This year, K-pop broadened its boundaries and reached while injecting itself into current trends and sounds innovative.
While many acts raised their international profiles with releases that attracted larger audiences than ever before, the songs that genuinely soared pushed the boundaries to represent something more significant than just the stars who sang them, and the songs that genuinely flew were those that meant more than just the stars who sang them.
But do you know what is the most popular song among Kpop idols?
Best Kpop Songs of 2022
1. NCT Dreams: Hot Sauce
NCT Dream made a lasting impression on the K-pop scene in 2021 with the release of their first full-length album, Hot Sauce (even hitting the Global 200 chart). The title track, despite being a relatively simple song compared to previous NCT Dream releases, necessitates the use of chanting from the septet, which requires the use of personalities, and those personalities are on full display here to demonstrate why the NCT unit has become so beloved by fans all over the world.
With its use of quirky samples, unconventional lyrics, and stylistic shifts during each chorus, Hot Sauce exemplifies the finest of K-pop when it is ambitious and unafraid to inject the personality of its singers directly into the music itself.
2. BTS: Butter
Although “Dynamite” was a difficult act to follow, when BTS’ second English-language tune “, Butter” arrived on the scene in May, the septet reigned supreme on the Billboard Hot 100 for a record-breaking 10 straight weeks, seven weeks longer than their previous English-language single.
BTS’s popularity in American pop was solidified when it performed the upbeat song on some of its most high-profile shows, including the 2021 BBMAs, AMAs, and Jingle Ball in Los Angeles. In addition, it garnered them their second Grammy nomination.
3. Heize: Happen
Heize, who has established herself as one of Korea’s most dependable R&B sirens, reinvents herself with the support of PSY’s P Nation record company on the single “Happen.” Heating’s haunting voice dances over austere acoustic guitars before becoming a full-fledged funk performance as she ponders how accidental meetings may alter our lives.
“Happen” is Heize’s debut song as a new signing to the label. Heize’s emotional narration always stays at the heart of the track, regardless of how the music progresses; she is an artist who chooses to go through music on her terms rather than being influenced or directed by other forces or influences.
4. ONEUS: Luna
However, the Blood Moon EP does not begin with the voices of the boy band but rather with the representatives of traditional Korean singer Choi Ye Lim, who rose to fame after winning a televised competition in 2021 with her blend of pansori folk music and rap-inspired narrative.
The fusion of traditional and contemporary sounds continues with the EP’s lead song, “LUNA,” with ONEUS refining and honing the mix that it initially experimented with on the previous year’s “Lit.”
Bringing together traditional instrumentation and dreamy synthesisers represents a bold artistic statement for the group. Still, it also places them in a sweet spot that’s all the more impressive after experimenting with a slew of excellent releases this year.