Unleashing the Sound: The Great Musical Debut of K-Pop Demon Hunters

A bit over 6 weeks as of the time I'm writing this, K-Pop Demon Hunters came out with a fantastic release. In the first two weeks, it garnered over 30 million views, making it the most popular animated show on Netflix to date. Now, this is just a quarter of what Squid Game did, and for an animated show, those are huge numbers. Now, see, Netflix has this alleged 28-day rule. Basically, if a movie or show stays in the top 10 of Netflix for 28 days, that means it will get a sequel or a continuation of the series. Now, Netflix has released a statement where they specifically said that the 28-day rule will apply to K-Pop Demon Hunters. If the current situation remains, they will be on board for a sequel to the movie and a different series on it as well. Now, for fans, this is huge news. A series would be longer than the movie, with just four episodes. With eight episodes, it would be longer than both movies. However, Netflix prefers series with more than 10 episodes for longer audience retention.

Along with the grand debut of KPDH, I have officially released ads on this blog, which is amazing to me since this is just a hobby. Now we're at the part where we discuss who made the music and how. Now, for this movie, Netflix got very famous Korean songwriters to help with the movie, and they did not disappoint. After a course of 9 years, they made a soundtrack that beat artists like BTS, Sabrina Carpenter, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar. And more. Plus, on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels, fans have been creating edits, sing-a-longs, and colour-coded songs of character and shipping, similar to what they did in the movie. Alternatively, dance videos to songs like "Your Idol," "Golden," "How It's Done," and various other songs from the movie. With these bumps and boosts of popularity, it is no wonder that it rose above other movies and animated shows. Now we have to talk about the songwriters who made the movie what it is, like EJAE, who was the main songwriter; however, occasionally they brought in other pop songwriters whose identities are undisclosed. Now everyone who notably worked on the movie was: THEBLACKLABEL, Marcelo Zarvos, and for the voices of the fictional singers, HUNTRI/X, we have Audrey Nuna, again, EJAE, and finally, Rei Ami. Now, the movie's musical producer, Ian Eisendrath, released a statement saying that he started development on the musical side of things in 2022, with the movie reportedly starting development in 2021.

Officially, Netflix's most watched original animated film of all time.

Now, other than the news we had, we learned that EJAE, the songwriter and singing voice of Rumi, originally auditioned for Celine, Rumi's mentor. However, after having her voice as the base of all the demos she created, they were pitched down to sound like Rumi. But the director, having grown accustomed to EJAE as Rumi's voice, encouraged her to audition for the singing role of Rumi, and she got it. So the beautiful voice of Rumi would have never been there if the director hadn't encouraged EJAE to try out for the role of singing Rumi. Can you believe that we almost would have missed the beautiful soundtracks of Golden, How It's Done, and What It Sounds Like if she had never believed the director?

Now, to end this blog post, I want to say that the team for KPDH did an amazing job with the movie, and I can't wait for the sequel and the possible series coming out! However, I do hope that Netflix does not rush the director like they did with Squid Game, as, the writers and directors were done with Squid Game by the time season 3 was over, with one writer ever saying this, " I can't wait to lie on a beach for the next 10 years before I ever work on another project again." With the director, Hwang Dong-hyuk, even saying that he's exhausted, that he's very tired, and, in a way, so done with Squid Game. Now, this would be horrible if this happened to the KPDH's director, Maggie Kang, as Netflix can't squirm over to an American version of the movie. But I do still have some hope for Netflix, as they could give Kang all the resources she needs, and they will make a beautifully crafted franchise out of this movie. Now, let me know what you guys think of the movie in the comments, and I will see you in the next one.