7. GD&TOP – “High High” (2010)

Hair-gelled boy-band cuties — low-top-faded G-Dragon and new romantically silver-white-pompadoured TOP, both from ubiquitous chart-toppers Big Bang — grow up, toughen up, sex it up (their logo risks Playboy infringement), and hit the night in expensive suits. “Like ninjas,” they say. Old-school ones: “Mistah G, in da club, in my B-boy staaance.” In the video, they raise glasses to a dance floor with way more Caucasian than Asian girls on it, and their music grows gruffer and faster as it buttaflies higher and higher, then suddenly explodes into a playground chant: “G-H-E-T-T-O! E-L-E-C-T-R-O!” This is how LMFAO and Far East Movement want to sound. C.E.

13. Big Bang – “Bad Boy” (2012)
After an unfortunate marijuana scandal sidelined group leader G-Dragon for the better part of 2011, Big Bang made a triumphant return: onstage at talent agency YG’s Family Concert in December and on-record with “Bad Boy,” a piano-based R&Breeze that, like the rest of their recently released Alive LP, was penned entirely by GD. And though some might point to “Love Song” or “Tonight” as the group’s finest hour, nothing they’ve has done as a unit up until now has approached the anti-gravity pop smarts to be heard in the Diplo-assisted GD&TOP collaboration “Knock Out.” “Bad Boy” recalls Boyz II Men and Justin Timberlake, but Big Bang’s five very distinct personalities combine here for a single more singular than any of their K-pop peers can lay claim. D.B.