‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Built a Soundtrack to Slay Global Pop Charts

Can we get a sequel and more great K-pop songs, please?

In Netflix’s original animated musical film “KPop Demon Hunters,” the trio that make up fictional K-pop band Huntr/x — Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) — rule the pop charts when they’re not working in their true calling as demon hunters. Worlds collide, though, when the Saja Boys, a new, competing boy band, reveal themselves to also be demons, with the girls being the only hope to take them down.  

But this film, from directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, knows something about taking out the competition since that’s what it’s been doing since it premiered on June 20 on the streamer. Based on Netflix’s data for the week ending July 13, “KPop Demon Hunters” has spent four weeks in the Netflix Global Top 10 (English) with 40,400,000 hours viewed and just reclaimed the #1 spot after being bumped from #1 to #2 last week by the release of Charlize Theron’s “The Old Guard 2.” 

The news gets even better on the pop charts since several of the singles and the soundtrack have landed in top slots. The film’s executive music producer Ian Eisendrath admits to having a hope that the music would be just as popular as the film itself. “Being on the charts, that’s the dream, but I feel like it’s not something you can will to happen, but you can hope it happens,” he told IndieWire.  

In fact, the film’s single “Golden” is currently at #1 on both the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excluding U.S. charts and will be submitted by Netflix for awards consideration. Another song, “Your Idol” from Saja Boys, recently topped the US Spotify chart, making them the highest charting K-pop group in Spotify history, even besting K-pop super group BTS. Also, the film’s soundtrack is also currently #2 on the Billboard Global 200 chart.  

IndieWire talked to Eisendrath about making sure the music in “KPop Demon Hunters” was true to the K-pop genre, why working with different writers on the film’s songs was a good thing, and his thoughts on a sequel to the animated hit film.  

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

IndieWire: What was your directive going into “KPop Demon Hunters” as far as what the music should be and how you should capture the K-popness of it all?  

Ian Eisdendrath: The directive was very much “We want to create a soundtrack of real K-pop hits.” That was the goal. This is not one of those films where it’s like, “Let’s hire some people to write in the style of it.” This soundtrack needs to land and exist as a K-pop album, but also work within the film and cover the narrative territory it needs to cover and fit in the mouths of each of the characters, which is not something that K-pop traditionally does. 

A pop song wants to be universal. You want to settle into the groove. And it’s a whole other goal in listening than a song that is on camera, doing something for the story. It’s just this constant calibration letting the pop vernacular lead the way, but continuing to focus on story and character values. It was a real sort of organic emergence of what the songs needed to be. 

So how did you accomplish that? 

First, there was a question, “Are these performance songs or are these songs for their story?” I was always an advocate for, “If we’re going to take up screen time, let’s make sure the songs do something for the character and story.” But Spring at Sony had assembled this army of K-pop writers, so we had a whole team at the Black Label [the S. Korean record label], Stephen Kirk, Jenna Andrews, Lindgren, Ejae, Mark Sonnenblick; this was a whole group to get to task with different songs. It’s like, “Oh, Black Label is going to create the perfect vibe for this song. Let’s throw this to them, but let’s get some lyrics from this other person.” There was so much cross-pollination. It was truly an ensemble of writers, which happens in pop music. There are song camps where everyone gets together and collaborates, but usually not in film. 
 
How was that beneficial for you and for the film to have all these artists as opposed to a singular writer doing all the songs?  

It was beneficial in many ways. One, it is how pop music is made, and usually it is a group of artists that get thrown into a camp together, and they come out the other end with something cool. Having a group of people and figuring out what their strengths were and who they would partner best with was a real bonus for the project. Like, there are songs that one writer or a team of writers would start, and then we realized, “You know what? That’s not the perfect fit for them, so we’re going to move them to this song, and we’re going to move someone else to this song.” And we really had, for most songs, between three and seven versions of songs written for each spot [in the movie]. 

