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Our Favorite K-pop Singles of 2025: Individual Ballots and Bonus Questions Come judge our choices! And also look at our answers to a few bonus questions about the year in K-pop music, plus some stats about where each voter’s ballot stands relative to the overall res…

Our voters’ individual ballots for the Pop Excellence K-pop list are posted now, if you’d like to see what each of us voted for! Plus answers to some bonus questions and stats about each contributor’s ballot. popexcellence.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/o...

Our Favorite K-pop Singles of 2025: 1-13 Now for the main event! When I made my predictions for the list this year, I told the voters that I had no idea what was going to win; then it turned out my one guess at #1 was exactly right. That …

Time to find out our winner! The top 13 for this year’s Pop Excellence K-pop singles list is out now, featuring many excellent blurbs from our writers. popexcellence.wordpress.com/2026/02/11/o...

Our Favorite K-pop Singles of 2025: 14-21 (Writers’ Picks) We launch into the main list after honorable mentions, but it’s a little different this time! We are going to find a way of making K-pop in 2025 interesting and unpredictable, whether it like…

Part two of the Pop Excellence K-pop list is out now, with our writers' individual picks! This year, I had each of us choose a song from our ballots to add to the list, so that we could highlight some personal favorites that didn't receive any other votes. popexcellence.wordpress.com/2026/02/10/o...

Our Favorite K-pop Singles of 2025: Introduction and Honorable Mentions Welcome back to another year of the Pop Excellence K-pop list, where I organize a group of writers and K-pop fans and tackle tough questions such as: What was the best K-pop music of the year? How …

The Pop Excellence K-pop singles list is back for another year! We’ve put together a good set of songs (despite what sometimes felt like active sabotage from the K-pop industry to prevent it) and are starting today with some honorable mentions for 2025.

hello hello hi hello hello.

i just wanted to speak into the ether and say that, today, i will be GM-ing an RPG for the very first time.

i am nervous but very excited and i hope people have fun

seems like there’s a good amount of interest here, yay! I’ll work on a more formalized pitch call this week but feel free to reach out to me with any ideas/suggestions in the meantime!!

i have little experience developing zines but i think im a very good editor and i think people would have a lot of very good ideas that i would love to read. If there’s interest i will put out a formal(ish) pitch call in two weeks or so

im thinking a two page spread per song on the album, to be done by one person or two. contributions could be literally anything: criticism (doesn’t have to be positive!) poetry, artwork, rpgs, absurd fanfiction, manifestos, etc

hello. i have brought this idea up in more than one group chat but would also like to propose it here: i am considering creating a carly rae jepsen zine to celebrate 10 years of emotion. would people be interested in contributing and/or purchasing a copy?

Flyer for ANTICS Issue 2 Release Party at 9 Monroe St. (Basement) in Manhattan, New York, on Sunday January 26 at 7PM. DJ sets by Young Warhol and Cutiefly.

hi! come grab a copy of antics on sunday night! i will be reading and will be looking for new friends at the same time, so if you come and see dagger-eyes piercing into your soul, fear not

YouTube video by jasmine.4.t Woman

this gorgeous jasmine.4.t song sounds particularly relevant today

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYg5...

what if i actually wrote some fiction this year…

if you’re in nyc, you can grab a copy at select bookstores in the city, or you can buy a digital or physical copy here: anticsmagazine.bigcartel.com

many thanks to tatiana for the opportunity & @beverlybryan.bsky.social for her edits!!

hello, im thrilled to share that i wrote the cover story (my first!) for the newest issue of @anticsmagazine.bsky.social. i profiled @pompomsquad-band.bsky.social, an artist near & dear to my heart.

im really proud of this piece & there are so many other amazing artists in this issue as well 🩵

wrote a blurb on my other kpop loves, kiss of life

I'm in this first honorable mentions roundup writing about Yena, my nemonemo love

As with every year, Kayla does a fantastic job rounding up some of the most interesting people writing about K-pop to create a year-end list that is always better than, sorry, different from the others! And it's always an honor to contribute.

i love when noise noises

hello it is me, one of the few who has been converted to ethel cain fan through perverts

maybe in combination with a year end list of some sorts if anyone might still have use for that. but it’s got to be done in a way that wouldn’t make you want to skim it!

i think, when i eventually get to the business of a newsletter, the first issue will be about how dullness has overtaken my relationship to music. the danger of tracking consumption, listening hours, lastfm grids. how i can barely read an album review without my heart skipping a beat. these things

Best of 2024 pt. 3 - Albums Attempting to revive the lost art of writing a year-end album blurb you might read without your eyes glazing over (at least not for the normal reasons)

ICYMI here's what I wrote about the ROSÉ album www.otherdavemoore.com/i/152688812/...

ROSÉ is Paving The Path for K-pop Stars Going Solo BLACKPINK's ROSÉ is the latest success in the ongoing trend of K-Pop idols forging their own paths, both within the genre and on the global stage.

Great piece by @thatchicksaywhat.bsky.social on the K-pop solo boom. Have been thinking about this a lot (as my ROSÉ review yesterday should have made clear), so was great to see some actual data and analysis attached to it.

hmc.chartmetric.com/kpop-going-s...

ROSÉ is Paving The Path for K-pop Stars Going Solo BLACKPINK's ROSÉ is the latest success in the ongoing trend of K-Pop idols forging their own paths, both within the genre and on the global stage.

I’ve been really interested in the recent K-pop solo boom lately, particularly as soloists from the biggest K-pop groups are turning their attention to the West, and are being rewarded for it.

It was fun to dig into the data for this Chartmetric piece.

hmc.chartmetric.com/kpop-going-s...

anyone want to have a torrid love affair with me that’s only communicated through forum posting on an uninhabited livejournal page

#Wrapped and Sold | Liz Pelly Spotify’s annual Wrapped campaigns make unpaid influencers of us all.

but anyway, wrapped season is always the best to revisit liz pelly's incredible catalog of spotify reporting (& pre-order her new book out next year): thebaffler.com/downstream/w...

none of you will ever see my "wrapped" "replay" "whatever" and it's certainly not bc i'm embarrassed of it & think it represents one of the most draining years i've had wherein the act of "posting and writing about listening to music" became emotionally and mentally taxing for me

apologies, im being informed that GATZ is in fact *not* an offbrand version of the classic andrew lloyd webber musical CATS but is in fact a full 8 hour reading of THE GREAT GATSBY

just arrived at the theater for gatz! i can’t wait to see what these feisty jellicle cats get up to this time in what will certainly be a regularly paced 2 hour show with one 15 minute intermission!

YouTube video by Creepy Nuts Creepy Nuts - オトノケ(Otonoke) 【Official MV】 [Dandadan OP]

doing a thing tomorrow, pls wish me luck for the thing !!

here is another new song that i have been turning to recently:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRwH...