10 K-Pop Love Songs – Love Songs for Him and Her
If you enjoy K-Pop love songs, and are looking for a song that will convey the feeling of strong passion that you have for someone special in your life, then please enjoy our list of the best Korean pop love songs in music!
K-Pop Love Songs That We Really Enjoy
Let’s begin with a song entitled “What Is Love” by Twice.
What Is Love by Twice (2018)
Twice’s What Is Love is the epitome of K-pop love song. It’s cutesy and upbeat, and has a tune that makes you want to dance. The voices of Twice work really well together here and truly fit the young love vibe of the song. It’s really nice on the ears, and the chorus is super catchy.
The lyrics are told from the perspective of young women who have never been in love before. They wonder what it would be like, and describe it the only way they have ever experienced it—through movies and television show they’ve watched.
Every day, in a movie
In a book or in a drama, I feel love
Um – I learn about love
My heart keeps beating as if it’s my own story
The music video that accompanies the song really helps sell the story, as the girls reenact famous romance scenes from movies, from La La Land (2016) to Ghost (1990). It’s a great complement to the song, and definitely worth watching.
In the chorus, they ask themselves what love is. They don’t know what it is because they’ve never experienced it, but we can tell that they clearly want to.
I wanna know know know know
What is love?
What Is Love is an adorably sweet song about wanting to experience love from a young, and perhaps naive, person’s perspective. It’s really worth a listen.
Moonlight by EXO (2014)
This song actually has two versions–one Korean and one Chinese–because EXO has Korean and Chinese subunits. Luckily, both versions are pretty similar with regard to the lyrics. However, since this article is about K-pop, we’ll stick to talking about the Korean version here.
This song is about a love that you can’t quite reach—love that feels hopeless. Like moonlight, the love is always there, but cannot be reached.
Moonlight starts off with a simple chord progression that adds a pretty loud beat later on. It’s got a slower, piano-based track with occasional “sparkly” sound effects. But when that chorus hits, the song gets louder and more expressive, like a release of pent-up emotions. The rap portions of the song seem to be a combination of rap and singing, which ends up sounding pretty unique and cool.
The lyrics are truly poetic, reading like a love poem:
You’re showered by a shower of starlight
I’ve never seen such an entrancing expression
I see you still like a picture
This is a wonderful love song. It’s definitely a lot darker than other songs on this list, but still worthy of its place here.
Tail by Sunmi (2021)
Sexy and catchy from the beginning, Sumni’s sultry voice truly shines in this sensual love song. This song is not your usual, cutesy or innocent K-pop song about love. No, with the song Tail, we get lyrics that describe a more crazy, sensual kind of love that you don’t normally get to see in this genre.
We’re madly in love
Kiss each other like crazy
Rock your head like crazy
Sunmi has a really powerful aura that commands your attention, even just listening to the song without seeing the music video. The music video is sort of iconic too though, where she creates the famous ‘tail’ with her body.
You can read more about the song, as well as the songwriting process for Tail here.
Girlfriend by BIGBANG (2016)
This is an unexpectedly sweet song by BIGBANG that tells the story of their love for a girl. From the very beginning, the lyrics describe how much this woman leaves them in awe:
How can you be so pretty
Will you believe me if I tell you I’ve got more butterflies than the first time I met you?
The track is mostly simple chords that work really well when combined with GD and TOP’s iconic rap voices. The chorus is bound to get stuck in your head, especially since it’s one of those K-Pop love songs in English (or mostly English) that you’ll be able to enjoy.
Yes I have a girlfriend
And I’m never lonely
I’m happy just to look at her
Yes you’re my girlfriend
You’re my one and only
I don’t want to wake up from the dream that is you
Girlfriend is a song that truly shows their devotion to the girl in question, and it also happens to be super catchy!
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Love Scenario by iKON (2018)
According to the artists, this song is inspired by the movie La La Land (2016). Love Scenario is a pretty popular track, and definitely a song that will get stuck in your head. It’s catchy from the very beginning, with a beat that’ll have you tapping your feet.
What’s interesting about this song is that it’s deceptively happy, especially if you don’t know the meaning of the lyrics. If you don’t know what the lyrics are, all you hear is “love scenario” in English, but it’s actually quite a sad love song.
We were in love
We met and became a memory that can’t be erased
It was a commendable melodrama
A pretty good ending
That’s all I need
I loved you
The song describes a relationship that has ended, similar to that of La La Land. It’s definitely a great love song to listen to, with a really intriguing concept!
