forestsofpine

Here's what I've been listening to this quarter!

Youtube embeds behind the cut. Videos may contain physical triggers such as rapid cuts, flashes, etc. - feel free to ask for details!



My favorite song of the year so far has been Yena's super fun "Catch Catch", a real throwback to quirky classic 2nd gen groups like T-ARA and Orange Caramel.



IVE was, as usual, reliably enjoyable if not quite at their best (and severely needs to stop it with the AI slop in their videos). The spaghetti Western twang of "Bang Bang" in particular weaseled its way into my brain. I enjoyed "Blackhole", too.



ATEEZ had a fun comeback with "Adrenaline" and "NASA", though I think "Ghost" has actually ended up my most played off the EP.



BTS returned with their first post-military comeback and "Swim" was ... fine. Pleasant enough. My early favorite of the new songs was "Body to Body".



And Woodz channeled Muse with "Human Extinction".



Honorable mentions include Onew's "Tough Love", Hearts2Hearts's "Rude", and Big Ocean's "One Man Army".

Other K-pop and non-K-pop songs I've been listening to a lot this year so far include:

• UFO, by ONEWE - I missed this in the Q4 roundup last year, but it's gorgeous
• Ich Komme, by Erika Vikman - I don't watch Eurovision, so I missed this until it turned up in TheBiasList's end of year global pop roundup, I remain a sucker for chorals in pop music and this is a particularly balls-to-the-wall example
• Hello Future, by NCT Dream - any lingering hope that 2026 might be better than 2025 lasted all of three days into the new year, when I woke up to the news that we'd kidnapped a foreign leader, but I've continued listening to this in a probably futile attempt to gaslight myself into greater optimism
• 24 Hours, by Sunmi - a favorite Sunmi song
• Hoida Mut, by Benjamin - this has been one of my favorite Finnish pop songs for years, and I guess Spotify has noticed because it keeps loading it right after "Ich Komme" so I don't turn the music off or something 😂

Happy listening!