i'm not sure i'm actually gonna end up getting around to writing reviews for these songs so here's just the list. i'll do bullet points explaining some of the picks after
uiruu's top ten kpop girl group songs of 2025
i've done one of these every year since 2020, though on my now-defunct sideblog @wickymicky. i'm keeping the same title even though this list is a bit different
Hearts2Hearts - The Chase
...what? yeah. and im gonna stand by it. give me a moment
let's address the elephant in the room. these are not all from 2025. i've sectioned off the list into two halves... the Top Five, which are from 2025 and are pretty solidly my favorite kpop girl group songs of the year. i felt very confident in those five, even if i couldnt really come up with a solid 6-10 from this year, hence the choice to do 6-10 with songs that are not from this year.
let's address some other elephants. magdalena bay are not kpop. ateez are not a girl group. ocean is in the "not from 2025" section even though it is from 2025. lol.
so here's the thing. it was a weird year for me. a recurring theme was i just kept finding and getting really into songs specifically from 2024 that i had missed lol. the ones i listed arent all of them, either, but theyre the ones that, honestly, a list of my own personal favorite songs of the year would be incomplete without.
discovering magdalena bay in january sort of set the tone for the year, changed the whole trajectory of it. i'm putting Image here because it's my list and i can do what i want. yes this is my favorite kpop songs of 2025, and image is a non-kpop song from 2024, but the story of my own personal 2025 would be incomplete without it
ateez are a boy group. i included a boy group on my 2020 list when i put Kick It by NCT 127, but i've excluded boy groups from every subsequent list because honestly i just wasnt listening to that many. in hindsight i mentally substitute Kick It for Black Mamba by Aespa when i think about my top 10 songs of 2020, because i had put Black Mamba as a runner up that year, and if i take Kick It out, i move Black Mamba up. but here i am again now, putting a boy group song. idk i was into Ateez in 2019 and somewhat in 2020, but i fell off. i got really into them again this year though, and Work just kinda fits thematically with the year i had. after a long struggle with unemployment i... got a job. so like. idk. i listened to Work a lot to psyche myself up. i hate working lmao but i gotta make that money make purse. whatever that means. idk it fits my year. yes, Work came out last year but i didnt even know this song existed until October 2025 so like give me a break
Crazy and Meow also came out last year, but unlike Image and Work, i did in fact listen to them last year. i didnt discover either song in 2025 like i did with those other two. in fact, i hated Crazy and Meow lol. i'm a big Le Sserafim fan, and Crazy really disappointed me. i was really put off by the cringe lyrics and shit like that, i dont know. but uh, idk. it won me over. a lot. as much as i hate to admit it, i think it might be their best song. while i first listened to this song on the day it came out in 2024, i fell in love with it this year. i associate it more with 2025 than 2024 because of that.
Meow is the same way, except with that song, i hated it so much that i didnt finish the song when i first heard it. i pressed play, listened to a bit, and then said no thank you. while i'm a big Le Sserafim fan, i'm a big YG (and associated things like The Black Label) hater. lmao. idk. so when i heard "now you speak french talkin bout 'we'" lol, i was just like no, i dont want this. i swore that Meovv, Babymonster, and Izna all sound the same to me and i didnt want anything to do with them. and then i found Hands Up, more on that later, and revisited Meow. fuck, Meow is really good. once i got into it i reallllly got into it. just like with Crazy
Ocean came out this year but it belongs more with this ragtag bunch of other songs i think. while High Horse, from the same album, is a masterpiece deserving of a top 5 spot, i dont really think Ocean deserves a regular top 10 spot, even though i love it. the reason it's here is sentimental value. it's accrued quite a lot of that, over the last few months. for no real reason other than i hadnt listened to it much beforehand, i started listening to it a lot when my partner and i moved from Rhode Island to Arizona in five days, by car. it was a hell of a road trip, and settling in afterwards took some time as well. coping with 120 degree days, no shade, no job, very little material possessions, no car (the car we drove to arizona with was a rental), etc... Ocean was the song i listened to the most during that time. it's a comforting song for me. it is genuinely really excellent, i love that it's almost kind of a waltz too, which is rare for kpop, but it wouldnt be here if it wasnt for this sentimental value. that's kinda why i place it here.
and then i might as well talk about my actual top 5 lol, the songs that i consider the best of 2025. to be honest i think they speak for themselves and im just gonna keep it to a few sentences each
High Horse - a masterpiece. beautiful song, calling it kpop does it a disservice. genius song. would be higher up, but i think because it's kind of a dense listen even in its relatively short runtime, that hurts the replay value a bit. it'd be higher if i listened to it more, probably. though of course as it stands, being top 5 is still pretty high. anyway its a masterpiece and if you said it should be number 1 i'd say yes i agree.
Hot Sauce - yeah i said i was a YG hater and then i put this here lol. i got really into babymonster this year almost completely out of nowhere, with no real reason for it haha. i didnt want to. but i did. anyway hot sauce is, i think, by far the most purely fun and energizing song this year. it's just a great time
Groundwork - what a strange song. i love it. this group is clearly not going down this direction anymore, theyve pivoted to more accessible stuff because that found success, leaving Groundwork as kinda their ugly stepchild that i bet most kpop listeners have never even heard of, but that's okay. Groundwork is mine, it was made for me. if i have to be its biggest, and perhaps only, fan... so be it
The Chase - it's an SM girl group debut. duh. stylistic and cool. probably a better song on paper than my number 1 song, honestly. probably should be the song of the year, to tell the truth.
Hands Up - but man this song just hits me. the reason why The Chase isnt SOTY is because there's just something special about this song. maybe it reminds me of Everglow's First and that's why i like it? idk. is it better than The Chase? who cares lol. like i listen to both back to back and its just no contest, Hands Up soars ahead. not necessarily in terms of like raw by-the-numbers music theory, but in terms of enjoyment. while i love The Chase, and its probably a better written and more innovative and experimental song, Hands Up just gets my blood pumping. and im a sucker for that. i love Meovv. me last year would have been shocked to hear me now say that haha, but i do.
what a weird list. i've got potential number 1s at 1st, 2nd, and 5th. and 6th too by the way, Image is probably the best song on this whole list. but while i can justify putting it on my list as a novelty, i cant justify it winning obviously, lol. anyway consider this a top 5, not a top 10, but just with some fun little bonuses of songs that meant a lot to me this year, even if they were released last year. they're 2025 to me.
