New Normal Streams

poppop - The 2nd Mini Album - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 NCT WISH For their sophomore mini album, K-pop boy group NCT WISH leans into love.  poppop  came out a little more than a year after the NCT subunit’s long-awaited debut in February 2024, and it bops from a place of youthful earnestness. In the onomatopoeic dance-pop title track, members Sion, Riku, Yushi, Jaehee, Ryo, and Sakuya compare love to cloudlike cotton candy, soda pop in the starlight, and juicy bubblegum, evoking a sweet, retro flavor of infatuation. The sense of wide-eyed wonder continues on tracks like “Silly Dance,” a high-energy song about letting loose in front of one’s crush, and “Still 3PM,” an R&B-inspired pop track about waiting for the person you like to come over. The latter song references Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s  The Little Prince , a classic story that also inspired NCT WISH’s SM Entertainment  sunbaenim  RYEOWOOK. Notably, all six tracks on  poppop  are sung in Engli...

Mixtape : dominATE - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 Stray Kids On the heels of 2024 mixtape  HOP , K-pop phenoms Stray Kids continue their tradition of more casual, self-produced “mixtape” releases with  Mixtape : dominATE . The project shares a name with the group’s third world tour: Dominate. Like  HOP ,  Mixtape : dominATE  is predominantly composed of tracks that don’t feature all of the members, with Stray Kids’ eight members breaking up into subunits to write and perform four of the album’s five tracks. In restless, electric guitar-led “Burnin’ Tires,” Changbin and I.N. are “running until the end,” while Han and Felix rap about riding Benzes and saluting fans in swagger song “Truman.” Bang Chan and Hyunjin beckon listeners to follow in head-banging pop-rock track “ESCAPE,” while Lee Know and Seungmin promise to keep singing in lyrical ballad “CINEMA.” The octet is all together for a Korean-language version of “GIANT,” a stadium-stomper that was first released in ...

Fe3O4: FORWARD - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 NMIXX

HOT - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 LE SSERAFIM HOT , the fifth mini album from K-pop squad LE SSERAFIM, is all about love. In the pantheon of pop music, that might not sound so special—but it was a relatively unexplored subject for the girl group that had previously sung about being “FEARLESS,” “ANTIFRAGILE,” and spending the “Perfect Night” with one’s crew. In the groovy, low-key title track “HOT,” the members will do anything for love: “Even if I turn to ash, I’m happy/So tonight, hold me in your arms/Bonnie and Clyde it, oh.” In “Come Over,” they beckon someone closer on the dance floor and, in “Ash,” they spur a lover to “light the flame.” The fiery imagery evoked throughout  HOT  stands in contrast to the relative sonic softness of the album, which is a shift from the old-fashioned hip-hop embraced in LE SSERAFIM’s third mini-album,  EASY , and the club bangers the members vogued along to for fourth mini album  CRAZY . The album includes writing credits from 13, the ...

  Accidentally On Purpose - The 2nd Mini Album - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 SEULGI

PLEASURE - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 TREASURE

Übermensch Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 G-DRAGON

AMORTAGE - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 JISOO Of the four BLACKPINK members, JISOO has been the most measured in stepping into her solo era. Spearheaded by laid-back trap-pop track “Flower,” 2023’s  ME  saw the Korean vocalist and K-drama actress become the final member to release solo music—to massive success. But the two-track single album was slight, leaving fans wanting more. JISOO’s four-track follow-up, and her first since departing from YG Entertainment and Interscope Records as a soloist in 2023, is  AMORTAGE —a portmanteau of “amor” and “montage.” This definition is borne out across the dance-pop album, which explores the reality-rocking attraction at the beginning of love (“earthquake”), the immersive capacity of being in love (“Your Love”), the sting of heartbreak (“TEARS”), and the power of moving on (“Hugs & Kisses”). All four tracks on  AMORTAGE  were produced by Blissoo, the K-pop agency JISOO formed in 2024, and music production duo The Wavys. Unl...

