Best New Music: April 2025

A ranking and review of the best new releases from K-pop, J-pop, C-pop, T-pop, and P-pop artists!

#20: ReN, Early Project 2
This EP sounds like ReN acing this assignment: “Show the world a sampling of your musical strengths as succinctly yet comprehensively as possible”! After coasting through the surprisingly chill “Riot” and the reverb-heavy synth-pop “Why so serious?,” he gets to the emotional climax (and overall best part of the album), belting out “Precious.” Falling action is served well by “Free to go,” which channels the feeling of fading away by focusing on just his voice and a guitar. “Chandelier” concludes the brisk up-and-down arc with a powerful piano ballad. Taken as a whole, these songs show ReN’s self-awareness of how to best use his voice while keeping the element of surprise through sound and topic contrasts. 

#19: Nasi Li & Ben, “So Be It”
This pleasant pop ballad easily persuades listeners that everything will be alright! Nasi Li and Ben sing with natural ease and equal footing; she never overpowers his voice nor vice versa. Just as effortlessly, their voices rise and fall in sync with the ebbs and flows of the gentle piano and guitars. The lyrics have melancholic tones, but the hopeful elements win out, as the duo expresses mutual contentment with letting the chips in their post-breakup lives fall where they may: “Some people are destined to be separated. Just laugh after crying. So be it.” “So Be It” has the perfect pacing and harmonizing to succeed at nudging the audience down the path of acceptance that a relationship is over and that its end is for the best. The warmth and grace with which Nasi Li and Ben address a potentially sore subject make them empathetic messengers.

#18: Marz23, “Łuvsick sïmp”
Marz23 brings his typical macabre aesthetic and punk edge to this music video and synth-pop banger! “Łuvsick sïmp” is the opposite of a sellout song, and his go-tos are still guttural screams and cutting lyrics. As he sings about feeling possessed and out of his mind because of the toxic fumes of love, he makes one inexplicable decision after another, including dancing miserably in a frumpy teddy bear costume, suddenly speaking in French, and dancing with zombie clones of himself! It ends without really ending, as the club beat grows muffled like it is behind a door through which he has been irreversibly dragged. He drags listeners along with him, under a hypnotic spell that proves his offbeat creative choices pay off! 

#17: back number, “Blue Amber”
As touching as the “Blue Amber” lyrics are, the music video speaks volumes without needing to say a thing. The main character is distant from (presumably) his mother. He beams while immersing himself in his drag persona, and his mom seems to eventually decide if drag brings him that much joy and is part of him that is not going away, she might as well accept it. They re-enter each other’s lives, and she even lets him apply some of his lipstick on her, and she does the same for him (adding a new meaning to the lyrics about a “crimson droplet” that was “never meant for other’s eyes;” it not only alludes to tears and blood relations, but lipstick). The video ends with him wearing a cross between a grimace and a grin, and whether he is about to laugh or cry more depends on if he feels more relief than pain (that it took so long to be fully accepted by someone he loves) or vice versa. Regardless of how viewers see it, his emotions are described as beautiful, tangible proof of who he has always been: “Hidden inside, where no one could find / You wept until you became this hue.” Putting a period on this “Nothing is wrong with you; embrace who you really are” message are the final lines: “I’m sorry” and “Hey, you’re beautiful.” The shame-to-self-love journey leaves enough details up to interpretation to allow the widest possible audience to project their own experiences onto the main character’s. 

#16: BOWKYLION ft. NONT TANONT, “Sometimes”
The “Sometimes” music video tells a story of true love through four chapters, two narrators, and plentiful reading-related metaphors. BOWKYLION and NONT TANONT narrate the story of Dom and Dana, and the audience watches it unfold with a sense of intimacy, like they are getting glimpses of a relationship to which outsiders are typically not privy. Those glimpses are of benign outings and only appear significant after the fact (after all, as the text on the screen at the start of the music video puts it, “The end of the world happens every day, in a thousand quiet ways”). 

