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forestsofpineI'm back home and back to reliable internet, yay!
Because of the trip, I'm a little behind on going through the New Music Mondays posts on![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
paradisediner, but I managed to check out enough songs to find five that have really stood out to me as being favorites of the first three months of 2024.
SF9 - BIBORA
SF9 was a group that was barely on my radar before BIBORA came out and now they're on my list to check out more, because I absolutely loved this song. It's my favorite new release of the year so far. So catchy!
Ten - Lie With You
Ten is one of my absolute favorite performers in all of K-pop, so I was super excited about his first solo min-album in February. I liked the title track, Nightwalker, a lot and (predictably) especially enjoyed the performance video for it, but my favorite track on the album turned out to be the wistful, pretty B-side "Lie With You". It did not get a full music video, but at least got a track video with a good percentage of the song and if you like what you hear in that, here is the full song.
CHUNGHA - I'm Ready
Alas, I wanted to like EENIE MEENIE better than I did, but the other song in CHUNGHA's latest comeback, I'm Ready, was damn good and catchy as hell. I am fully heart eyes over the cool waacking choreo and the effect of the long slinky braids whipping around to the beat.
TAN - HYPERTONIC
This is another group I'd barely even heard of that came out with a really catchy comeback this quarter that put them on my radar fast. This song is reportedly also one of the last songs produced by the late, great Shinsadong Tiger, who died in February.
Cravity - Love or Die
Another catchy and enjoyable boy group comeback.
I'm gonna give an honorable mention to Day6's "Welcome to the Show" because it's the one I listened to for the first time most recently and it hasn't had as many plays to establish itself in my regular rotation, but I liked it a lot.
Other Music I've Been Listening To
Somewhat to my surprise, I discovered that my widowed 70 year aunt is a K-pop fan via her Christmas letter last year. (I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, since she and her husband always had very eclectic taste in music and I myself am over 40 and thus living proof that you don't stop liking pop music when you hit the age of 30 or whatever.) We've been texting back and forth a little bit ever since. Two of her recommendations to me were Back To Me, by The Rose, and Luna, by ONEUS, both of which she saw in concert last year. I liked them a lot, too.
The triangulation between "K-band" and "RBW" led to me finally checking out ONEWE, another K-band like The Rose and ONEUS's brother group (literally, Dongmyeong of ONEWE and Xion of ONEUS are twins) at RBW. They had been on my list to try for awhile, and once I got around to it, I instantly regretted that I hadn't listened to them sooner. Yonghoon and Dongmyeong's vocals are gorgeous. My favorites of their songs so far are Rain To Be, End of Spring, and Universe_, all of which have been in my top 5 tracks on Spotify every month this year so far.
I'm having a hard time picking which of the three to embed, so I think I'll stick with "Rain To Be", because it was the first one of their songs that I tried and it was truly love at first listen.
Some other older K-pop songs I've had on repeat lately include (in alphabetical order):
In non-Korean music, a recent addition to my Persian playlist that I've been listening to a lot was Madina Kadamova's pretty cover of Sultoni Qalbam (Sultan of My Heart):
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe it was originally sung by Aref and Ahdieh, and it was also covered by legendary Afghan singer Ahmad Zahir, which I think was probably the first version I heard.
I hope you find something to enjoy!
Because of the trip, I'm a little behind on going through the New Music Mondays posts on
paradisediner, but I managed to check out enough songs to find five that have really stood out to me as being favorites of the first three months of 2024.SF9 - BIBORA
SF9 was a group that was barely on my radar before BIBORA came out and now they're on my list to check out more, because I absolutely loved this song. It's my favorite new release of the year so far. So catchy!
Ten - Lie With You
Ten is one of my absolute favorite performers in all of K-pop, so I was super excited about his first solo min-album in February. I liked the title track, Nightwalker, a lot and (predictably) especially enjoyed the performance video for it, but my favorite track on the album turned out to be the wistful, pretty B-side "Lie With You". It did not get a full music video, but at least got a track video with a good percentage of the song and if you like what you hear in that, here is the full song.
CHUNGHA - I'm Ready
Alas, I wanted to like EENIE MEENIE better than I did, but the other song in CHUNGHA's latest comeback, I'm Ready, was damn good and catchy as hell. I am fully heart eyes over the cool waacking choreo and the effect of the long slinky braids whipping around to the beat.
TAN - HYPERTONIC
This is another group I'd barely even heard of that came out with a really catchy comeback this quarter that put them on my radar fast. This song is reportedly also one of the last songs produced by the late, great Shinsadong Tiger, who died in February.
Cravity - Love or Die
Another catchy and enjoyable boy group comeback.
I'm gonna give an honorable mention to Day6's "Welcome to the Show" because it's the one I listened to for the first time most recently and it hasn't had as many plays to establish itself in my regular rotation, but I liked it a lot.
Other Music I've Been Listening To
Somewhat to my surprise, I discovered that my widowed 70 year aunt is a K-pop fan via her Christmas letter last year. (I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, since she and her husband always had very eclectic taste in music and I myself am over 40 and thus living proof that you don't stop liking pop music when you hit the age of 30 or whatever.) We've been texting back and forth a little bit ever since. Two of her recommendations to me were Back To Me, by The Rose, and Luna, by ONEUS, both of which she saw in concert last year. I liked them a lot, too.
The triangulation between "K-band" and "RBW" led to me finally checking out ONEWE, another K-band like The Rose and ONEUS's brother group (literally, Dongmyeong of ONEWE and Xion of ONEUS are twins) at RBW. They had been on my list to try for awhile, and once I got around to it, I instantly regretted that I hadn't listened to them sooner. Yonghoon and Dongmyeong's vocals are gorgeous. My favorites of their songs so far are Rain To Be, End of Spring, and Universe_, all of which have been in my top 5 tracks on Spotify every month this year so far.
I'm having a hard time picking which of the three to embed, so I think I'll stick with "Rain To Be", because it was the first one of their songs that I tried and it was truly love at first listen.
Some other older K-pop songs I've had on repeat lately include (in alphabetical order):
- BEcause, by Dreamcatcher
- Complete, by ONF
- Crazy (Guilty Pleasure), by Jonghyun
- I Can't Stop Me, by Twice
- La Di Da, by Everglow
- LMLY, by Jackson Wang
- Love Me or Leave Me, by Day6, and Lee Know's recent cover of it
- New World, by ATEEZ
- Paranoia, by Kang Daniel
- Tick-Tack, by U-KISS
In non-Korean music, a recent addition to my Persian playlist that I've been listening to a lot was Madina Kadamova's pretty cover of Sultoni Qalbam (Sultan of My Heart):
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe it was originally sung by Aref and Ahdieh, and it was also covered by legendary Afghan singer Ahmad Zahir, which I think was probably the first version I heard.
I hope you find something to enjoy!
