K-Pop Demon Hunters is the ultimate example of an underdog movie, a film that was largely unknown until it’s release and took the world by storm with its epic songs, intriguing plot, and heaven-knows-it’s-cliché but tear-inducing romance.
It wasn’t long after the release that I began to hear “Golden” being fused into every possible social media post. It was catchy, but I admit I was hesitant to jump on the bandwagon of obsession. I mean, come on – K-Pop Demon Hunters? – it sounded like the start of a weird joke. But, like most things that blow up on social media, the movie and the songs were hard to ignore. I pretty much had the whole plot figured out before I even watched it for the first time, but I still had yet to fall into the craze.
It wasn’t until mid-September where I finally decided to give the soundtrack a try; at the very least to see what all the fuss was about. As Mira would say, it was infectious. I was hooked and quickly realized this might not be such a weird obsession after all.
The fact that this movie is still so popular as it is is amazing, but not surprising. The film and the songs obviously had a lot of labor of love, time, and energy put into it, something that larger film and animation industries could learn to apply (looking at you Disney!).
But it’s truly the magic of the songs that make and sell this movie. They are deliberate, thought-out pieces that reveal character’s personalities, traits, motivations, and struggles.
In light of this new trend, I thought I would make my own ranking of my favorite songs from the movie based on how often I’ve listened to them:
- This is What it Sounds Like – Out of all the songs in this movie, I find this one to be the most inspirational, not just for its lyrics and powerful vocals, but the message behind them. It’s not just about coming together to defeat the villain; it allows the heroines to have flaws, pasts, and things about themselves that they cannot fix. So often the climax of a story ends with the hero being able to fix something in the world or in themselves. What I love most about this song is that it acknowledges that we can’t possibly fix everything about us, but we don’t have to. When we finally let go of the lies, acknowledge our flaws, and correct our mistakes, our real selves can shine through, and it might just be better than we could have ever imagined.
- Takedown – Ironically, this was the first song I ever heard (full-length) from the movie, and it’s probably the one I still listen to the most. There’s just something so mesmerizing about those background vocals that makes you wish you were half as good a dancer as the animated characters on screen. I never heard the term “diss track” before this song, but it deserves this hardcore title and more. And besides, who doesn’t enjoy a good anthem that encourages the destruction of soul-sucking demons parading as angels of light. Hits the nail right on the head if you ask me.
- How it’s Done – Every great musical needs to have a good opening song, one that gets the ball rolling and sets the stage for the rest of the film. If people who have not seen the film are going to judge it by any song, it should be this one. There are far too many iconic moments to name in this song, not to mention how it’s become the anthem for anyone jumping out of airplane. It’s fun, upbeat, and really does a huge amount of story-telling and world-building in such a short amount of time.
- Idol – This song was at the very bottom of my list until I actually watched the movie and saw it in context. There are so many things that make it such a great villain song that I don’t have time to explain them all: catchy lyrics, powerful music, the choreography of the characters, everything. What really sells this song for me though is its grounding in reality. How many times do we distract ourselves from reality through outside forces, mainly music? We literally make idols out of people or things that keep us obsessed, feed into our desires, and encourage the worst parts of us. Gotta love it when a cartoon spits out more truth than the average reality tv-show.
- Golden – Now don’t hate me. This isn’t in the bottom three because I don’t like it. This song is phenomenal and deserves all the praise it gets. I simply felt that the other songs before it had more emotional depth and truth to them. After all, Rumi only ever sings this song when she is essentially still hiding and putting her hope in the wrong things. As a whole though, this song is a genius mode of storytelling and will hopefully be pumping for years to come.
- Free – K-dramas have never been my thing, and probably never will be. But I’m not so blind as to not recognize a good love song when I see one. What I like about this is that it doesn’t feel like a typical love song, like one might expect from Disney. The chemistry is there, the feelings are there, but I think the overarching theme is finding someone who understands you, someone who gives you hope. And we don’t need a kiss at the end. Those vocals are rewarding enough.
- Soda-Pop – To be honest, this was a song I avoided listening too after I initially began listening to the soundtrack. I had heard and seen snippets of the scene a hundred times, and it just looked silly. It’s still not my favorite because of how strange a song it is. It’s even more weird when you realize this is being sung by a bunch of demons who literally want to feed off of people. This song has no emotional weight, no soul-searching lyrics; it’s honestly annoying – but that’s the whole point in the story. It’s annoying how quickly this catchy but meaningless song overtakes the popularity of Huntrix, whose every song is infused with passion and meaning. I’m actually glad that this song is in here, mainly because, for me, it expresses perfectly how I feel about most pop-star songs: meaningless, witty hits meant to hold our attention and distract us from real musical talent.
The craze over this movie is far from over, especially with the film’s recent 5 Grammy nominations. If anything, this movie should serve as a revival for filmmakers to take storytelling through song seriously.