Dom and Dana have simple date nights, from perusing a bookstore to taking a late-night walk around town. When Dana asks Dom how he would spend his last day on Earth, he replies, “Just like this,” cueing a montage of their dates. This is not the stuff of thrilling romance novels, but does that mean their relationship lacks a spark? Or is their relationship actually better than fictional ones, because it is filled with moments that are special to them but look so mundane to outsiders that they make writing a book about them seem pointless? In other words, maybe their love not being the stuff of romance novels is a good thing! While many of the book-related lyrics can describe a relationship that has fizzled out, they can also imply the opposite. Perhaps only knowing each other on “some pages,” contemplating not “finish[ing] reading,” and comparing each other to “an article that has been bookmarked for so long that [they] forgot to read it” are indicators not of losing interest, but in wanting to keep alive the chance to learn new things about each other! This explains why Dana leaves town without saying goodbye, leaving behind only the flower she was using as a bookmark. The token left for Dom to remember her by is a symbol of their unfinished story; this is a pause, not a final chapter. This ballad makes a convincing case that the truest love appears in understated ways and tends to not resemble thrilling, binge-worthy fiction!

#15: ME:I, MUSE
MUSE is a short and sugary-sweet showcase of ME:I’s sound and style. The title track dazzles with a cute and catchy post-chorus and a glitch-filled, mid-song breakdown that corresponds with an attention-grabbing, color-changing video dance break. Other fun surprises in the music video involve the members shrinking and then exploring a dollhouse, the inside of a jewelry box, a seemingly DIYed city, and a band rehearsal space (where a cat puppet plays the keyboard)! The B-sides on MUSE are just as chipper and charming, sometimes sticking to down-the-middle pop fare and sometimes featuring more hyper-pop-adjacent leanings.

#14: CLOSE YOUR EYES, ETERNALT
ETERNALT is the soundtrack for a lucid landscape to which one can always mentally retreat. When it does not conjure up an image of peacefully napping in a field, it conjures up the sensation of smiling and clapping through a campfire sing-along with friends. Unison, angelic videos and instruments lull and keep listeners in a state of contentment, and romantic lyrics and moments of voices growing faint add to the dreamy atmosphere. The songs offer the experience of gently awakening, as a good dream slips out of one’s memory to the point where its details become fuzzy, but one thing stays clear: it was indeed a good dream! A debut teaser trailer describes this group’s essence well: Their music is for “the end of a youthful journey” where a “moment fades” but “Eternity never sleeps.” That simultaneous certainty in the fleeting nature of the present and in its essence lingering suitably summarizes the group name “CLOSE YOUR EYES”!

#13: SB19, Simula at Wakas 
Simula at Wakas, which essentially translates to “Beginning at the End,” does indeed cut to the chase, wasting no time turning the bravado to the max! The P-pop boy band’s commanding voices in “DAM” and “DUNGKA!” are rugged but good-spirited and are additionally amusing thanks to humorous hooks. Their “look at me” nature extends to the music videos: “DAM” is an apocalyptic mini-movie, and “DUNGKA!” centers on a vibrant street party. There are 180-degree pivots musically, too. “Time” is a slow song about not fully appreciating precious moments until they are gone, “Shooting for the Stars” is a happy synth-pop song, “Quit” is defiant pop-rock, and “8TonBall” is rap-focused and chant-filled. In short, in no way does Simula at Wakas hold back!

#12: cosmosy, “Lucky=One”
“Lucky=One” is a cross-cultural bop with a jam-packed music video. The single comes in a K-pop format, but they play warrior-fairies in intergalactic adventures that bring to mind those of fellow Japanese girl group XG. Plus, they wear Sailor Moon-esque school uniforms when not in superhero mode. “Lucky=One” also has many head-turning aspects besides the fashion, including rainbow bursts of light, space travel via a giant bubble, sword-fighting a foe from cyberspace, and reacting to a computer user’s clicks. These clicks add elements of nostalgia (since they appear on old-school computer screens and pop-up menus) and mystery. “Do you want to erase all memories as cosmosy?” only comes with two possible responses: “Yes” and “Yes.” Text on the screen at the end reads “the a(e)nd of the world,” and the adoring fans that surrounded the group a second ago are suddenly gone.

Is this an “and” or an “end” to their story? Has cosmosy’s time on Earth with fans been in their heads, while their supernatural situations are the ones that have really happened, or is it vice versa? What has been just a product of their imaginations: being “normal” or being the opposite? And assuming that a user clicks “Yes” to erase cosmosy’s memories, does that mean their superpowers are erased too, or just their knowledge of having and using them? How much they know about themselves is unclear, enticing fans to stay tuned as they discover who cosmosy really is together!

