\n\tThat moment extends beyond the Grammys. Since its release on Netflix<\/a> in June, KPop Demon Hunters has become the rare streaming movie to attain cultural ubiquity. After the film earned critical acclaim and became the platform\u2019s most popular original movie of all time, Netflix broke with its own streaming strategy and gave the project a limited singalong release in theaters; it proceeded to earn the No. 1 spot at the box office in its opening weekend. Less than two weeks later, KPop Demon Hunters surpassed Squid Game to become the most streamed title in Netflix\u2019s history.<\/p>\n \n\tBut the project accomplished even greater feats with its music. After slowly climbing the charts following the film\u2019s release, the soundtrack spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200<\/a> in September and October. Its rise was boosted by the runaway success of \u201cGolden,\u201d which became a Billboard Hot 100<\/a> No. 1 hit in August and ruled the ranking for eight weeks. On the Billboard Global 200<\/a>, it has topped the chart for 18 weeks. Plus, the soundtrack became the first to have four songs simultaneously appear in the Hot 100\u2019s top 10, with \u201cHow It\u2019s Done,\u201d \u201cYour Idol\u201d and \u201cSoda Pop\u201d (the latter two of which were sung by the film\u2019s fictional boy band, Saja Boys) joining \u201cGolden.\u201d Even outside the charts, the singers behind HUNTR\/X appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch alongside global superstar Bad Bunny and performed during the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade.<\/p>\n \n\tKPop Demon Hunters serves as just the latest and most potent example of the dominating success music written for film can have amid the larger music landscape in 2025. Whether it\u2019s familiar show tunes adapted from a beloved musical (Wicked: For Good), a mix of blues and folk covers with some rootsy originals (Sinners) or a blockbuster compilation of pop A-listers (F1: The Movie), music in film has had a compounding impact on shaping the year\u2019s biggest cultural moments.<\/p>\n \n\tIan Eisendrath, the executive music producer behind KPop Demon Hunters, told Billboard<\/a> earlier this year that when it came to a smash like \u201cGolden,\u201d he knew that for the song to work, it couldn\u2019t just be presented as a success in the plot of the film \u2014 it had to be a hit everywhere.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe song couldn\u2019t be our approximation of the K-pop hit \u2014 it actually had to be one,\u201d he said. \u201cThe film directors [Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans] were amazing to work with, but they were tough customers because they knew exactly what they wanted. But the first time I played \u2018Golden\u2019 for them, they were like, \u2018That\u2019s it.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOftentimes, Disney has been the leading studio behind such cross-\u00adcultural moments. Signature hits from Frozen and Encanto previously reached the upper echelons of the Billboard charts: The former\u2019s \u201cLet It Go\u201d reached No. 5 on the Hot 100 in 2014 and the latter\u2019s \u201cWe Don\u2019t Talk About Bruno\u201d topped the chart in 2022. But in 2025, films like KPop Demon Hunters cracked the code without that level of established history.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tFrom left: REI AMI, Nuna and EJAE on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in October.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTodd Owyoung\/NBC\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\tTake F1: The Movie as an example. To help create a soundtrack that could pierce through the noise, Apple Studios teamed with Atlantic Records (the label behind original soundtracks to Barbie and Twisters) to curate a set that spoke to global audiences, featuring Tate McRae, Don Toliver, Ros\u00e9 and more internationally recognizable names. \u201cA big part of [our] general strategy was, \u2018What are we doing that has a global feel?\u2019 \u201d Atlantic president of West Coast Kevin Weaver told Billboard earlier in 2025. The strategy worked, with songs from McRae, Toliver and Ros\u00e9 becoming top 40 hits on the Global 200.<\/p>\n \n\tEven when the year\u2019s films didn\u2019t quite manage to spin their songs into massive global hits, they still found their audience. While the soundtrack to Sinners only spent one week in the mid-100s of the Billboard 200, the set still ruled the Blues Albums<\/a> chart for 19 nonconsecutive weeks. The soundtrack was also named by editorial staff one of Billboard\u2019s top albums from the first half of the year<\/a>, while the movie took home the top prizes (including best score and song for a feature film) at the 2025 Hollywood Music in Media Awards.<\/p>\n \n\tKPop Demon Hunters, along with Sinners and F1: The Movie, have already racked up nominations for the 2026 Grammys and Golden Globes \u2014 and all three films and their soundtracks are strong contenders for Academy Awards nominations, too. With such mile markers pointing to continued cultural relevance, it\u2019s clear that when film and music work in tandem, their cultural impact only goes, as \u201cGolden\u201d suggests, \u201cup, up, up.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tThis story appears in the Dec. 13, 2025, issue of Billboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In November, the Recording Academy made history by recognizing a K-pop girl group with a nomination for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,1043,4608,821,61,60,709,278,1868,4609,102045],"class_list":["post-189400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-genre-kpop","tag-genre-pop","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-music","tag-netflix","tag-tv-film","tag-year-in-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"THE](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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