Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation’s “KPop Demon Hunters” took the world by storm when it was released globally this summer. An immaculately animated adventure about a trio of pop stars who also defend Earth from the ghoulish hordes of the underworld, it quickly became the most watched Netflix original movie ever. (When it was briefly released into theaters, it racked up an impressive $19.2 million over a single weekend.) Directed with aplomb by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, the film is rooted in the rich tapestry of Korean culture while also celebrating its more modern aspects.
Of course, a huge part of the appeal of “KPop Demon Hunters” is the songs that populate the film; they’re clever, advance the narrative forward and can get lodged in your head for hours. Its album reached platinum status and became the first soundtrack on the Billboard Hot 100 chart to have four songs in its top 10.
If there is a standout among them, it’s “Golden,” the song that has been submitted to this year’s Oscars. Within the movie, it’s the band Huntr/x’s new single, one meant to unite the Golden Honmoon and seal our world off from the demons.
“Maggie and Chris would give us a bunch of guidelines and some little sonic references of what they’re looking for in a song. That’s how it started,” said Kim Eun-jae (known professionally as Ejae), one of the writers of “Golden” and the singing voice for Huntr/x lead vocalist Rumi. The model was the ubiquitous 600-year-old Korean song “Arirang.” “They wanted very Korean vibes where it sounds very traditional, old Korean,” Ejae said. “And so I tried to make a melody like that that has an ethereal quality.”
Afterward, executive music producer Ian Eisendrath came in, along with the Black Label, a South Korean record label. Kang said she didn’t want “KPop Demon Hunters” to be a traditional musical, so Ejae would try her “K-pop approach”: “I would lay down a bunch of melodies, I would topline and also try to think of a concept that fits whatever they’re looking for in that scene. I would also make sure that concept is not just applicable to the film but also to just everyday life. With the lyrical aspect, storytelling was crucial.”
Co-writer Mark Sonnenblick said that five or six songs could have gone in the slot where “Golden” ultimately wound up. But as they experimented with the other songs, the vibe was never quite right, leading the writers to ask questions: When does the half-human, half-demon Rumi have a realization? When is her emotional moment revealed? They needed a song that had the right mix of energy and hopefulness, and one that would inspire the animators. Sonnenblick said he was coming from the story side and Ejae was coming from the songwriting side. “We battled it out together,” he said.
“Golden” came together fairly late in the game, with the final version of the song and sequence completed in early 2025, just a few months before the film and its music became a genuine juggernaut. And when it did, both Ejae and Sonnenblick were blown away by the response. Sonnenblick said he signed up for a Spotify account just so he could keep tabs on the soundtrack’s performance.
“The music did its own thing,” said Ejae, who first noticed that the song was catching on when she heard it in an Uber. “I was in Las Vegas,” she said. “And when (the driver) turned on the radio and I heard ‘Golden,’ I was crying with my big mask on.”
A version of this story first ran in the Race Begins issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
