KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack review

Nothin' but the truth now

September 18, 2025

 Categorization: Fantasy (At this juncture I want to say “K-Fantasy” and then I realize that would just be an irrelevant discrimination (read: racist). Fantasy is Fantasy, fantasy from Korea is Fantasy, and good fantasy is good Fantasy. End of story, and you’re welcome humanity for solving racism)

Where watched: On Netflix

It was inevitable. I had to write this.

I didn’t want to. Lord knows I tried my best. But for the past month (having held out as long as I could), I was bombarded with word-of-mouth reviews of the KPop Demon Hunters movie. My grumpy cousin who hates everything but has a six-year old told me “it’s pretty good”. My daughter’s friend at kindergarten informed both of us that she had watched it five times, while her mom rolled her eyes in the background. I watched the movie for about ten minutes with my daughter, got bored, and then I let my daughter finish it with my mom and then later caught her (my mom, not my daughter) crying at the end of the movie. Random news articles on Facebook informed me that it was Netflix’s most watched movie

EVER. 

Wtf, I wondered to myself. Incredible. It was an absolute conspiracy, I tell you.

And so, priding myself on being a first-class non-sheep, I dug my heels in and held out against watching the movie for several months. Being a non-sheep but also not a Nazi, however, one bright sunny Saturday I plugged the movie in for my daughter and set myself down for a good doomscroll-online shopping-chocolate pancake-huge mug of coffee sesh.

So there I was, minding my own business and ignoring the movie, until a few trembly musical notes flew through the air, entered my ears, and caught my attention as determinedly as though someone had grabbed me by the head, pried my eyes open, and zoomed them onto the TV.

What the…

“I tried to hide, but something broke…”

The KPop Demon Hunters song “Free” entered my brain, and it was over for me.

This song, I swear to God, has musical millennial drugs in it. It is the perfect, absolutely perfect, mix of early 2000’s R&B duet ballad hits and 90’s slow pop. I felt it speaking directly to the turn-of-the-century teenager in me. We millennials grew up with Disney ballads, and then Avril Lavigne, and then the Goo Goo Dolls, and then some Country Grammar by Nelly, and then 30 Seconds to Mars, and then "Dilemma" by Kelly Rowland and Nelly, and then some Deathcab for Cutie on the side, and all of that would be in the same f%cking iPod playlist, and it would make perfect sense only to a millennial. And for no reason I can articulate, “Free” (by Rumi, as Siri informs me when I ask her to play this on Spotify) hits all of these notes and gets me grooving and belting “FREEEeeeee FREEEEEEeeeeeee” in the shower, in the car, before I go to bed.

What can I say. Non-sheep like music, too.

And then.

I was driving my kids to school one morning and grudgingly (or so I let it seem) allowed them to play the entire KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack on the way. I was focused on driving and was largely ignoring what was playing (except for "Free") when I suddenly caught myself bopping my head to one of the songs and idly thinking, these lyrics are pretty sweet.

Thus I discovered that, as if it wasn't enough to have “Free” to justify the entire movie, these soundtrack beasts also made the song “What It Sounds Like”. Which is just a brilliant song. I later found out that it ties the whole movie together (good job), but it stands on its own and is a perfect, empowering anthem, reminiscent of Pink, Kelly Clarkson, and Christina Aguilera big-note solos, and which, I dare to think, they would not have been ashamed to sing. It has a beautiful and current message for kids too, I think, that it’s ok to not be perfect all the time? And your imperfections are what make you unique. And, like “Free”, it has no business being that catchy and that much fun to sing.

Aside: Sorry, Disney, but Netflix and Sony managed to make the modern classic with unforgettable music that I think, you have been trying to do in recent years but have so far not succeeded in. I suggest you start stalkin' those Sony soundtrack people's CVs on LinkedIn.

After that, I did feel compelled to put on and actually pay attention to the entire KPop Demon Hunters movie, and this time without the snobby disdain with which I had first tried to watch it. And the movie is okay. I would say as a Fantasy movie, it is Fine Fantasy. It’s for kids. The premise is cute, the animation is Triple AAA,  it’s funny, sure, I think it tries a little too hard to be sometimes, and the logic of the ending didn’t seem to come together very…logically (drinks coffee to power up a few lagging brain cells – it’s 9 AM on a Saturday, give me a break), and the romance thing seemed a little… not organic? I don’t know. But I don’t care. “Free” and “What It Sounds Like” justify the whole movie. Just like “Guilty as Sin” justifies the entire The Tortured Poets Department.

Bronze medal for “Golden” and the other songs as well; my kids (well, all kids, it seems) love them, and they are catchy earworms, those are. Again, Sony seems to have, if not decoded, at least started cracking open the Disney formula for great soundtrack music.  It is music that is easy for kids to understand, but clever enough for adults to appreciate, with head-bopping tunes that are germane to the parts of the story the songs are connected to.

I feel like this is the start of something great for Sony, and I can’t wait to see what is next. I have said it before and I'll say it again, the yield and far-reaching effects of creating new and successful IP are just extraordinary.

As a bonus, and as part of my trying to dissect EXACTLY why “Free” and “What It Sounds Like” hit all my millennial notes, here’s my playlist of the songs from Spotify that I feeeeeel like they drew their inspiration from. Or (glumly) maybe the songs which were fed into ChatGPT before it was told to generate new music for the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. I don’t know anymore. But the songs are that perfect so one can’t help but wonder. Anyway, the list of songs is below, in case you don’t have Spotify and prefer to dust off the ol’ iPod:

1.        “Where You Are” by Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey

2.        “Dilemma” by Kelly Rowland and Nelly

3.        “So Into You” by Tamia

4.        “U Got It Bad” by Usher

5.        “Ex-Factor” by Lauryn Hill

6.        “Just Give Me A Reason” by Pink feat. Nate Ruess

7.        “When You’re Gone” by Avril Lavigne

8.        “Stronger” Kelly Clarkson

9.        “California King Bed” by Rihanna

10.   “Fighter” by Christina Aguilera

11.   “Because of You” by Kelly Clakson

And here is the Spotify magic code which will automatically lead you to the playlist when you open Spotify, click the camera icon on the upper right corner, and point your cellphone's camera at it. Will wonders never cease.

Playlist

kpop demon hunters soundtrack review