HUNTR/X but mostly Ejae: “Golden”
The feel-good hit of this cruel summer. Ejae went through the grueling K-pop trainee system and flopped, so moved to New York and switched to toplining, writing for the likes of Red Velvet (“Psycho”) and Aespa (“Armageddon”). When some execs’ Mad Libs hit upon “KPop Demon Hunters anime” and the dollar/won signs on their eyeballs lit up, she was a natural choice to pair with theater dude Mark Sonnenblick to write “Let It Go”-like finding-oneself-through-song songs. Except the key heroine-embraces-her-destiny track, “Golden”, was insanely hard—not only does its chorus cover two-and-a-half octaves, the jump to the highest note is an awkward minor seventh, plus you have to sing it looooud. (Lily, arguably the most technically proficient current gen K-pop vocalist, gives it a fair shot, though you sense that if she really went for that “born” NMIXX would have to take a hiatus.) So the simplest solution was to just let Ejae sing it. Crucially for us biographical fallaciers, the song went up, up, up on the real-world charts, so that the text applied not just to the fictional sword girl but to Ejae herself. Now she—along with her bandmates, who get a couple of lines—is the first Korean woman to have a Billboard number one. Blackpink are crying into their Labubus.
Blackpink: “Jump”
Or maybe not. After a break for solo activities that went better than three of them could’ve reasonably expected, their reunion is an event, complete with a video that 1995 Mark Romanek would think cost a billion dollars. The song? It’s a new era, it’s mostly good (fast), it’s EDM-focused with multiple bits you can pretend are choruses, it lets the quartet show off their freshly acquired personalities, and it won’t remind you of “Party Rock Anthem” unless someone brings it up. Plus: vuvuzelas!
Shabjdeed: “Sa7bi”
It’s almost impossible to read the West Bank’s premier rapper’s angry, pained lament over being abandoned by a friend as really being about anything other than [redacted because I’m on a Green Card]. Sure, he’s sounded aggrieved since he took up the moniker in the late 2010s, but it’s not like he lacked causes for complaint back then.
CRXSHXL: “21 Century Funk”
Who better <boing> to make something new <clank clank clank> out of one of the world’s <bom-boing bom-boing> most familiar fanfares <some Portuguese rapping that as usual you don’t want to translate> than Brazilian producer [string of consonants]? It’s available in versions from “Sped Up” to “Ultra Slowed”, depending on whether you can spare 1:04 or 1:42 of your century.
PinkPantheress: “Illegal” (Nia Archives remix)
Forget Joe DiMaggio, Pink’s extended her uncanny streak of staying relevant to the kids for three whole album cycles thanks to a million TikTok handshakes. In purely musical terms, however, this rave remix is an improvement—the pace and the insistence of the percussion make it feel more surreptitious than “my family drinks soda and your family doesn’t, are we literally Romeo and Juliet.”
Taz Waves: “Enti”
The fusion of Sudanese triplet rhythms with underground electro I didn’t know I needed. The high whiny synth manages to evoke classic North African epics as well as… I want to say Dam-Funk? Meanwhile, the zoom-fascinated “visualizer” will appeal to Michael Snow fans, so there’s something for everyone.
Kamasi Washington: “Lazarus”
“Vortex” got the OP slot for the new Shinichiro Watanabe anime, but this is more happening and maybe the best track under Washington’s name. Breathless choirs lead to a series of ripping solos by Washington and uncredited (as far as I can find on the Internet) others, creating a sense of cool that matches what “Secret Agent Man” achieved in a more forgiving era.
Faheem Abdullah: “Saiyaara”
So did you know there’s been a second musical soundtrack hit running up historic streaming numbers this summer? The title power ballad of Bollywood’s highest-grossing romance ever (which by the looks of it lifts from every major North American romance from From Here to Eternity to “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”) has amassed 300 million YouTube views in two and a half months. It’s really old school, with a tinkly intro gradually building to literal sturm und drang with very occasional major key release, so it’s impressive how controlled Kashmiri singer Faheem’s vocal performance is with all the bitchin’ guitar soloing in the background.
Sir Chloe: “The Hole”
“An indie rock nine-darter”, says Dave. If we wanted to get technical, we could analyze how repeatedly hitting that C-sharp without surpassing it recapitulates her failure to extract herself from said hole, but I’m not sure that’s more informative than dropping figurative comparisons to increasingly abstruse sporting phenomena until it’s not fun anymore.
Lella Fadda: “Tarat Tarat Tat”
“You always want me available for you, like a buffet.” Feminist Egyptian(-Italian) rap, in which Lella flatly expresses how tired she is of the patriarchy, requiring permission for a selfie, casual domestic violence, him needing his mom to like her, tarat tarat tat.
Mic Raw Ruga: “Astro Jet”
Kind of a low budget Japanese competitor to “Jump”, except it’s about vacuum cleaners I think. It’s at “Bombs Over Baghdad” pace, with rapping that relies on enthusiasm rather than precision, which with rare exceptions (e.g. “B.O.B”) is the best kind of rapping. I just want to know if the brief switch to a reggae song in the middle is a real or fake sample.
Thukuthela, Jazzworx, Sykes, Major League Djz: “Uma Wengane”
In what’s turning out to be a good year for artists beginning with “Thu”, Thukuthela currently has half of the South African top ten, four of those with Jazzworx. No reason to do more than tinker with the formula—this is more 3-step that doesn’t overplay its 3-steppiness, the knob turned a little more towards “chill” despite the complex chords and drum patterns.
StayC: “Bebe”
The early 2020s’ most fun K-pop group bows to trends and goes sophisticated, yet they manage to do it goofily, rhyming “feeling type of way” with “ay ay ay oh ay”. When Sieun sighs that she “don’t wanna be a bebe”, she sounds so much like Jordy that it can’t be a coincidence. Dur dur d’être StayC.
Ghaliaa: “Barki Byesmaani”
Yet another pick from Saeed Saeed’s best Arabic songs of 2025 list, this time from a Damascus-born Emirati singer-songwriter. It’s nice to know that in troubled times, there’s a space for straight-up, breezy indie pop, complete with just-having-fun-and-churros phone video. Before getting completely lost in escapism, just note she’s fundraised for Palestine too.
Ninajirachi: “iPod Touch”
She’s Australian (and dances like it) and nostalgic for a song she heard in a post when she was twelve. Only it turns out that more than the music, nowadays on every streaming service, what she’s really nostalgic for is a way of living irretrievably lost once a quorum of kids got smartphones—the same way I’m not really nostalgic for the men’s 1500 metres heats at the 1990 Commonwealth Games <alright we’re outta here—ed.>
Wow! "Golden" makes me want to break some dishes. That's some wretched pop for sure.
To (mostly) quote a very bad song, "Nobody does this better"!