and wastes no time cutting to the chorus. It's like a wiser Hello, and it's a lot better for it.
Kim Jang Hoon & Eun Ga Eun - Leaving For the Airport
This gentleman named Kim Jang Hoon's vocal inflection is modeled after some blues singer I can't remember at the moment, all I know is that I hate it. Worthless ballad, nothing to see here.
G.Soul - You
Generally when you've got a vocalist with a weak point, a good producer knows to arrange a song in a way that those weakness are minimized. Clearly the producer of You was a drooling moron as I can't imagine why he pushed G.Soul's nasally and warbly belts to the front of the arrangement and mix. G.Soul's tone doesn't help dispel the fact that this song is especially reminiscent of Chris Brown's early pop/R&B ballads. Pretty sure there's a rule in the producers's handbook that tells you to trash a song if it sounds like Chris Brown.
2BiC - I Will Love You Like Now
Boyz II Men were a terrible band who made overly-saccharine R&B slop, it sounds no better sung in Korean.
Ace - Falling Out
Nine Muses got a lot of shit with No Playboy, with deluded SONEs claiming they were ripping off Girls' Generation's Genie.This song has a lot more in common with Genie than No Playboy did, except for the fact that Genie is marginally more enjoyable than this dry cut of dance-pop.
NPI - Vampire
As if the incredibly dated club-filler verses weren't bad enough, watch the energy hit a brick wall with the incredibly awkward shuffled 6/8 sections. Almost as comical as VIXX's equally awkward shuffle-beat in Voodoo Doll.
f(x) - 4 Walls
Honestly the biggest disappointment of 2015, nobody was expecting f(x) to top the monster that was Red Light, but I was expecting a lot more than SHINee's View pitched up a bit. 4 Walls is the result of SM scrubbing anything interesting, different, or potentially off-putting out of f(x). Naturally Westerners ate it up as as it sounds like every other song over there, and every dry publication you can imagine praised it to the heavens. 4 Walls even made its way onto the exclusive playlists of high-brow and trendsetting establishments such as H&M. While not the worst f(x) single (You'd have to look at Chu~ or La Cha Ta to find a bad f(x) single.), 4 Walls was certainly the most boring.
Oh My Girl - Cupid
I found Cupid endearing at first as it gave me nostalgia about my days in marching band, but I came around to see how out of the pocket those snare drums are. Therefore it's pretty accurate to my marching band experience! Cupid is certainly no Bang!, in any case.
Big Bang - Bang Bang Bang
I remember I was at school when this came out and saw that reaction to the song was widely negative. When I first listened to it I was assaulted by verses that were kickass-ness of Fantastic Baby caliber. "This is great!" I thought, "People have no idea what a good song sounds like thes..." BANGBANGBANG *trendy trap bullshit* "Oh, yeah, this sucks dick".
Honestly either one could've gone on this list, there both good, I just chose Mansae because it's a bit faster and I like the bass part to it more.
Quote:
Originally posted by Halien4Life
If I got my **** together, Bae Bae would def be top10
Mansae is great ofc, but Akkinda is where the magic happens.
Western songs are...cute. Used to Love You and OLT are decent enough.
Like I said earlier, it was a huge struggle putting together an Honorable mentions list for the Western list, I don't think the really good stuff on that list starts until the top 20 in all honesty
Quite sure this page will go kaput if I post anymore videos so get me to the next page so I can finish the honorable/dishonorable lists and get ready for the Main countdowns tomorrow
Question, though you may have answered it: I know you have two countdowns, western and is the second one just k-pop or other Eastern countries like Japan? I know more j-pop than k-pop tbh