10 Incredible K-Pop Songs (That Aren’t Gangnam Style)

Girl’s Day are one of K-pop’s biggest girl groups, and they’ve used that position to do things that have gained them both praise and criticism.

Previous single Let’s Go was a motivational song encouraging young adults to study hard for their imminent exams, and they’re ambassadors for Plan Korea, who support children’s futures.

Their most famous song, Female President, is a female empowerment song, in part inspired by Korea’s current president Park Geun Hye. But it also has an overtly sexualised video, something many Koreans are very uncomfortable with. In fact, being increasingly sexy has become the band’s MO recently, and this has not gone down well with some in Korea.

Such is their divisive nature, they even drew criticism for a recent TV appearance in which they declined some dumplings they were offered, apparently in a rude and controversial manner. Indicative of how much scrutiny K-pop bands get, an obsessed Korean media dubbed the event “dumpling war”.

Nevertheless, 2014’s Darling was such a massive hit it got to number one in no less than 8 of the Korean charts, and it was all you could hear in shops, on TV, and on the radio for several months. If someone like Girls Aloud released it, it’d genuinely be hailed as one of the all-time great pop songs.