200% by AKMU (2014)
This song is pretty interesting! It’s a cute song that describes a love that has just begun to bloom; the love is pure and innocent. The song itself is super sweet and catchy, and Lee Chan-hyuk’s and Lee Su-hyun’s voices blend well together. It sounds sort of old school, in a way. It’s really cute and endearing.
The chorus, as you would expect in a lot of K-Pop music, evokes a cute vibe:
It must be L.O.V.E.
200 percent sure of that
I want you really, I mean really
Really, I like you and
My reddening face proves that
Sorry, I Love You by Stray Kids (2021)
Stray Kids doesn’t have that many love songs, so this one really is quite the anomaly, but a good one! It starts off with the chorus almost immediately, and is a great combination of rap and singing. Their voices are all really great in this, giving us a good range of tenors and baritones.
The lyrics talk about loving someone that you shouldn’t love. The members of Stray Kids apologize (in this song) for the fact that they’ve fallen in love with someone they know was off limits. It’s not really clear why they’re sorry about it, but I kind of like how it’s left up to our imagination to wonder why.
Sorry that I like you so much, I’m sorry
I tried to hide my feelings, but I guess it was too obvious
Because the lyrics are so ambiguous, it’s something that many people can relate to in their own way. It can be about loving someone who isn’t interested in you, or loving someone who wants to to keep you in the friend zone!
To be just friends, you’re too beautiful
To just stay as friends
The song has an interesting track that’s pretty simple with its chorus and beat. But it also sounds quite sad on its own, despite being catchy. The chorus gets repeated a lot, but it really drives home the point (Sorry that I like you so much).
Love Dive by Ive (2022)
Love Dive is a song that will get stuck in your head and haunt your dreams from the minute you hear it. It’s just so, so infectiously catchy!
In your face from the beginning with bass and beat, it actually sounds kind of intimidating at first. Later on, it starts to sound more like a traditional love song, cheerful and happy.
The lyrics are great here, and the chorus is a real earworm:
Narcissistic
My God, I love it
The night shone upon the two
The beautiful black eyes, diving deeper in
You into me, me into you
Hold your breath, love dive
The track is upbeat, and really fits the romance vibe. My only complaint is the weird dance break towards the end that seems unnecessarily long. Other than that, it’s a wonderful love song that uses the metaphor of diving to describe falling in love!
Love Me or Leave Me by Day6 (2020)
This song is also a little dark for a love song, but it is a love song nonetheless! It’s an interesting combination of genres, from EDM to rock, that somehow ends up working together. It actually sounds a little reminiscent of an anime soundtrack!
The lyrics talk about a relationship in which one person is unsure if the other person truly loves them, so they give them an ultimatum (Baby, love me or leave me tonight). Love Me or Leave Me is the kind of song you’ll want to scream out loud to—and luckily, a lot of the chorus is actually in English, so you can do just that!
Tell me whether it’s YES or NO
Baby, love me or leave me tonight
So answer me
With all honesty
Tell me everything right now
The track is mostly simple guitar, along with heavily distorted sound effects that contrast with the more acoustic feeling that you get at the start of the song. It’s really very creative and distinct from many of Day6’s more rock-heavy songs.
0X1=LOVESONG by TXT ft. Seori (2021)
This song starts off with the English phrase “I know I love you.” It really leaves no room for guessing about the topic of the song: love. And it’s a good love song, at that.
TXT is known for having a lot of experimental music, such as their 2020 release Eternally. They’ve done pretty much every genre you could imagine. This song is one of their more rock-leaning songs, along with LOSER=LOVER. I personally think that this kind of vibe really suits them.
Just listening to the track, though, you wouldn’t expect it to be a love song. But once you see the title and the lyrics, well, it becomes pretty obvious.
In this world of zero
I know you’re my one and only
In this endless darkness like
Oh my god, so holy
From the tip of my fingers
Everything runs far away
The lyrics are pretty typical for a love song, but of course that’s expected with the genre. It’s still a really great song, and it’s definitely catchy! Every time I listen to it, it gets stuck in my head.
TXT recently had a comeback with their EP Thursday’s Child, which again seems to lean more towards the rock genre.
Conclusion
There are so many K-pop love songs out there, where the general concept of love is explored and represented through an impressively wide spectrum of different points of view. Most of the songs are of the cute, innocent love variety, but there are also quite a few darker ones to enjoy as well.
I think that’s what really keeps the genre of K-Pop going, as you never want to feel like you can pigeon hole an entire genre to just “one thing.” There are various ways to make a great love song, and I think K-Pop music proves that fact quite nicely.
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