AKF's Top 10 2014 Title Tracks

This is hard to believe, but this is the first time I've done a year-end-top-10-songs list. Don't worry, Akdong Musician isn't anywhere close to my top 10. I just wanted to scare some people.

10. Song Ji Eun - Don't Look At Me Like That

The only ballad to make my list this year, Ji Eun's "Don't Look At Me Like That" essentially fixes everything that went wrong with her debut single, "Going Crazy." The main fault with "Going Crazy" was the shitty rapping by Bang Yong Guk dominating the song. "Don't Look At Me Like That" is everything "Going Crazy" should have been: an ethereal rock ballad that builds up to an exciting chorus without the verses being dull. Ji Eun deserves praise for being one of the few idols who don't try to out-sing the instrumental, knowing when to dial it down to work together with the instrumental instead of fighting against it to stroke her ego.

9. Fiestar - One More



Fiestar returned with a bang this year after a subpar showing last year. This is a nice song with a hip-hop beat that has some funk to it. The verses are good, but the chorus is king here, with the "hana nanana deo" sticking in my head. I really enjoyed the bridge in this song due to the subdued synth beat, and then the song reverses back with its strong beat and a "decent" rap section. (I didn't want to cut my ears off, so the rap section was good enough.) One of the many good tracks Shinsadong Tiger produced this year.

8. EXID - Up & Down



Another Shinsadong Tiger track on my list. Get used to it. EXID's "Up & Down" features one of the most interesting instrumentals this year with that awesome saxophone. The song does many things well, such as working to strengths of each individual member and having a strong hook that is still stuck in my head months later. The instrumental is at its most exciting during LE's rap sections, but I am not a fan at all of her rapping. The only downside to the song is Junghwa's verse, as it doesn't mesh very well with the rest of the song.

7. Kara - Mamma Mia



God bless Youngji for reviving Kara. However, as she didn't actually compose and produce the song, we have to thank Duble Sidekick, 2014's Brave Brothers in terms of number of songs produced this year. This was by far my favorite Duble Sidekick production this year, as they strayed from their usual mid-tempo safe zone and created an insanely energetic song that doesn't let up until the song is over. With most songs you just hope the chorus is strong enough to carry the whole song, but there really aren't any parts of the song that bore me, which is why it's up here in my top 10.

6. AOA - Like A Cat



With so many strong tracks coming from AOA this year, it was tough to choose between them. Luckily Brave Brothers saved his best music for AOA this year while giving others such as Hyomin his throwaway tracks. There's not much to say about this song, as it follows the Brave Brothers formula that many of us have a love/hate relationship with. When he's on his game, his tracks are earworms and are hard to stop listening to while at other times it feels like he is canally raping us. The "lalala" chorus and the saxophones won me over, along with Jimin faux rapping. Make sure you check out the remix.

5. A Pink - Luv



This is the song that has grown on me the most this year. When I first saw a live performance thanks to Soyeon Friend and Fany, I thought the song was okay. Then over the next few days, the MV came out and I couldn't stop listening to the song. While not as strong as past title tracks such as "Nonono," "Luv" does everything it sets out to do right. The song has an addicting chorus that will get stuck in your head. Scratch that, the song has two choruses -- one by Bomi (El Oh Bwee Ee Lub) and one by the others (El Oh Vee Ee Love). My favorite part of the song is when Chorong sings the chorus near the end of the song. While she is one of the weakest members in vocal technique in the group, I like her voice and tone the most. "Luv" definitely made up for "Mr. Chu" in my books.

4. Epik High - Born Hater



This is as close as we'll get to Epik High being back to form. A sick beat and strong rhymes with strong featurings with Verbal Jint and Beenzino. A great song for the first three and half minutes, the last two minutes with those YG dildos drag this song down considerably. This is song of the year material without Bobby and Mino.

3. Dal Shabet - B.B.B. (Big Baby Baby)



How do you redeem yourself after releasing one of the worst songs and MVs of 2013? Team up with Shinsadong Tiger and release a very strong synth track that can silence any critic. The only flaw this song has is that it came out in January, so most people probably forgot that this song came out this year. I love the synth beat, and "Big Baby Baby" has been stuck in my head all year.

2. T-ara - Sugar Free



Yes, the MV is beyond terrible, but Shinsadong Tiger strikes gold again. He infuses a heavy EDM track into T-ara's magic formula, automatically making this a winner in my book. My favorite part of the song is that Soyeon is singing in her natural range instead of the high-pitched ranges she sang in previous Shinsadong Tiger tracks. It works very well as she's able to complement the strong bass beat with her powerful vocals, making the song more enjoyable for me to listen to.

1. f(x) - Red Light



This should be obvious, right? Kpopalypse and I didn't write a three-part fanfic about how great "Red Light" is for nothing. "Red Light" is an experimental song that perfects the "five-songs-in-one" approach attempted many times in 2013. Instead of trying to mash five unrelated songs together, "Red Light" is an amalgam of songs that transition very well between each other. We may never get a song like this again, a sonically adventurous song that perfects the Kpop formula by firing on all cylinders.