2014 End-year Review - Top 5 Debuts

To be honest, I haven't been very good on keeping track of new groups this year. Honestly, I haven't been very good on keeping track of a lot of established groups either, and one of my new year's resolutions is in fact to pay a bit more attention and write a bit more on this blog too. However, there has been some debuts that did catch my eye, so I thought I might mention them here and explain to you why they captured my interest.




Winner




 Right, so maybe I would be lying if I said that I didn't already like them before their debut, but their debut was actually really great too! Sure, their choice of title track wasn't my favorite of their debut album and the video was quite dull but I had already fallen way too deep for their charms at that point to try to be any type of objective. I will have to say though, Winner is a really talented group.

Wings




I really, really liked Wings' debut, and I easily think this is one of this year's better songs. I also know that they're signed to Sony in Korea, which means that they have a well established company backing them up, and that's a huge advantage. There hasn't been much buzz about the duo though, which I find really irritating because they're both vocally talented and really pretty, but I hope that can change in 2015.

Mamamoo




I'm seriously beating myself up for not writing anything this year about this group, because they've even had a comeback, which I loved, but I have not mentioned them at all on this blog. I promise you that next year I will provide plenty of Mamamoo articles, as long as they keep on being this amazing. One could never imagine them a rookie group with those amazing vocals, flawless stage presence and admirable confidence. I can see them becoming big, and I hope that's also what will happen.

AKMU




Admittedly I'm not a biggest fan of their overall musical direction, but that's just a matter of personal taste because even I can acknowledge that their debut was one of the most noteworthy this year. I have so much respect for this sibling duo for truly creating their own brand and style, one that is everything but the typical K-pop sound. Older brother Chanhyuk also deserves all the awards for being the true mastermind behind the group, writing and producing all the songs in their album.

Red Velvet




While I feel like SM did every possible bit of managing their debut completely wrong, Red Velvet somehow pulled through an won me over anyway. The song was alright and the video likewise but I really loved their live performances, youthful energy and of course my same-aged friend Joy. At this point SM still fails to market them properly (too many scandals in the building, I guess), but I know there's potential when this group still has made an impact on me.

I really, really wanted to include Got7 in this but I kind of hated their debut track and video, as you might remember. They did win me over with "A", but unfortunately that wasn't their debut track so I honestly couldn't name them on of my favorites this past year. I do like them now, of course, but back then it wasn't so great.

Additionally, I think that the girls have been generally having stronger debuts this year, even the ones I'm not particularly interested in. I'm certainly not complaining, but I hope in 2015 there'll be some boy group debuts of higher quality. What are you looking forward to seeing in 2015?