2022 Mid-Year Freakout Tag: K-Pop Edition

It’s that time of year again (aka July), where instead of freaking out about books (because I don’t think I read enough to justify a post, but my Goodreads clearly says otherwise) I freak out about K-Pop groups and song releases of the year with the 2022 Mid-Year Freakout Tag: K-Pop Edition! It also gives me an excuse to talk about music and continue my plot for world domination. I know I say this at every opportunity (once a month at least), but seriously, I don’t know how it’s almost the middle of the year already?

This also gives me the excuse to write about some of my favorite topics outside of books because as much as this took a lot of work to refresh myself and choose each one, it was fun. And I could use a little more fun.

If you’re a fellow K-Pop fan and want to do them as well, feel free! Also, please link me or let me know if and when you do them because I would love to see them. (Assuming WordPress wants to ping me, that is…) You can also take a look at my 2021 Mid-Year Freakout Tag: K-Pop Edition as well. Let’s get ready to freak out about the K-Pop releases of 2022!

Note: Music is like books in which they are both subjective and differs by person. You might not agree with some of my choices and choose another song/artist, and that is perfectly okay.

Groups/Artists You’ve Been Listening To This Year

Sometime in January, I decided to get Last.fm just so I can have access to my stats and see which artists I listen to throughout the year, along with making my life easier.

• Kingdom – Admittedly, I think it’s mostly from History of Kingdom Part IV. Dann because at least two songs from them are on every single playlist Spotify generates for me on a regular basis.
• Woodz
• SF9
• Eric Nam – Sometimes his tweets make their way into my feed. I also have his recent album release, There and Back Again, on repeat since it came out.
• Taeyeon
• AleXa – A lot of this is me streaming Wonderland, her song from American Song Contest. (She deserved that win, do not @ me.)
• CLC – Sadly, they’re disbanding.
• (G)I-DLE
• Dreamcatcher

Best Song of the Year So Far

Let’s just say it was a time to go through my Korean Songs Playlist which is currently 1.3K songs that I should organize better, but all I’ve done is move all the OSTs to a separate one. While I probably have a lot on my list, here’s a few that I’ve really enjoyed!

Parade – Kang Daniel

I’m a sucker for songs that pull so much emotion even without looking at the translations, and typically those come with powerful lyrics that are meaningful as well (which is a nice bonus). Parade is one of the songs in his full album, The Story, and while I loved a lot of the other songs, this may be my favorite because it seems to be a sad song but it’s also one that encourages celebration of differences as well.

Wonderland – AleXa

Maybe you’ve heard of AleXa on the radio (especially if you’re in or have been in the US), maybe you listen to K-Pop and have been following AleXa from the beginning of her journey. But chances are if you’ve been watching American Song Contest (The US version of Eurovision), you may be aware AleXa was the winner of the first season with her song Wonderland, which I absolutely love.

Best Comeback in 2022

This was actually a little hard to choose since there’s a lot of songs that I think would fall under the best comeback in 2022, including Parade and Wonderland.

minisode 2: Thursday’s Child – TXT (EP)

I tend to have a love-dislike relationship with TXT songs, having liked their debut and not really enjoying their subsequent releases, but minisode 2: Thursday’s Child is by far my favorite TXT release to date. (I also like dark concepts for some reason.) All of the songs are catchy, and I’m actually listening to Good Boy Gone Bad currently while writing this section.

Still Life – BIGBANG

Funny enough after Good Boy Gone Bad, BIGBANG’s Still Life started playing. This song is their first comeback in five years, a comeback that’s long been anticipated. It’s also a sad song, though I think bittersweet is perhaps a more appropriate word.

I still can’t figure out the exact meaning of the lyrics themselves, though since they’re about seasons, I feel like it’s an analogy to going through life and watching the seasons pass by. Maybe I’m overthinking this or I’m off the mark completely.

Best Debut in 2022

I honestly haven’t been watching music videos in 2022 since I’ve had less time on my hands and needed to focus that energy on other parts of my life, which is kind of unfortunate but it is what it is. I think I’ve watched so many music videos just for the post itself, I might be burnt out at this point.

Like last year, I decided to go with one boy group and one girl group.

Oh no, one of the members got cut off. RIP.

Parallel Universe – NINE.i

If I want to be honest, there really isn’t a boy group that has truly stuck out for me this year. A lot of the music videos for songs that I have on my playlist are pretty standard in boy groups, especially with the outfits and the overall vibe if you remove the song and just focus on the video only (which is most of the honorable mentions).*

But if I had to choose one, it would be Parallel Universe – it’s the right amount of dark but it’s not falling into the standard and it was overall refreshing. Plus, I really loved the concept and storyline of the music video, especially the lyric translations. (Also, space! I suppose at the end of the day, I’m simple.)

I will say that the music video does start out with flashes for the first 3 seconds, so definitely keep that in mind if you do check it out, this link will go directly to the 4th second of the music video.

Honorable Mentions: Move by TNX, Thumbs Up by BLANK2Y, 1 of 9 by YOUNITE

*Watching music videos just for the blog post has made me realize why I generally don’t watch them in the first place now unless I have the time.

Shut Down – CLASS:y

Honestly, this was a toss-up between CLASS:y and ILY:1, but I ultimately went with CLASS:y because I absolutely love they went with an after-school club setting theme from the survival show this was formed on, My Teenage Girl. The music video for Shut Down was also fun to watch — I’m honestly wondering why I didn’t watch the music video until I got around to writing this post.

