Everyone can stop complaining about the lack of a song of the summer in 2025. There’s officially a late entry for that title, and no, it’s not “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” — but its origins may be just as unexpected.
I heretofore put forth as my sole contender for 2025 song of the summer: “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. The anthemic earworm at the center of Netflix’s record-breaking cultural phenomenon entrances everyone who hears it, whether they’re already obsessed with the genre it hails from or thought they despised it.
You don’t need to like K-pop, anime, animated movies or anything remotely hallyu oriented to get hooked. There’s a reason the track basically heals the world in the movie: no one is immune to its thumping drive, its towering, teetering vocals or its empowering message of self acceptance. I promise, you will feel that warmth glowing in your chest like the snatchable souls the movie’s protagonists are fighting for.
Demon Hunters is now Netflix’s number one animated movie ever and its second most streamed movie of all time, period. And last week, after seven straight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, “Golden” hit No. 1, a feat that hasn’t been achieved by any girl group since — wait for it — Destiny’s Child did it with “Bootylicious” in 2001, nearly 25 years ago.
But it’s not just accolades that make “Golden” the season’s top bop.
It’s the track itself ticking every box required of a “song of the summer:” It’s a “walking out of the office on a summer Friday” song. It’s a “blasting from your car with the windows down” song. It’s a “road trip singalong, belting in the backseat” song.
It sparks that rare giddy, new music feeling, where you know you’re going to put it on repeat and the first notes in your headphones are an instant hit of serotonin. Plus, it’s captivated a massive and incredibly diverse fandom. I can’t stop listening to it and neither can my friend’s six-year-old daughter.
What’s even more fascinating about this addictive powerhouse pop song is that the group singing it, HUNTR/X, isn’t real. They’re the movie’s animated demon-slaying pop-star heroes, Rumi, Mira and Zoey, whose singing voices belong to the very real vocalists EJAE (who co-wrote the song and cried upon finding out it hit No. 1), Audrey Nuna and REI AMI.
You don’t need to watch KPop Demon Hunters to enjoy “Golden,” but you really, really should. I first convinced my reluctant partner to watch it by lying. And it worked beautifully.
I said it was a show. (It’s only 100 minutes!) And that I’d heard it wasn’t just for girls. Guys were really liking it. (The guys in question were BTS, who mentioned it in a livestream, causing Netflix to their bio to “BTS NOTICED” and the date.)
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Neither of us are big movie watchers and we historically don’t really go for anything animated, but we do both like K-pop and I’d heard good things from real-life friends and critics online.
He admitted it was good, then three days later, I got a text: “I think I want to watch KPop Demon Hunters again.” We did, and we’ve been playing the soundtrack ever since. In the car, in the shower, on our commutes…. It’s been weeks and we’re haven’t exhausted it.
Now, to be fair, the album is top-to-bottom bops. “Soda Pop,” sung by the heroines’ rival demon boyband Saja Boys is pure bubblegum bliss, but, for me, too saccharine to have enough longevity to last the summer.
“How It’s Done” is an inarguable banger boasting the stickiest lyrics of the whole movie. Hair, nails, blade, mascara. Fit check for my napalm era,” Rumi and Mira rap as they dive out of a plane in pursuit of deadly demons.
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“Idol,” another Saja Boys track is hypnotizing (fittingly, as that’s its purpose in the movie) and “Takedown” was blessed by K-pop superstars Twice — three members of which even recorded their own version for the soundtrack. And Andy Sandberg recently said on his Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast that he wants to do a take on “Free” with Akiva Schaffer. (I was not kidding about the diverse fandom!)
Once you’re all in on Kpop Demon Hunters — and I promise, you will be whether you meant to or not — you’re going to want more. And that’s when I can tell you the good news.
Netflix and the movie’s mastermind creator and director Maggie Kang are reportedly already planning for two sequels and, one can only hope, two more perfect soundtracks.