#11: RADWIMPS, “Tamamono” 
“Tamamono” (“Gift”) describes life as a rollicking journey and has the lively ups and downs to emphasize it. Like the song, the music video is several stories rolled into one, although RADWIMPS stick to one main message: the tangled “bundles” of life ought to be viewed as one-of-a-kind presents! 

After treating life as a staged play in part one, with a literal play being implied through changing backdrops, and in part two, with people freezing and striking poses in public, part three sees RADWIMPS “take to the stage” themselves to rock out. They learn they should stay the main characters in their own lives and treat all environments as temporary stages for that character development. “When the time comes, we must return this life we borrowed and pretend as if we own[ed] it,” they sing. “Caressing… recklessly stuffing memories in at random… Why not make a one-of-a-kind bundle to return what we borrowed?” In other words, if life is what they make of it, why not turn its messes into presents?! Every day is a gift, so they make every day count, and they do not wait for some kind of cosmic permission to do so: “‘Is there anything that can’t be done?’ / No reply, then why hesitate?” Their moral of the story is to take any non-answer from the universe as a “Yes”! “Tamamono” draws thoughtful parallels between gift and theater analogies, and the video and song stress a shared message about making lemons out of lemonade - making presents out of the “bundles” of which emotional baggage consists!

#10: MARK, The Firstfruit
While The Firstfruit is split into four chapters, each one telling a part of MARK’s life story based in a different city, it can also be seen as a three-part story. Part one reflects on MARK’s early years in Toronto, part two covers his elementary years in New York City, part three is about his subsequent time in Vancouver, and part four is about his move to Seoul to become a K-pop star. But during the “New York City” chapter and continuing into the “Vancouver” one, MARK veers away from being autobiographical. He explores his memories through others’ shoes, as TV and movie characters. He plays a spy in “Fraktsiya,” appears within the in-flight movie screen in the visualizer for “Loser,” and references Thelma & Louise in “Watching TV.” And notably, the “1999” music video setting is a film set. MARK seems to be of the mind that “If I’m going to tell my life story, I’d better tell it with the most vivid details possible,” and comparisons to fictional stories help him do that. At the same time, the purpose of his recollections is self-serving - which is not a bad thing! He comes across as less interested in being relatable to the masses and more interested in re-familiarizing himself with the specific things, people, and places that have shaped him. Some songs reference biblical proverbs and his Christian faith; spoken-word skits tell parts of his story, including a particularly special one featuring his mom’s piano-playing; the person he most frequently interacts with in the “1999” video is a younger version of himself; and some lyrics make obvious that their intent is not to be relatable (who else can tout being in two music groups at once, as he does in “Righteous”?!). MARK tells his story on his own terms, rather than tailoring it to resonate widely; his first priority is properly, fully introducing himself, and gaining people’s understanding is secondary. At the same time, his specificity does not make the album boring, thanks to unconventional ways with words and genre-hopping. Plus, there are times when MARK connects personal circumstances to widely-remembered experiences. The best example is “1999,” a funk-pop blast that likens his “breaking the internet” since the year he was born to the “Brain slap” that was the “Y2K Panic”!

#9: PoLin, “Arrow, After Me”
“Arrow, After Me” astounds from the very first to the very last second. After piano and relatively faint strings accompany PoLin’s high voice, the instrumental swells into something fuller and more momentous, and his tone grows rougher, louder, and more anguished. The palpable suspense is repeatedly knocked down and rebuilt, as he sings about endlessly retrying to succeed. He describes the hope that lives within him due to pros coinciding with the cons in life: “You know, being born in the world / How beautiful and sad / How lonely and short / How fragile and strong… How much you fail, the more you want to love.” He believes “It’s just impossible to be completely disgusted with the world,” which is why his anguish never turns to apathy, and it is why he spends the video duration slowly crawling towards a lone flower. The video ends with someone’s foot stomping on that flower before he can get into grasping distance, and the stomp coincides with the song’s final grunt. The finale is especially blunt given the resurgences of faith that his voice and the instruments repeatedly implied. After doing justice to the heaviness of experiencing what feels like a last stand that gets followed by a second and third wind, the song also does justice to the gut punch that occurs when all efforts appear suddenly worthless. 