Because you had the script to work with, did that inform where you needed, for example, a ballad or where you needed more of an upbeat pop song? 

Yeah, I worked closely with the directors, Chris and Maggie, and our producer, Michelle Wong, for a year before we even started songwriting and spotting where the songs go, what needed to happen in each song. So, very much in our head was, “Let’s create something that is a film and an album.” And in fact, what we did was we created all the album versions first. I didn’t realize at the time, but I think that was a secret weapon because it really forced us to look at the songs as whole songs that you’d want on a soundtrack and then to figure out how to slice and dice for the film. 

“Golden” is definitely the single that’s really blowing up by being number one right now everywhere in the world. What was the trajectory of that song, since you mentioned the songs having different iterations? 

Ironically, “Golden” was the one that had the most iterations. We had 5 different writers on it and seven different songs by the time we were done. It took a long time. It’s an interesting ask because it had to be very much life imitating art, and something that would top the charts. [The Huntr/x members] had to write a new single that would literally go up, up, up, up on the charts. It had to fulfill that and be a great K-pop song.  

It served the function of what in most film musicals is called the “I want song,” which is where the characters establish the mission that they’re going to be on for the rest of the film. We had to keep it as a pop song, but it also had to establish what the group wanted, which was to seal the Honmoon and basically conquer all. And the way to express that is to be golden. Then, at the same time, it had to somehow uncover Rumi’s deeper need and want, which is to erase the [demon] patterns, which is the moment the audience realizes, “Oh, my gosh, she’s a demon.” It had to do all those things.  

Musically, we tried a lot of different vibes, and it was the seventh option when we moved to working with Black Label on that track. They found a sound and we heard it and it was just like, “Oh, that’s it for the verses and the choruses, and then figuring out how to go to this very inner monologue bridge.” It just took a long time.  

I also have to mention EJAE Kim, who’s just unreal and wrote that top line with Mark Sonnenblick writing lyrics with her. It was a dream team, and it was the last thing we recorded as late as December of this last year, which is very, very late for animation. It’s gratifying that that’s the one.  

By comparison, is a very fun pop song like “Soda Pop” easier to put together? 

No, it wasn’t. We went through several there because it’s hard to calibrate. It had to still be a good song and be hooky and catchy, but it also was a novelty song in which here come the demons as these sweet little innocent guys, you need to fall in love with them, but also the words that they’re saying need to have a double meaning. On one hand, it’s like, “I’m squeaky clean and I love you,” but the text is actually, “I want to devour you.” So, it’s like meeting the demons as innocent, naive seductors. 

How many total songs were considered for the movie before you figured out these are the ones that actually are going to make the cut?  

I’m going to say 30 plus. The way it worked was we knew we had seven songs that we wanted in the film, and so we just kept bashing away at each of those song spots till we got there.  

What’s it been like for you to see singers on YouTube doing covers and even dancers doing the moves from the film’s dance performances?   

Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s super exciting and validating because we were trying to create something that the Korean culture would feel like was created by them, and also that they loved, so to see that, I don’t think there’s any greater sort of reward from doing this project. Also, this project is Maggie Kang’s. This is so deeply from her brain and heart. She loves K-pop, and that was such a driving force of wanting us to make sure we were creating songs that resonated with what she’s been in love with her whole life. I’ve been really excited for her and also just impressed. Like, “Wow, that thing you saw totally happened and worked, and that’s pretty fantastic.” 

And members of BTS even did a little “Soda Pop” riff on a livestream recently.  

Unreal! Yeah, that was crazy. I was on set with a film called “Spirited” and that’s right when [BTS’s hit song] “Butter” came out and we were all dancing to it. So that’s really crazy to me. 

I don’t think I’m alone in being ready for “K-pop Demon Hunters 2.” Is that a hope that you get to do more of these songs for another movie? 

I would love it. It would be a dream. I could do this forever.  
 
KPop Demon Hunters is currently streaming on Netflix.