When Two K-Pop Soloists Crash a Western Year-End Canon: Jennie and Chaeyoung Make Rolling Stone’s Best Albums List

Year-end lists are always a battleground: critics try to capture a year’s sound in a single ranked scroll, fans argue placements, and artists quietly gain something that’s hard to measure but easy to feel—validation outside their usual orbit. That’s why Rolling Stone’s “The 100 Best Albums of 2025” conversation got especially loud in K-pop circles this year: BLACKPINK’s Jennie and TWICE’s Chaeyoung both landed on the list with their solo projects—Jennie’s Rubyat No. 29 and Chaeyoung’s Lil Fantasy Vol. 1 at No. 86. 

This isn’t just “two idols made a list.” It’s a signal about how mainstream Western critics are increasingly engaging with K-pop as albums—not just as viral singles, choreography moments, or cultural headlines.

Why this particular list placement matters

Rolling Stone’s annual album ranking is designed to be genre-spanning—pop, rap, indie, Latin, R&B, and everything in between—so inclusion often functions like a cross-genre stamp of legitimacy rather than a niche shoutout. Soompi notes the list was published December 3, 2025, and frames it as a wide-genre roundup rather than a K-pop-specific feature. 

When K-pop artists appear here, it usually means at least one of these things happened:

• The album translated beyond fandom language (inside jokes, group lore, “you had to be there” narratives).

• The songwriting and sequencing held up under album-centric listening, not just playlist sampling.

• The sonic references were legible to critics—and the artist still sounded like themselves while using that vocabulary.

Jennie and Chaeyoung arrive on the list through two very different doors—and that contrast is the real story.

Jennie’s Ruby at No. 29: Pop craft with a critic-friendly backbone

Jennie’s placement is the headline-maker: No. 29 puts her comfortably in the upper tier of the list. 

According to the write-up quoted by Soompi, Rolling Stone’s commentary frames Ruby as an album that leans into the ideas that dominated R&B-leaning pop in the 2000s and 2010s, with the critic pointing to a familiar pop shadow hovering over the project: Rihanna (particularly the “center of candy-coated pop-R&B” lane).

That’s a loaded comparison—in a good way.

What the Rihanna comparison is really saying

Critics don’t invoke Rihanna just to be trendy. They’re usually pointing to a specific kind of pop authority:

• Cool without distance (emotion is present, but never messy in an accidental way)

• Rhythm-forward hooks (melody that feels like it’s moving, not sitting still)

• A voice that commands the mix (the track bends around the performer, not the other way around)

Whether you agree with the comparison or not, it tells you what the reviewer heard: a pop star operating with global-pop grammar, not “idol tries Western sound.”

“Solo album” as identity statement

There’s another layer here: Ruby is positioned as more than a side quest. Korea JoongAng Daily describes it as Jennie’s first solo full-length studio album, released in March 2025, and highlights a high-profile lineup of featured artists(including Dua Lipa, FKJ, Doechii, Childish Gambino, Kali Uchis, and more). 

That matters because features can do two opposite things:

• Mask an artist who isn’t ready to carry an album, or

• Frame an artist as a peer within a broader pop ecosystem.

Rolling Stone’s ranking—and the language used about her ability to “command the center”—argues for the second interpretation. 

Chaeyoung’s Lil Fantasy Vol. 1 at No. 86: A quieter flex that critics respect

Chaeyoung landing on the same list is arguably the more interesting critic story, because it’s not the obvious route. Her album is placed at No. 86 on the list as reproduced by Year-End Lists and reported by Soompi.
(One outlet reported a different rank—No. 89—but multiple references align around No. 86.) 

Soompi’s quoted commentary emphasizes Chaeyoung’s writing as personal and reflective—touching on loss of old friends, forgiveness, and embracing your own “quirky self”—and describes the album’s sound as a blend of neo-soul, trip-hop, and funk. 

The genre mix is the point

Neo-soul + trip-hop + funk is not the typical “idol solo debut” recipe, especially for a member of a group as globally mainstream as TWICE. This palette reads like an intentional statement:

• Neo-soul invites intimacy (close-mic warmth, emotional specificity)

• Trip-hop invites atmosphere (space, haze, late-night pacing)

• Funk adds physicality (groove as personality)

That combination gives critics something they often reward: a distinct mood world.

The songwriting credit angle

Korea JoongAng Daily adds a crucial detail for the “artist” narrative: the album released September 12, and Chaeyoung reportedly participated in writing both lyrics and music for all nine tracks. 

Even if you never look at a single credit line, critics do. Authorship doesn’t automatically equal quality—but when the music also sounds personal, the authorship becomes part of the album’s emotional credibility.

What this says about K-pop in 2025: the “album” era is widening

The most telling part of this moment isn’t that Rolling Stone included K-pop. It’s how these two albums fit:

• Jennie’s Ruby arrives as high-gloss global pop with R&B DNA—the kind of record a Western critic can contextualize inside a familiar pop lineage. 

• Chaeyoung’s Lil Fantasy Vol. 1 arrives as genre-textured, introspective, and writer-forward—the kind of record critics often champion when they want to highlight artistry over scale. 

Together, they underline a bigger shift: K-pop solo projects are no longer just fandom events—they’re becoming critic-facing albums with clear aesthetic theses.

And that’s the win.

Because year-end lists don’t crown an objective truth. What they do is open doors: new listeners, new press framing, new festival conversations, and (sometimes) the freedom for artists to take bigger risks on the next release.

If 2025 proved anything, it’s that K-pop’s global story isn’t only being written on charts and stages anymore—it’s also being written in the language critics use when they’re taking an album seriously.