{"id":263975,"date":"2026-02-02T14:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/263975\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T14:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:41:07","slug":"south-korea-celebrates-k-pops-golden-historic-grammy-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/263975\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea celebrates K-pop’s ‘Golden’ historic Grammy win"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans celebrated on Monday as \u201cGolden,\u201d from the Netflix animated film \u201cKPop Demon Hunters,\u201d claimed K-pop\u2019s first Grammy<\/a> Award, a milestone that critics say highlights the genre\u2019s global appeal and signals broader acceptance in the American mainstream.<\/p>\n

The win for best song for visual media capped a highly visible night for K-pop at the Grammys \u2014 an institution where the genre has long been undercelebrated despite its massive international following. <\/p>\n

Ros\u00e9 of the juggernaut girl group Blackpink<\/a> joined Grammy favorite Bruno Mars on stage to belt out their megahit \u201cAPT.,\u201d which was a song of the year nominee. The girl group Katseye, launched by a partnership between South Korea\u2019s HYBE<\/a> and U.S. label Geffen Records, earned two nominations, including best new artist, for their song \u201cGabriela.\u201d<\/p>\n

The awards captured a moment in which K-pop is surging as a youth-driven global phenomenon and increasingly attracting interest from the U.S. film and music industries.<\/p>\n

U.S. legacy studios, struggling to reach younger audiences, have taken note of K-pop\u2019s viral strength on social media and short-form platforms \u2014 a momentum that has driven collaborations such as Ros\u00e9 and Bruno Mars and projects like Katseye and \u201cKPop Demon Hunters,\u201d according to music critic Lim Hee-yun. <\/p>\n

The Grammy win for \u201cGolden,\u201d which also contended for song of the year, could help further strengthen K-pop\u2019s American foothold and boost the genre\u2019s prospects at future awards, he said. <\/p>\n

There is debate over whether \u201cGolden,\u201d an English-language pop song from a Sony Pictures Animation film, qualifies as K-pop. Still, the Grammy award sparked joy in South Korea, where the film inspired Demon Hunters-themed ramen and other products and boosted tourism to Seoul\u2019s old fortress walls and other cultural sites featured in the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels unreal,\u201d said Kim Na-young, a 50-year-old who said she saw the movie at least five times. \u201cSony made it, Netflix released it, but the film was definitely about Korea.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cKPop Demon Hunters,\u201d released by Netflix last June, follows the three members of the fictional Korean girl group HUNTR\/X as they use their music and martial arts skills to keep demons out of the human world. <\/p>\n

The film went on to become Netflix\u2019s most popular release of all time,<\/a> with songs like \u201cGolden\u201d and \u201cSoda Pop\u201d climbing global music charts and its characters becoming popular Halloween costume choices in the United States. The singers behind HUNTR\/X \u2014 Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami \u2014 gained huge followings.<\/p>\n

After winning their award at the Grammys\u2019 Premiere Ceremony, the songwriters of \u201cGolden\u201d delivered their acceptance speech in both English and Korean, highlighting its bilingual appeal.<\/p>\n

Some South Koreans saw the Grammy win as the latest significant moment marking the rise of South Korean pop culture, following the 2020 Oscar triumph of Bong Joon Ho\u2019s \u201cParasite.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Parasite won, it felt like South Korean culture had entered the global mainstream. The Grammy win takes that recognition even further,\u201d said Park Jeong-eon, 48, recalling trips abroad in the 2000s when she felt that South Korea was little known.<\/p>\n

Seo Ga-yeon, who studies K-pop at a university, said she could emotionally relate with the personal story of Ejae, who struggled as a young K-pop trainee in South Korea before establishing herself as an artist in the United States. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was above all her outstanding vocal performance \u2014 overflowing with emotion, as if she was singing about her own life, almost like a cry \u2014 that made \u2018Golden\u2019 a success,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s governing Democratic Party said the Grammy win was a historically significant moment in which K-pop \u201cfinally overcame the long-standing Grammy barrier.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Recording Academy had long overlooked major K-pop acts like BTS<\/a> and some analysts question whether \u201cGolden\u201d should truly be considered K-pop\u2019s first Grammy win. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe film, of course, used K-pop as material and helped bring it global attention, but I feel there\u2019s a distance between \u2018Golden\u2019 and K-pop,\u201d said Jinmo Lim, another music critic, who described the Grammy win as recognition of K-pop\u2019s growing international appeal rather than a victory for the genre itself.<\/p>\n

Lim Hee-yun said \u201cGolden\u201d sounds more like American pop \u2014 \u201cKaty Perry or early Lady Gaga\u201d \u2014 than a typical K-pop idol track, which may have helped it reach a broader audience. While K-pop groups usually have four or more members who rotate vocal parts to engage fans, \u201cGolden\u201d is carried almost entirely by a single lead vocalist \u2014 Ejae.<\/p>\n

Group composition, precision in style and choreography, and passionate \u2014 almost religious \u2014 fan bases are key elements that define K-pop, he said, though the genre has become increasingly difficult to pin down musically.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor people who knew little about K-pop, or had only heard of BTS or Blackpink, \u2018KPop Demon Hunters\u2019 certainly boosted awareness of the K-pop world and even sparked interest in traveling to South Korea,\u201d Lim Hee-yun said. \u201cK-pop groups are likely to receive far more attention in the future than they would have without the film.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans celebrated on Monday as \u201cGolden,\u201d from the Netflix animated film \u201cKPop Demon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[150927,1763,156,3717,26626,3856,157,111,139,69,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-263975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-150927","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-grammy-awards","13":"tag-k-pop","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-new-zealand","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}