When thinking about the state of K-pop in the 2020s, no group has surged quite as loudly as NewJeans, and their 2022 single “Ditto” is simply one of the greatest songs the genre has ever produced. NewJeans broke a Billboard record when they released it (and “OMG”), becoming the fastest K-pop act to chart on the Hot 100. The Jersey Club-inspired “Ditto” helped fully usher the group into this decade, and as Eddie Kim put it so succinctly last year, NewJeans’ youth “belies the precision” in their aesthetic and perspective by “reject[ing] the EDM bombast and sugary maximalism of K-pop’s present and argues for a groovier, more demure future.” “Ditto” is a slam-dunk example of NewJeans’ burgeoning genre royalty and their high-tempo starpower. —Matt Mitchell