#8: Jeff Satur, “Lost and Found”
“Lost and Found” combines the easy-listening pleasure of “Almost Over You” with the richer soundscapes of Jeff Satur’s ballads, like “Lucid” and “Ghost.” He delivers the best of both worlds musically, and visually, his storytelling is as striking and sure of itself as ever. He weaves another timeless tale, with an aesthetic suitable for a centuries-old, illustrated fantasy book but a message with eternal relevance. The expected air of nostalgia is instead its antithesis, an acute sense of tension and bitter remorse. Hope is present too, but not from the “princess” and “prince” falling in love. Instead, hope lingers because an alternate-dimension version of Jeff Satur frees the “weary traveler” version, after the latter is put in a glass box by the “princess” character.

Jeff Satur mourns not what a relationship used to be but what he used to think it was, a beautiful picture that he wishes his mind had never painted. In a refreshing contrast to the common “I’ll learn a valuable lesson from this!” stance, Satur describes being worse off for having known someone, period: “Had the love never prospered / Starting over would’ve been easier.” As nice as it seems to experience freedom upon release from the glass box, he would not let his ex-lover put him there were he to get a do-over. He digs for something deeper than just the roots of where the relationship became deceptive. He wants to find the roots of himself: “I beg myself to recall who I was / Before my heart fell apart.” This adds a layer of meaning to the final line, “I wonder how beautiful it was.” “It” could be the relationship or his identity. Either way, he mourns something beyond a relationship’s end, and even beyond the roots of its discontent: Satur mourns the inability to trust his own memories. When something is built on falsehoods and the truth emerges, how can one feel certain that any of their falsehood-affiliated memories are real, especially when one has lived multiple lives (literally in the video, metaphorically in reality)?

“Lost and Found” excels in Jeff Satur’s musical sweet spots and dives deep into the contents of a world-shattering event’s innermost outcomes.

#7: CHEEZE, It just happened
CHEEZE sings about getting butterflies in her stomach over a crush, daydreams about days with her lover, and grows flustered about making a move (so much so that when the call she has eagerly been waiting for is finally returned, she feels too unprepared and frazzled to pick up the phone! “I’m going to be dizzy / I don’t think I can… I haven’t found anything to say yet,” she frets in “RingRing”). She spends less time telling a love story and more time describing a pre-relationship phase, when strong thoughts and feelings are there but corresponding actions are not! Her self-harmonizing and frequent “Mmm”s make it sound like she is daydreaming out loud. She mentions drawing images of what a relationship could look like, in “Us back then” (“I drew the season called ‘You’”) and “Truly” (“Every night / Drawing your face”). Some of the songs strike a slower, more serious tone, while others mix serious messages with perkiness, like “Mask girl.” The sound-effect-filled pop song has some of her most candid confessions, like “I’m not ready to break / Free from here inside my mind.” She worries that taking off her mask and showing the real her to her crush will scare that person away. Then again, she realizes that maybe she doesn’t have to think of herself as wearing a mask at all: “Maybe this is me, myself, and I;” “I can be anything / Actually, I have / Never tried to hide something from you.” She realizes there is nothing to fear about being “exposed” if she is simply always herself. It just happened is a lovable ode to love itself, and it humbly emphasizes the mental preparation that comes before expressing it!

#6: LUCY, WAJANGCHANG
WAJANGCHANG benefits from its mix of maturity and immaturity. LUCY are childlike in all the best ways, depicting youth’s ups and downs through vibrant and frenetic animations in the “Hippo” music video. The hippo represents a feeling LUCY cannot escape or deny, and its distracting nature is why they fear confronting it! Indeed, the main character in the music video runs away from a grinning hippo! This forces the shy boy to run in the direction of a shop his crush works at, and as he blushes and approaches the counter, the hippo winks and then appears as just a photo on the wall! The hippo has led the boy to face his crush, and confessing his feelings for her ends happily! 

As for the B-sides, they show LUCY’s range and skill at incorporating string instruments into pop formulas. “Wakey-Wakey” is a standout and testament to LUCY being at their best when acting childish! As instruments start and stop for dramatic effect, they insist waking up early without struggling is impossible: “Miracle mornings that I’ve only heard through rumors… Bye-bye, I’ll come back soon, my bedding!” With WAJANGCHANG, LUCY show musical growth but act more juvenile than ever! 

