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\n Huntr\/x songs live in Demon Hunters\u2019s universe as diegetic pop music and not just coincidentally very melodically buoyant exclamations of a character\u2019s feelings and goals.
\n Photo: Netflix\n <\/p>\n
Annual deliberations about which song dominates and typifies the sound and feel of summer were thrown a huge wrench this year with ex-influencer Alex Warren<\/a>\u2019s \u201cOrdinary.\u201d The chart topper for most of June, July, and August does not swelter; it\u2019s a moody stomp-and-clap routine about locking in with your new wife. This is a shockingly churchy development. We favor a song of the summer that revels in a seasonally appropriate aversion to responsibilities. The post tends to go to a track much more conducive to or even expressly about following a steamy, unpredictable evening wherever it takes you, like Shaboozey\u2019s jukebox staple \u201cA Bar Song (Tipsy)\u201d or the BTS sizzler \u201cButter.\u201d So the question of if and when the summer of 2025 would course correct and coalesce around something fun simmered all season. Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s gutting and vindictive \u201cManchild\u201d briefly interrupted Warren\u2019s \u201cHot 100\u201d stranglehold in June only to be overtaken in a week. More symbolic than that \u201cfuck my life\u201d jam cutting in for a dance is the ascension of Huntr\/x\u2019s \u201cGolden<\/a>,\u201d from Netflix\u2019s megahit animated film KPop Demon Hunters<\/a>, to the apex of the chart this week. History was made, and lengthy droughts have concluded. Huntr\/x is a fictional K-pop girl group, and their rousing hit is the first American No. 1 for Korean female pop vocalists.<\/p>\n The last girl group to top the \u201cHot 100\u201d was Destiny\u2019s Child with 2001\u2019s \u201cBootylicious,\u201d and a cartoon band hasn\u2019t seen this kind of Stateside traction since the mid-20th-century era of the Archies, Chipmunks, and Pussycats. Huntr\/x isn\u2019t quite like any of these cases. It\u2019s also not like Gorillaz ruling the U.K. singles chart with 2005\u2019s \u201cDare,\u201d or like the two Disney recordings that became sweeping monocultural moments more recently: Encanto\u2019s \u201cWe Don\u2019t Talk About Bruno\u201d and Frozen\u2019s \u201cLet It Go.\u201d Huntr\/x songs live in Demon Hunters\u2019s universe as diegetic pop music and not just coincidentally very melodically buoyant exclamations of a character\u2019s feelings and goals. A listener needs not only to grasp what motivates the trio of Rumi, Mira, and Zoey \u2014 their songs are secretly tasked with restoring the barrier between human and demon realms \u2014 but also to feel like their music could, as suggested at one point, outpace veteran South Korean group Twice<\/a> in streams.<\/p>\n Writer-director duo Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans tapped Blackpink producer and scene elder Teddy Park to root this visual, narrative, and auditory ode to the culture and spirit of South Korea in convincing K-pop aesthetics. The result is a batch of tunes capable of escaping the unique contexts of the film. All the while, Demon Hunters lovingly works the joke that the K-pop music video is an art form mustering enough metaphysical wanderlust and carefully cultivated absurdism \u2014 check Twice turning into aliens in the \u201cSignal<\/a>\u201d video or TRCNG\u2019s lycanthropic \u201cWolf Baby<\/a>\u201d \u2014 that artists could feasibly be waging spiritual warfare live in concert. Story beats, like a consequential chart showdown or a laughably short group hiatus, approach the classic coming-of-age yarn via tentpole rituals of fandom. But Huntr\/x\u2019s music is literally capable of saving lives. \u201cGolden\u201d poses a simple question: What would a song that could demonstrably heal the world sound like?<\/p>\n The answer is \u201clike a Katy Perry or Ariana Grande banger.