30th Birthday Post on K-Pop, J-Pop and C-Pop Favorite Artists and Groups
Hello all, I have not posted on here since January celebrating K-Pop singer Jennie Kim's birthday and the timing of the first anniversary of this blog. As I have posted in last year's post, Celebrating My 29th Birthday with 1996-Born K-Pop & J-Pop Stars: TWICE, BLACKPINK, Nogizaka46, May 14th is my birthday, and today is my 30th birthday. It is very exciting for fans and me alike to see how far this blog has come in terms of views and engagement since it was first launched in January 2025. For today's post, I will continue as promised with discussing new possible favorites and even add in a couple of C-Pop favorites. This is meant to be different than last year's post because this will include a different list and will include some artists not born in 1996.
K-Pop
1. Red Velvet- Joy
Joy from Red Velvet is a K-Pop singer who shares the same birth year as me. Joy, whose birth name is Park Soo-young, was born on September 3, 1996, and debuted as a member of Red Velvet in 2014. I would like to listen to the groups music more because their music is something new to me beyond the groups, I am familiar with such as TWICE, BLACKPINK and SNSD. I look forward to checking out more of her music and Red Velvet’s discography.
2. Chungha
Next, I want to listen to Chungha's music. It is also important to note that Chungha is also another K-Pop artist like Joy from Red Velvet who shares the same birth year as me. Chungha was born on February 9, 1996, and is known as a South Korean singer, dancer, and choreographer. Chungha is a solo K-Pop singer that I would like to listen to more and I have heard of her before writing this post, but I did not know that much about her music. Sometime after this post, I would like to listen to her songs more and possibly write about them in the future.
J-Pop
1. NiziU
NiziU is a J-Pop group that really stands out to me because of their connection to JYP and their role as a bridge group between K-Pop and J-Pop. NiziU was formed by JYP Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment Japan through Nizi Project and is active in both Japan and Korea. I have written a review on their song "YOAKE" in July 2025 recognizing their singing talent and everything they did well in the music video. For the future, I must listen to more of their songs now that I am in my 30s because they are a unique J-Pop group worth listening to.
2. YOASOBI
In the future, I would like to become more familiar with YOASOBI because of their worldwide popularity and because I can include their music amongst my favorite J-Pop songs and albums. One example of YOASOBI’s worldwide popularity is that their song "Idol" reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Global Excl. U.S. chart in 2023. Listening to their music would work to highlight how big of an anime and J-Pop fan I am.
C-Pop Artists That I Enjoy Listening To
Though this is a K-Pop and J-Pop blog, I wanted to add a couple of C-Pop (Chinese pop) artists that I have enjoyed listening to over the years to this list.
1. G.E.M.
The first on this list goes to G.E.M. or Gloria Tang Tsz-kei. The reason I like listening to her music so much is because of her musical talent. She has a talented voice, sings emotional Chinese songs that I enjoy and also sings some Christian music (which is very important because I also like Christian music). Her 2022 album Revelation has been discussed as an explicitly Christian album, and her song "Gloria" has been connected to Christian themes. Lastly, I enjoy watching G.E.M.'s music videos because they include many visuals that serve to tell the story for her songs.
2. Jay Chou
Jay Chou's music videos are very enjoyable to watch because of the dramatic and historical stories that they tell and because he has a talented voice that draws the audience into the storytelling. His work is very impactful because of how much he has contributed to certain movie soundtracks. For example, Jay Chou produced the soundtrack album for the 2007 film Secret, which he also directed and co-wrote. It is strongly recommended to check out some of his songs sometime.
Special Thanks
Thank you all so much for taking the time to read my 30th Birthday favorite post. Like last year's post for my 29th birthday, this post is meant to show the development of my interests in East Asian pop. It is also meant to serve as a time capsule to look back nostalgically in the future both for fans and me. I have not posted that much this year because I have been busy working on my master's in education degree- which involves higher dedication than my bachelor's degree from past years. I hope you all enjoyed reading this post and I believe I will still post next year for my 31st birthday to continue the blog. Hopefully, I will be able to post more between now and then as well. Here's to another year of enjoying great K-Pop, J-Pop and C-Pop music.