#5: CHUU, Only cry in the rain
Only cry in the rain is a wholesome and wholehearted tribute to the special bond between best friends. In the title track, CHUU celebrates what feels like just a “world for two,” and as the music video attests, that is a world where she plays with a friend while treating a potential love interest as merely the third wheel! She soaks in every second with her bestie, saving her tears for the times when they are apart. CHUU also shows the immense value she places on a specific relationship through the B-sides. There is a persistent “just between us” sentiment, as she talks in ways others might not understand. It doesn’t matter if others do not get her sense of humor (the one she shows in “Kiss a kitty”) or the depth of her affection (which is apparent in “Je t’aime”). Her songs are like phone conversations, especially when she excitedly reveals she’s “Back in town,” and when she offers someone encouragement to have pride in individuality in “No more.” The sacredness with which she views her friendship is further evident with the angel wings and 2D scenes in the music video. The bond she sings about is too precious to be accurately captured in just one dimension or a series of realistic scenes!

#4: [Alexandros], PROVOKE
PROVOKE is aptly titled! This rock album is an emotionally unstable series of outbursts, with lyrics that read like unhinged poetry and instruments that are often escalatory, gathering the momentum of running down a hill. (This “quickly snowballing out of control” feeling is best captured by “Coffee Float.”) There is depth beneath the tantrums, though, as best summed up in “EVERYBODY KNOWS”: “Someday we’ll fade away / Everybody knows / In the end it’s another day… Let the words come out / Until it becomes real.” The song helps listeners see, “Oh, so that’s what this is all about!” [Alexandros] feel an urgency to spill their guts, turn their ideals into reality, and do both before it is too late. They cannot be hasty about turning days from ordinary into extraordinary, and their songs convey a frantic and deep-seated fear of opportunities going to waste. As “JULIUS” puts it, “With just one second [of a] difference,” the past could change into “a trash can”! The turbulent psyche of this album is skillfully revealed, in moments that drip with irony (for example, “WITH ALL DUE RESPECT” makes its polite request through lots of yelling!) as much as in moments that are as earnest as it gets (the final track, “Afterschool,” includes lines like “I wish the world was my friend”).

While PROVOKE is the epitome of “acting out,” the zigzags lead down intersecting paths. Songs routinely allude to each other, capturing the cyclical nature of thought spirals. “Feel like a sky of vanilla,” they say in “Boy Fearless;” “Vanilla sky don’t make me high,” they say in “VANILLA SKY 2.” “Let’s… just stay cool, my friend,” they say in “FABRIC YOUTH;” “When I cooled down, I didn’t feel anything,” they lament in “Samechau;” and they wish the world would be their “friend” in “Afterschool.” “How many different yesterdays were there that were stuck?,” they ask in “Samechau;” “You just stuck in my head,” they say in “VANILLA SKY 2;” “I know the sound will never leave my head,” they say in “Backseat.” Their thoughts follow loop-de-loops, but ones that are ambitious instead of aimless.

#3: Kwon Jin Ah, The Dreamest
With stunning balladry and R&B-leaning pop songs alike, Kwon Jin Ah communicates love’s complexities and contradictions. The Dreamest has several recurring themes: trying to postpone the unpacking of messy emotions for tomorrow, recognizing on some level that a relationship will never go back to the way it was, and feeling pulled in opposite directions at the same time. That last theme comes across with some key words: “clumsy,” which is how Kwon Jin Ah describes her expectations in “stillmissu” and her wistful memories in “How have you been” (“I can never love like we did back then / The clumsy, precious times we had / Why didn’t I realize that back then?”); “youth,” and she mentions still feeling immature and inexperienced in “How have you been” (“You keep smiling like an adult, and it feels awkward”) and “Dear My Childhood” (“adults for the first time”); and “pathways,” which she embraces in “Turning Page” (“On this open road / I leave behind a bold new footprint”), acknowledges in “How have you been” (“we’re on different paths now”), and goes back to embracing in “Wonderland” (“I’m not familiar with the fixed road / Leave it to me”). Tying together the descriptions of clumsiness, youth, and paths unknown is the sense of being out of her depth. Kwon Jin Ah cannot make up her mind, wanting to be held close to the same person who she wants to never see again and identifying the source of her laughter and her tears as being the same. “No one ever made me laugh like you did / No one ever made me cry like you did,” she says in “How have you been.” “Don’t hold me,” she insists in “Let me go,” before pleading “hold me tight now” in “stillmissu.” And in “Love & Hate,” she sings, “I hate you, I love you / Even though it makes me sad, I want to fall into your arms.” Dueling emotions remain acute throughout The Dreamest’s corresponding music videos, especially “How have you been.” The main character keeps showing up for his crush in her darkest hours even after she marries someone else. It speaks to the enduring power of true love, a force that compels people to do anything for someone, even if - maybe especially if - they seem to win nothing for it. 

