Since its June 20 release, KPop Demon Hunters has morphed from a Netflix curiosity into a multimedia phenomenon: the animated musical focused on a K-pop girl group, HUNTR/X, who slay demons in between selling out arena shows, has not only become a smash streaming film but has spawned seven hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from its soundtrack. On this week’s chart (dated July 26), “Golden” reaches a new peak of No. 4, while songs like “Your Idol,” “How It’s Done” and “Soda Pop” continue to perform well on daily U.S. and global streaming charts.
Below, executive music producer Ian Eisendrath shares how “Golden” came together — and what it’s been like witnessing the soundtrack’s multihit takeover.
“Golden,” positioned as girl group HUNTR/X’s new single in KPop Demon Hunters, has established itself as the film’s biggest hit. Have you been surprised by that?
Not at all. “Golden” was a song that we kept looking for — it had to be something transcendent, that functioned as the characters establishing what they want and were going to pursue for the rest of the film, but that pursuit could not be what they ultimately learned and achieved. But then, it was also their hit single! We felt like it had to be an aspirational pop song that we could get the audience to believe in and want for HUNTR/X.
Before it became a potential real-world hit, “Golden” had to follow the age-old movie trope of sounding like a hit single in a fictional world.
And it had to be a smash! This was a film that was made by Korean hit-makers, and the song couldn’t be our approximation of the K-pop hit — it actually had to be one. When I first heard Black Label’s [production], it had the exact right energy, and then we threw it to [co-writers] EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick. The melody EJAE wrote, that became the pre-chorus and back half of the chorus for “Golden,” is so emotional. The 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 “Golden” for them, they were like, “That’s it.”
“Golden” is one of seven KPop Demon Hunters songs to reach the Hot 100. What’s it like watching so many songs from the soundtrack become hits?
Truly thrilling and surprising. [Sony Motion Pictures Group music president] Spring Aspers put together this incredible stable of artists, from Teddy Park to Steven Kirk to Jenna Andrews to Lindgren. I’ve always believed in the songs and thought they would pop — but not like this.
A version of this story appears in the July 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.