2025 In Review: Day 4 – Other Recognition

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By Jung Bae | January 30, 2026

2025 In Review

1. Introduction + Best Album Art
2. The Awards
3. The Honorable Mentions
4. Other Recognition
5. Concluding Remarks (January 31)

If this is your first time reading our series, the “Other Recognition” post is where we make up a bunch of “award” categories that you’re not likely to see elsewhere. There are some categories that may be reasonable, but here we run the gamut from the merely atypical to the downright cherry-picked. (Spoiler alert: there’s way more of the latter.) Naturally, the categories change every year, though some like “best title” tend to recur.

All these things caught our fancy for one reason or another this year, and it’s a fun way to recognize even more artists and their work for different kinds of excellence, or in some cases, give a gentle ribbing. (This year, one of our categories is more somber.) Most of these did not appear in the main series, so hopefully you will find a new favorite listen or two out of these selections.

Here they are, in alphabetical order.

Best Idol Group Reunion: GFriend – 우리의 다정한 계절 속에 (Season of Memories)

Best Multilingual Flow: Goldbuuda – Dugun Dugun Pt. 2 (Feat. Penomeco), specifically Penomeco’s verse two.

Best Music Video: As usual, there are a few that caught our eye.

AP Alchemy/Yoon Da-hye, Jeffrey White – 러브파워전사 (Love Power Warrior) (Prod. Hyeminsong)
Bibi – 종말의 사과나무 (Apocalypse)
Changmo – Holdup
Hanroro – 시간을 달리네 (Goodbye, My Summer)
Haon – 피가 모자라 (Hundred Reasons)
Jennie – Like Jennie
Jung Il-hoon – 미켈란젤로 (Michelangelo)
Lee Chan-hyuk – 비비드라라러브 (Vivid LaLa Love)
Nmixx – Know About Me
Stella Jang – 워크맨 (Walkman)

Best Recreation of Late 1990s Pop: Don Mills – 화끈해 완전 (Totally on Fire) (Feat. Zene the Zilla). The attention to detail in the composition is incredible.

Best Recreation of Late 2000s Brown Eyed Girls Specifically: Yena – 너만 아니면 돼 (Anyone but You) (Feat. Miryo), with appropriate featuring to boot.

Best Slate of Titles in an EP: Kim Il-hyang – 기계적 소통의 멸종 (Extinction of Mechanical Communication), featuring the dual whammy of “유압 절곡기는 철판을 타고 나는 꿈을 꾸는가 (Do Hydraulic Press Brakes Dream of Flying on Metal Plates)” and “반으로 잘린 저 달 위에서 그대와 함께 춤추다 보면 (When I Dance with You on That Moon Cut in Half)”.

Cheekiest Ode to a Colleague: Yumdda – The Quiett

First AI Recreation of a Late Artist: Deux – Rise, where producer Lee Hyun-do has recreated the late Kim Sung-jae’s voice and written a song directly out of 1998 around it – the first Deux single in 30 years.

Longest Album Title: Yuwall – 고마워 도시! 나에게 절망을 선물해 줘서! (Thank You, City!, For Giving Me the Gift of Despair!) is surely in the conversation.

Longest-term Comeback: Bae Chul-soo – Fly Again, which was Bae’s first album in 40 years.

JC Jieun – 밤을 잊은 내게 (Forgotten the Night) was Jieun’s first release in 8 years, and a welcome one at that.

Longest-term Self-Remake: Dr. Reggae – 여행 (Trip) (Feat. Igu), remaking the 1994 original after 31 years.

Most Bittersweet Tribute: As One – 다만 널 사랑하고 있을 뿐이야 (Until Always). The mark that Lee Min and As One made on the industry will not be forgotten. It feels like an all-the-more painful twist that critic Kim Young-dae, who penned the beautiful tribute that accompanied this song’s release, also passed away unexpectedly later in 2025.

Most Coincidental Release of Two Songs with the Same Title: Chanyeol – Upside Down and Ab6ix – Upside Down both came out on August 25, 2025.

Most Intriguing Missing Media: JunghongKali – 틈새연대굿 (Between-the-Cracks Solidarity Ritual), which was an album released during the summer by the self-professed “queer feminist vegan shaman” JunghongKali but appears to have been completely scrubbed off the Internet – though LLM queries still acknowledge its existence – at time of writing. Her book (on much the same topic) is still available, however.

Most Unexpected Turn to Latin-Pop: Kim Wan-sun – Hi Rosa

Most Unexpectedly Metal Release: Romantic Punch – 우리들의 미래 만세 (Future.exe). Where did this come from?