As a lot of you may know, RYM is one of the most popular music communities online and it’s a really useful site for discovering new artists and genres that would otherwise be hard to come across. It includes music from all over the world, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to broaden their spectrum or expand their playlist. I’ve personally been using it for over a decade and still find it extremely useful.
Anyway, I was browsing the “Top EPs of 2025” list and saw that NMIXX’s Fe3O4: FORWARD EP ranked 16th out of thousands of global EPs released this year. I honestly wasn’t expecting a K-pop album to appear so high, so it was definitely a pleasant surprise. Scrolling further, I found ARTMS’ Club Icarus at 30th, Yves’ Soft Error at 58th, and Ten’s Stunner at 99th. It was really cool to see these names placed so high on the list since I enjoyed all of those albums a lot. Here’s the link to the ranking if you wanna discover some great music from non-K-pop artists as well.
That got me curious about how the rankings would look if I only included the K-pop genre and excluding everything else. Here’s how it turned out (note: certain Korean artists are excluded since they aren’t “K-pop” in the most traditional sense):
*All ratings are out of 5 (ex: 3.5 means 3.5/5)
*I excluded EPs with fewer than 200 reviews (for sample size purposes)
Top 100 K-POP EPs of 2025 (min. 200 reviews):
1. Fe304: FORWARD by NMIXX (3.57 out of 2k+ reviews)
2. Club Icarus by ARTMS (3.54 out of 2k+ reviews)
3. Soft Error by Yves (3.47 out of 2k+ reviews)
4. Episode 25 by Jo Yuri (3.42 out of 218 reviews)
6. Stunner by Ten (3.37 out of 318 reviews)
8. Glow Up by RESCENE (3.29 out of 631 reviews)
9. Bomb by ILLIT (3.27 out of 952 reviews)
10. My Name Is… by SAY MY NAME (3.28 out of 269 reviews)
11. Tilt by Irene & Seulgi (3.24 out of 675 reviews)
12. poppop by NCT WISH (3.25 out of 225 reviews)
15. Erlu Blue by ifeye (3.22 out of 239 reviews)
18. From JOY, with Love by Joy (3.16 out of 295 reviews)
19. Sweet Tang by ifeye (3.16 out of 266 reviews)
20. Only Cry in the Rain by Chuu (3.12 out of 1k+ reviews)
21. AIR by Yeji (3.10 out of 551 reviews)
22. Wait On Me by KAI (3.07 out of 237 reviews)
23. Accidentally on Purpose by Seulgi (3.05 out of 707 reviews)
24. BLUE PARADISE by ZEROBASEONE (3.04 out of 203 reviews)
25. A Flower Bookmark 3 by IU (3.01 out of 296 reviews)
29. Girls Will Be Girls by ITZY (2.96 out of 474 reviews)
30. HER by Minnie (2.93 out of 397 reviews)
31. GOLDEN HOUR: Part.3 by ATEEZ (2.91 out of 222 reviews)
32. 223 by KISS OF LIFE (2.92 out of 313 reviews)
37. Alivio by CHUNG HA (2.84 out of 364 reviews)
38. IVE SECRET by IVE (2.80 out of 385 reviews)
40. HOT by LE SSERAFIM (2.73 out of 1k+ reviews)
44. UNCUT GEM by KiiiKiii (2.69 out of 499 reviews)
45, We Are by i-dle (2.65 out of 394 reviews)
49. From Our 20’s by fromis_9 (2.60 out of 360 reviews)
51. Amortage by Jisoo (2.57 out of 821 reviews)
54. IVE EMPATHY (2.55 out of 670 reviews)
62. Rich Man by aespa (2.41 out of 752 reviews)
67. MY EYES OPEN VVIDE by MEOVV (2.33 out of 266 reviews)
78. Color Outside the Line by CORTIS (2.19 out of 244 reviews)
As you can see, there’s a huge discrepancy in review counts (ranging from 200+ to 2k+), which makes it even more impressive that certain groups with massive sample sizes are still holding strong scores.
Lastly, let’s not downvote just because your favorite group’s rating looks relatively low, or because you think they deserve a higher ranking on the list. Ratings are subjective everywhere. Just because you feel one way about a release doesn’t mean everyone shares that opinion. All the EPs listed above are solid to great works. So instead of downvoting or getting defensive, please take this as a chance to check out groups you haven’t given much attention to. Let’s have a good discussion and appreciate the strong releases K-pop delivered in 2025.
submitted by /u/GainImpressive8183
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