  PREZENT - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 ZEROBASEONE

WINTER HEPTAGON Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 GOT7 In 2014, GOT7 burst onto the third-generation K-pop scene to quickly become known as a group of charismatic, occasionally acrobatic performers of hip-hop-infused idol hits.  WINTER HEPTAGON , the group’s first comeback in almost three years, is a testament to how far the seven members have come over the past decade—both collectively and as individual artists, and after their 2021 departure from JYP Entertainment. The nine-track mini album includes lead single “PYTHON,” a smooth, hip-hop-infused track about trying to escape a powerful and toxic attraction (“I left my guard down for a minute/I never play with feelings, but I thought you were committed”), sharing themes with the group’s 2015 hit “If You Do.” The song was co-written and composed by BamBam, GOT7’s Thai rapper-singer.  WINTER HEPTAGON  also features “Yours Truly,” a sentimental fan song composed by leader JAY B, with lyrical contributions from all of the members. Past t...

Flip it, Kick it! - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 KickFlip The first major K-pop debut of 2025 belonged to JYP Entertainment’s KickFlip. Named after a classic skateboarding trick, the seven-member boy group is partially composed of winners from the 2021 survival series  LOUD  (Kyehoon, Amaru, Keiju, and Donghyeon) and partially composed of new faces (Donghwa, Juwang, and Minje). With mini-album  Flip it, Kick it! , the group joins the music company’s pantheon of boy bands, which has included 2PM, GOT7, and Stray Kids. KickFlip’s proper introduction comes in the form of “Mama Said,” a lead single that throws off the weight of parental expectation with playful pop ease (“Mama said what are you trying to become/I don’t wanna/I don’t wanna”). The theme of easygoing defiance continues in bouncy, pre-release bop “Umm Great” (“Who’s nagging again this time?/Telling me I can’t do it?/Fine, I’ll just let it slide”) and the Young K-penned power-pop B-side “WARRIORS” (“I really hate fixed...

HOP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 Stray Kids Mixtape  HOP —not to be confused with Stray Kids’ 2018 EP titled  Mixtape —is the K-pop group’s final release in a busy 2024. As in hip-hop, K-pop artists use the term “mixtape” to categorize material released without the level of promotional fanfare of a regular album or single; K-pop mixtapes are usually self-produced and may feature tracks that fall outside of a group’s existing discographic boundaries in some way, e.g., a focus on solo music. Stray Kids subunit 3RACHA (aka Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han) has co-written most of the group’s songs since their 2018 debut.  HOP , however, expands the self-production responsibilities, with each member getting co-writing credit on their own solo songs, originally performed as part of the group’s “dominATE” world tour set list. In addition to the solo tracks,  HOP  includes two versions of lead single “Walkin on Water,” an old-school hip-hop track reminiscent of BTS’s “Jump,” which ...

STRATEGY Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 TWICE Ten months after the release of chart-topping mini album  With YOU-th , K-pop group TWICE released  STRATEGY . The 14th mini album in their near decade-long career leads with the English-language “Strategy,” a smooth song outlining the pop powerhouses’ ultra-confident seduction plan: “I got you on my radar, soon you're gonna be with me/My strategy, strategy will getcha, getcha, baby.” Megan Thee Stallion, who is becoming increasingly prolific as a K-pop collaborator, features on the main version of the title track, lending her precise flow to TWICE’s buoyant pop: “I'm a man-eater, you just a light snack/I got him pressed like he's workin' on his triceps.” The K-pop collaboration is a follow-up to TWICE’s feature on the Houston rapper’s “Mamushi” remix, also released in 2024. Elsewhere on the seven-track album, TWICE gives their fans, known as ONCE, a holiday gift with the seasonally minded love song “Magical”: “I always hated the wint...

Like A Flower - The 1st Mini Album Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 IRENE

WISHFUL Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 NCT WISH

Stitch - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 DAVICHI

N/a - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 izna

YOUNHA 7th Album Repackage ‘GROWTH THEORY : Final Edition’ Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 Younha

"SIKE"!! - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 BIG Naughty

Happy - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 JIN In November 2024, five months after his exit from mandatory military service, singer Kim Seok-jin, aka JIN, became the last of BTS’s seven members to release a solo project.   Happy   is a six-track EP from BTS’s eldest, a tenor known for his smooth vocals and warm, sometimes goofy persona. As with many BTS tracks—both solo and group—the six songs on   Happy   are designed as sources of comfort for world-weary listeners looking for a “Dynamite”-level kick-start to, or a “Spring Day”-like reassurance in, their daily routines. “I’ll Be There,” a rockabilly pop-rock track that has JIN promising listeners he will always sing for them, falls into the former category, while the sweet ballad “I will come to you” veers closer to the hopeful yearning of the latter (“When the warm spring breeze blows/I’ll go to you”). Notable collaborators on   Happy   include Gary Barlow, the lead singer and primary songwriter of English rock band...