(I will mention, that I’m not entirely comfortable with the fact there are four members who are 14-15 combined with the overall harsh nature of the K-Pop industry as a whole, but that’s just my opinion. 🥴)

Honorable Mention: Love in Bloom by ILY:1 – The meaning behind their group is adorable and I love it so much, but I also really like the overall vibe of their music video for Love in Bloom even though it took some time for me to like it.

Newest Song/Album Released You Haven’t Listened To But Want to

• Chaos by VICTON
• Aria by Yerin
• Trickster by ONEUS
• Flashback by iKON
• Cherry Wish by Cherry Bullet (more like the rest of the EP…)
• Trouble? TRAVEL! by Adora

I’m 95% sure I forgot a few other releases as well because my YouTube Watch Later is currently going on 30 and counting from the past few months.

Newest Bias

Skipping this one since I’ve not caught up with any groups lately so I haven’t added anyone to my existing bias list.

Most Anticipated Comeback or Debut for the Second Half of the Year

There are quite a few comebacks soon that I’m excited about (most of them this month!), but nothing beats Girls’ Generation or SNSD. I know I once said it’s hard to say if they’re still active as a group a few years ago but I’m here to say I’m retracting that statement because they’re making a full group comeback for their 15th anniversary! (Honestly, this is the year for second-generation K-Pop groups making a comeback in some way, shape, or form, and I am here for it.)

They were the first group I discovered when I started listening to K-Pop after searching up the OST for Hana Yori Dango (better known as Boys Over Flowers or Meteor Garden), which led me to Hikaru Utada* and ultimately a rabbit hole from J-Pop to K-Pop. As such, they were my ultimate girl group (with EXO and SHINee being my ultimate boy groups) until I fell out of K-Pop around 2014, when Jessica left the group.

It’s been so long since I’ve listened to their music aside from a few songs, I’m definitely going to be going through their discography at some point before August.

*I haven’t listened to their songs in a hot minute either now that I think about it…

Biggest Disappointment

I truly think every song that I found a disappointment slipped right out of my head this year, because this was pretty much the last section I did… and as a result I’m just going to skip it this year since there’s not a song that was disappointing enough that stuck around in my head.

Biggest Surprise

GingaMingaYo by Billlie

This sounds like a nursery rhyme and I don’t know if I like it but apparently I keep listening to it. Does this mean I like it? Probably. I was definitely expecting something entirely different, though.

History of Kingdom: Pt. IV. Dann by Kingdom

I know I personally considered their debuts one of the best of last year, but Parts 2 and 3 were just… I was not the biggest fan (I like the music videos and the b-sides, though).

So with that being said, I walked into their most recent release with little expectation only to find myself thoroughly surprised. This may be their best album to date???

Song(s) that Made You Sad

• Still Life – BIGBANG
• Promise – Kingdom

Song(s) that Made You Happy

• Parade – Kang Daniel
• Zoom – Jessi

Favorite New to You Group/Artist

Bang Yongguk – He kinda just casually slid into my YouTube recommendations one day and I’ve been somewhat keeping up with his music. (You may know him from B.A.P.!)

Gaho – I feel like I’ve listened to his songs here and there but I never really went through his discography until Fireworks released. I think the same can be said for Eric Nam as well.

Favorite Music Video

Love Dive – IVE

Eleven might not have been my favorite, but Love Dive sounds so dreamy and the music video definitely fits that vibe.

Promise – Kingdom

I personally didn’t like Karma or Black Crown* as much as I did their debut, but their music video production is top-notch and I always look forward to watching them regardless if I like the title song or not.

Promise made me feel sad things the moment I heard the album and I wanted to cry and then they go and release a music video for this which really wanted to make me cry. Also, the way they tied the music video of Ascension to this one? Kingdom really decided to make this into a whole drama in ~8 minutes. 😭

*Ascension is also one that I wasn’t a huge fan of initially, but this very slowly inched its way through the gates of my heart.

Favorite Performance

I wish I could say I followed Queendom 2 enough to choose performances from the season, but yeah… that didn’t happen. Quite frankly, I don’t think I watched a single performance from any group until I started writing this post since my energy has been pretty low for most of the year. 😔

Here’s a few that I gathered together after searching for some favorite songs of this year:

• TXT’s Good Boy Gone Bad on The Kelly Clarkson Show
• Kang Daniel’s Parade on The Kelly Clarkson Show (there’s an intro, but the video starts when the performance does)
• AleXa’s Wonderland performances on American Song Contest (don’t @ me; she deserved that win)

Groups/Artists or Songs/Albums You Want to Check Out Before the End of the Year

I’m starting to think my list from last year was a moot point because it’s as bad as trying to read my TBR lists. I only got through one (and maybe two only partially), which I suppose is better than nothing, but I wrote that list thinking, “Hey, I’m going to do better than my TBR list, right? I’m listening to music regularly, no big deal!”

Sure, self. Keep telling yourself that.

Whelp. We’ll try again this year then.

• ITZY
• Mamamoo
• GFRIEND
• LOONA
• Seventeen
• Girls’ Generation – technically I’m not checking them out because they were my ultimate girl group when I first started listening to K-Pop, but it’s been so long since I’ve listened to a lot of their songs and also have I mentioned they’re making a comeback in August so it’s especially important that I talk about this?!

Let’s talk: tell me some of your favorite song/album releases this year!