2024 has been and exciting and successful year for K-Pop. From many albums from successful groups such as Enhypen and NCT, to promotions and tours that also followed up with the release of these albums. Many artists have had their most successful year yet and the release of these albums is making fans anticipate more. As many groups are advancing and putting out high quality music, this year showed global and recognition success for the K-Pop industry. Below is the list of the five best Korean-Pop albums that have come out this year.
ENHYPEN – ROMANCE: UNTOLD
From all of Enhypen’s other albums Romance:Untold is definitely one of their best albums and the greatest K-Pop album that came out this year. To go along with the album, the members (Heeseung, Jay, Jake, Sunghoon, Sunoo, Jungwon, and Ni-ki) put out a concept short film called “UNTOLD Concept Cinema.” The members put a lot of time and investment into this album and the effort sure did pay off. Their title track “XO” debuted at number 2 on Billboards Word Digital Song Sales chart. One of the members even took part in producing a fan dedicated song on the album, which expresses the gratitude and long lasting connection they have with their fans. Heeseung told Rolling Stone Magazine “I’ve been writing for some time, but since this was the first time I produced officially for our album, it felt surreal to me.” The album reached its success by reaching number one in South Korea, Japan and France, and reached number two on the US billboard 200 chart.
NCT DREAM – DREAM()SCAPE
Similar to NCT DREAM’s albums, Dream()scape expresses emotions such as anxiety and stress. These messages are covered by upbeat tempos but do not go unnoticed. Renjun told Billboard magazine that in “the title song itself, you can see that it’s titled ‘Smoothie’ but it means that we will grind all these bad ingredients and mix them into something positive.” The song takes on the topic of anxiety and fear but being able to turn that into healing and turning it into something sweet.
P1HARMONY – SAD SONG
Though P1Harmony have put out a lot of banger albums since their debut in 2020, Sad Song is definitely one of their most bold albums and really shows how far they’ve grown as artists. As they are becoming more confident with themselves they are experimenting with different genres and putting out music that represents them as a group. The members had a lot of hands-on involvement in getting everything in place for this album.Intak helped develop the stage choreography for the title track “Sad Song” and Jiung produced the track “Last Call” which has a rock feel to it. This album is a huge stepping stone compared to their other albums. The title track “Sad Song” won three music show awards during their promotions which results in a total of four awards that P1Harmony have won this year. I hope that with this album, new listeners will take a look into their other albums and help them succeed more globally as a group.
AESPA – ARMAGEDDON
Armageddon is the first full length album released by Aespa, followed by their mini album Drama. The two title tracks “Armageddon” and “Supernova” are both hip hop and dance tracks. Both tracks portray the merging of multiple parallel universes which shows an exciting and creative side of Aespa. With this album, Aespa has continued their lore of a metaverse which they have used AE avatars and the making of their own virtual world to portray. The album has had success globally and sold over 1.1 million copies the week of its debut, which is their fourth album to reach this milestone.
LE SSERAFIM – CRAZY
Following the album name, the title track “Crazy” has a very trendy beat to it which makes everybody want to get up and dance. The album’s theme is about going out, having fun, and overall letting your crazy side shine through, which they show through their fun and inclusive music video. To follow up the group released many remixes of the title track which includes American artist PinkPantheress, who is also a K-Pop fan herself. “CRAZY” is a great album to listen to when you want to boost your mood or just listen to something upbeat.