#2: Sakurazaka46, Addiction (Complete Edition)
In “Go big or go home” fashion, Addiction (Complete Edition) compiles Sakurazaka46’s best and most electrifying songs from the past few years, separates them with new and dynamic interludes, and orders them in a way that represents the ups and downs of adolescence accurately. 

The anticipation rapidly escalates in “Interlude #1,” which barrels into the adrenaline-boosting electronic/industrial “Shoninyokkyu” (referring to “esteem needs”).

The solemn “Interlude #2” leads into a state of nuanced languishing. They express neither wanting to cheer up nor paint the past as rosier than it actually was in “Ikutsunokoronimodoritainoka?” “Cool” mixes the melancholy of “Interlude #2” with enthusiasm that “I want tomorrow to come” builds on, with frenzied drums and guitars, despite a gloomy intro and bleak lyrics about childhood fears.

Parts three and four emphasize razzle-dazzle, with brassy, fast-paced, party-ready tunes that are led into with the funky, layered “Interlude #3.” But melancholy is part of “Interlude #4” and seeps in again in the wistful ballad “TOKYO SNOW.”

Part five begins with an interlude that is essentially an extension of the song it prefaces, “UDAGAWA GENERATION,” which is about wanting to stay playful forever! The next three songs have racing instrumentals that reiterate Sakurazaka46’s belief that they have to grow up too fast. They end back on a wistful note, comparing shedding old versions of themselves to removing rust. 

The “Ready to start anew” message carries over into part six, which doesn’t ignore how they come up short in living by those words. “Interlude #6” is a scattered, impromptu, jazzy piano session. Pauses and a glitchy intro in “Jigoujitoku” add to this soundtrack for thoughts flying in every direction at once. 

Part seven concludes the album with a suspenseful interlude and peppy, piano-focused numbers that have the energy of a last hurrah. And if there is any through-line in Addiction (Complete Edition), it is the desire to have another “last hurrah” again and again, as the themes of these songs’ corresponding music videos attest, with a focus on impromptu and staged productions. The possibility of putting on a show at a moment’s notice represents the group’s fear of losing their youthful spontaneity and audacity. Their songs and videos are ultimately about a fear of losing their spark. At a deeper level, it is a fear of the unknown future and a fierce desire to keep a sense of control over it. 

Addiction (Complete Edition) is a compilation album at its best, magnifying the themes of its pre-released components and doing so in unique ways.

#1: David Tao, STUPID POP SONGS
STUPID POP SONGS is a love letter to music when it does what it is meant to do: move, entertain, and provide soundtracks for not days but lifetimes. The album travels through time, tapping influences from seventies folk-rock (“From Dust to Dust”), to the electric piano style popular in ‘80s and ‘90s R&B (“Forever Penny”), to modern hip-hop (the style in which he covers Teresa Teng’s “A Thousand Words”). While the songs will entertain those of all ages and musical preferences, the album is a personal milestone. It is a creative rebirth for David Tao, being his first new album in over a decade, and a set of self-assigned challenges. For example, he tasked himself with making a song in a parallel set of major-key and minor-key melodies (“Always Here”), and he self-composed each Chinese instrument in a song for the first time (“Forever Penny”). Another shoutout-worthy track: “Moonchild,” a sparkling ‘80s homage.

While David Tao shows respect for the “music” part of “music industry,” his music videos criticize the “industry” part. The critique is clearest in “Stupid Pop Song,” in which he grows more and more distant from his art; he goes from being royalty’s special guest speaker to a mere virtual sideshow. The humanity behind the music is de-centered, but the fact that he still makes it shows he still believes in its potential.

While playing along with industry expectations, David Tao proves why those expectations are misguided. Modern music can be made without sacrificing quality, and he proves players like him are some of the best ones for unfair games. He cares enough to want to rebuild the game into something greater. David Tao applies genuine passion to his “stupid pop songs” and subversively gets his point across about music industry figures having the wrong definition of “worthy of success.”
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With cross-cultural context and modern updates to the music of yesteryear, David Tao shows that what truly makes music timeless and “smart” is a human touch. 

Catch up on past “Best New Music” write-ups here!

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