wanted to pick some of my favorites of the year, so...
Best Song: Sunmi - LALALAY
As usual for Sunmi, LALALAY and its music video have plenty of meaning
as explained in this video, and she's consistently excellent.
There was a lot to choose from, and Sunmi's other song
Noir was also great. Twice's
Fancy was one of their best (maybe their best) releases, Lim Kim's confrontational
Yellow was excellent, and Mamamoo's
Hip and Red Velvet's late entry
Psycho were also fantastic.
Best Debut: Yukika - Neon
City Pop has been working its way into Kpop more and more lately, and Yukika's debut came out of nowhere and made the best use of the style for me.
Again, there were plenty of good choices, with Everglow's surprising
Bon Bon Chocolat and Bibi's
Binu (I preferred
Nabi) being other great debuts.
Best Performance: AOA - Egotistic / Siyeon (Dreamcatcher) - Overdose
Queendom had a ton of great performances, but AOA's cover of Mamamoo's
Egotistic stole the show for me.
V-1 was more underwhelming as a competition show, but Siyeon's cover of
Overdose was fantastic and completely turned the song into her own style.
Best Song of the Decade: IU - Sogyeokdong
Also wanted to choose a song of the decade and for me, there was one clear choice. This song blew me away in 2014 when I was getting into Kpop and it's been peerless since. A great stylish and emotional song about Korea's troubled history.