K-POP IN REVIEW 2025: PART FOUR – Early 20s Skool
There was this strange moment that occurred during those early pandemic years in K-pop with this set of unusually lively new groups. Maybe the most significant of these was NewJeans, but with their ongoing troubles with their management they’ve been out of the picture in 2025. This notwithstanding, several of the other acts from this period have been keeping it real.
STAYC: these girls were very much the sort of thing I was talking about. Colourful, energetic, bubblegum pop music. Hell, they had a hit with Poppy and another with Teddy Bear and yet another with Bubble. It’s perfect at doing what you’d expect. I WANT IT from this year is still in that zone, as is BEBE. We’re going with BEBE because it makes you want to jump around the room like an idiot, but so does everything else they do.
LE SSERAFIM: the Fimmies are a bit more of a complex beast. Sometimes dark, weird and prone to breaking fourth walls on us. If you want an idea of the sort of brilliance that K-pop is capable of, LE SSERAFIM should be on your listening list. Where are they in 2025? A few places, but really it’s SPAGHETTI, featuring j-hope from their labelmates BTS, and HOT from earlier this year that keep it moving along. I’m going with HOT as their definitive work, not least because they coin the verb “to Bonny and Clide it”.
NMIXX: where do I start? When NMIXX first appeared, three years ago, their debut “mixx-pop” was critically panned. No-one knew what to do with it. It crossed too many genres, too fast. Over the last few years they have refined the formula, slowly explaining to us how the mix works, and gradually the genius of NMIXX has become apparent, and more than this, both visually and in terms of performance they are easily one of the cutting edge acts.
A few months back, Blue Valentine, their first full album came out, and it’s every bit as good as we might have expected, top loaded with Blue Valentine itself and SPINNIN’ ON IT, but nonetheless maintaining their standard for no skip album tracks: Reality Hurts and ADORE U being personal favourites.
Having said this, NMIXX also completed their trilogy of the Fe304 EPs earlier in the year. Once again this is top loaded with High Horse and KNOW ABOUT ME, and several more absolute stunners, but I’d have to go with High Horse as the pinnacle of their output this year. When it was launched as a teaser ahead of the album we were all blown away. There’s nothing like it, but then again that’s true of most of their output.