Alrighty, welcome to the Manely for Female Soloist of the Year, this one will probably be a little more consistent with popular opinion than the male one, but, then again, maybe not. As always, if you want to check out the every other Manely we’ve given out, or want to see which ones are still to come, check out the hub page!
10. Jeong Eun Ji (Scores: 9,7,7 | Average: 7.7)
The first of many gen 2 idols to grace this list, Eunji has been in the game for a very long time, and is a consistently good balladeer. That said, a thin amount of content on the year, and that content not absolutely blowing us away has left her at 10 for us.
9. AleXa (Scores: 3,9,10 | Average: 7.3)
Much as with the male soloists, we’ll see a number of ties here, and AleXa is the first in the category to lose one. AleXa was an artist that I hadn’t paid too much attention to at first, but every comeback she’s grown on me more, and now I’m at the helm of voting her high among the panel. Between doing upbeat music in an action film music video universe, she’s also shown her softer side, with the beautiful Moon and Back.
8. Jessi (Scores: 8,5,9 | Average: 7.3)
Although I’m not sure how the panel feels about her music, it’s really what Jessi gets up to in variety shows and her Youtube interview series that really grabs the panel. Jessi is absolutely hilarious, and just an absolute mess in a way that is not often seen in such a well presented genre of music. If you haven’t watched her Showterview series, do yourself a favor and dive into it, I’d recommend her Heechul interview as a starting point.
7. Ha:tfelt (Scores: 4,10,6 | Average: 6.7)
Ha:tfelt has been extremely consistent in her releases this year, a huge volume that is fairly diverse and has a solid to great quality across the board. Some highlights include the classy Solitude, the electro-chill Satellite, and the extremely odd La Luna, which may come up in a later list that is, currently, in flux.
6. Solar (Scores: 10,4,3 | Average: 5.7)
Mamamoo’s charismatic leader herself. Although we all love Solar, her solo output this year created some dissent. I think that’s actually not uncommon, as I’ve seen a lot of communities split by Spit It Out, so in some ways, we’re being very consistently inconsistent with Solar’s placement here.
5. Taeyeon (Scores: 7,8,2 | Average: 5.7)
Winning out a tiebreaker against Solar is maybe the greatest female soloist of all time, Taeyeon, although BoA and IU are definitely stiff competition. That said, in terms of music this year, Taeyeon didn’t wow all of us as much as she usually does, so we’re looking towards hopefully having a more up-beat year from her next time around.
4. IU (Scores: 5,6,1 | Average: 4.0)
Speaking of IU, she beats out Taeyeon for us this year, although she did lose a tiebreaker pushing her back into 4th. Eight is one of the more moving songs in any genre of music that I’ve heard all year, a beautiful tribute to Sulli. IU’s talent mixed with artistry makes her a threat but also gives her that soul in her music that sometimes feels missing in other artists’ works.
3. YooA (Scores: 2,2,8 | Average: 4.0)
Despite being a talented idol for years now, in both her primary focus of dance and in singing, YooA has only just officially made her solo debut this year. But, it was an incredible debut, with one of the most emotional songs of the year, Bon Voyage, and even fantastic B-Side Abracadabra. If this start is anything to gauge YooA’s future off of, it’s looking pretty bright as a Soloist, and Oh My Girl is still growing as a group too, although the dreaded 7-year mark where most girl groups disband is less than a year and a half away, so we may be expecting even more solo work from her… although the group staying together would be better.
2. Chungha (Scores: 6,1,4 | Average: 3.7)
You can’t talk about female soloists and not talk about Chungha in these last few years. Produce absolutely catapulted her into stardom, and rather than letting that momentum dwindle, she has capitalized on it in the most fantastic way. She’s already reaching the point where she’s probably the next biggest female soloist ever behind BoA, IU, and Taeyeon, and in a much shorter time. She’s had a wide variety of music this year, and despite all the talent behind all her work, the diversity can hurt the ability for a listener to like all of it, which is the case for me, liking things here and there, but not truly loving anything outside of her fully English release which was surprisingly great. That said, expect Chungha to be a top 3 mainstay for the next few years at least.
1. Sunmi (Scores: 1,3,5 | Average: 3)
So, disclaimer on my score, Sunmi has been my favorite female soloist since Heroine, wasn’t huge on Gashina admittedly. On top of this, I love modern interpretations of disco, and Sunmi had the best this year with Pporappippam, which should more or less be considered a disco masterpiece in the modern world. Sunmi’s diversity is fantastic, but so is her consistency, she visited disco a second time in her collaboration with JYP, When We Disco, and it is again, a fantastic song, although maybe less of a modern disco interpretation and more of a direct throwback. She’s also joined the ranks of a few of the other women on this list, such as IU and Taeyeon, in opening up about mental illness, revealing that she had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder years ago and even had a special video called Borderline. I want to commend all these women for helping to normalize healthy discussion of these topics. That said, I’m happy to present Sunmi with the 2020 Manely for Female Soloist of the Year, congrats Sunmi, and let’s see how you do in the last Manely for soloists, Solo Song of Year, coming two days from now.