\u201d \u201cGolden\u201d is brimming with a turn-of-the-2010s stadium-pop swagger, repurposing the 12\/8 strut of Britney Spears\u2019s \u201cWomanizer\u201d or Carly Rae Jepsen\u2019s \u201cRun Away With Me\u201d to sing not about sex, which the chugging time signature is often used to conjure, but burrowing deep to mine untapped potential. The song tracks Huntr\/x lead vocalist Rumi\u2019s journey to self-love, her escape from literal shackles of fear, but blunts the specificity of the group\u2019s supernatural quandaries in language applicable to anyone\u2019s life: \u201cGiven the throne, I didn\u2019t know how to believe \/ I was the queen that I\u2019m meant to be.\u201d The vocal gymnastics call back to the likes of Grande\u2019s \u201cBreak Free\u201d and Perry\u2019s \u201cRoar.\u201d Huntr\/x is a product of an international exchange of sounds between American and South Korean pop markets. Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami, the real singers behind the group, share ties to both countries; Kang said actor Ahn Hyo-seop\u2019s K-drama experience and a command of the English language helped get him cast as Jinu, the leader of the rival demon boy band Saja Boys. A dollop of sorely missed American dance-pop aesthetics is a gust of wind in the sales of \u201cGolden,\u201d but the Demon Hunters music grows more intriguing the less it sells universal, inspirational fare.<\/p>\n The Saja Boys score the most intriguing slap: \u201cYour Idol<\/a>\u201d is a sinister meta-textual yarn where the K-pop idol\u2019s offer to be a vessel to the adulation and romantic interest of an audience takes the tone of a deal with the devil. Saja\u2019s narrative convention \u2014 what if those perfect pop bachelors were secretly dicks and the artist upstaging your fave has, in fact, been sent from hell to dine on your eternal soul? \u2014 toys alluringly with the premise that K-pop is a manifestation of an age-old spiritual force powerful enough to destroy or rejuvenate lives. Their challenge to Huntr\/x\u2019s ancestral feel-good initiative lets the soundtrack push the girls to the brink, untangling knots of interpersonal strife and shame on the way to the epiphany of the hit single.<\/p>\n From the brash, trappy Huntr\/x fight anthem \u201cTakedown\u201d to the tender, unlikely Rumi-and-Jinu duet \u201cFree\u201d to the baile funk and EDM banger \u201cHow It\u2019s Done,\u201d Demon Hunters ties an airtight collection of serviceable songs to a gorgeous and affecting visual display. In the girls\u2019 quest to modernize traditions, everything from their use of real ceremonial weapons to all the backup Boys (Baby, Abby, Mystery, Romance) being named after the group tropes they\u2019re based on is steeped in both ancient and recent history. This conflict between old and new ripples throughout all of the musical\u2019s tendrils. How true one ought to be to the past is a debate \u201cGolden\u201d is staging in its lyrics and production. Demon Hunters thrives on dualities. The music is breezy but considered, sharing a wink with the K-pop superfans who claim their real-life idol clearly inspired a character while also acting as an introductory course for the casual fan who only knows anything pertaining to BTS does numbers \u2014 people who don\u2019t think about OGs Seo Taiji and Boys when they hear \u201cSaja Boys.\u201d<\/p>\n Timing is favorable. Blackpink now has members popping up in PlayStation ads, HBO shows, and even Warren\u2019s album. Demon Hunters builds on the momentum of Blackpink and Twice getting to headline Coachella and Lollapalooza, respectively. The American charts are increasingly coming to grips with the fact that there are mainstream musical dynamos all over the planet \u2014 in Seoul, in Lagos, in San Juan \u2014 and this current K-pop push<\/a> gets that English-language lyrics grease the wheels for such a crossover. All the while, Warren and ex-Mormon pop gymnast Benson Boone<\/a>\u2019s homespun sorta-Christian sentimentality isn\u2019t half as capable of setting anyone\u2019s dance floor ablaze. (Grocery stores, however \u2026)\u00a0For their efforts, life has imitated art, as Huntr\/x has now stolen the show from not one but two cloyingly chipper bro brigades.<\/p>\n Sign up for The Critics<\/p>\n A weekly dispatch on the cultural discourse, for subscribers only.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n