Golden this week is #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the fifth time

Now the longest-leading hit by an animated act in the chart’s 67-year history.
Two previous cartoon tunes each reigned for four weeks:

The Archies, with “Sugar, Sugar” in 1969
The Chipmunks with David Seville, with “The Chipmunk Song” over the 1958 holiday season.

33.8 million official streams (down 2% week-over-week)
26.3 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 19%) (Radio Songs #20)
8,000 sold (down 11%) in the United States Sept. 5-11.

Eighth week at No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart and dips to No. 3 after two weeks atop Digital Song Sales.

The rest of the Top 10: Your Idol (#4), Soda Pop (#5), and How It’s Done (#8)

I bought two K-pop Demon hunter shirts off TikTok shop in the last few weeks. One is of Hunt/RX and the other is the Saja Boys.

They were $8 each plus tax and free shipping. They were actually decent quality and the image patch wasn’t cheap. But, I highly doubt they were “official” products The same designs were being sold on Amazon for $20 each.

I said it earlier I think but I know at least Hot Topic has official shirts, not sure where else.

I'm sad that "This Is What It Sounds Like" and "Free" (my two favorite songs) didn't make the cut, but am glad "How It's Done" (my third favorite song) and "Your Idol" (my fourth favorite song) did make it to #8 and #4 respectively.

It probably goes without saying here that I’ve been hopeful that the success of the overall soundtrack album will increase the already massive awareness of K-Pop music to folks who were previously less (or not) familiar. Somebody earlier posted the Wiki page of K-Pop albums that have cracked the billboard top 200 (and top 100, and top 20, top 10, even the top spot!) since 2009, and it does seem that other Korean albums have continued the routine even after the KPDH soundtrack first topped it back in July.

The Billboard singles charts (all of them) also reveal just how long the, ahem, wave has been rolling onto western shores and into the upper ranks.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...llboard_charts

So, despite my cheerleading undoubtedly garnering a few , I do hope that folks might seek out some of the non-KPDH songs throughout the lists at that link on whatever music streams you use, or even better on YouTube for all the catchy videos. As much as I love the DEMON HUNTERS songs, they’re simply the cherry on top of a gigantic sundae if you find them catchy enough to own or revisit. An impossibly substantial amount of K-Pop tuneage is every bit as good, often better.

Incidentally – and yes, off-topic a little so spoilerized – here’s some that cracked the top 100 (various charts) in the weeks that KPDH songs have been dominating them. Depending on one’s preferences, these may or may not rival the soundtrack cuts (but honestly, what does at this point?), but they still kept the wave rolling :

The rest of the soundtrack has started to fade, so likely no more additions to the Top 10 coming


Of course, can't forget "Apt." by ROSÉ earlier this year which peaked
at #3 for two weeks and stayed on the Hot 100 for a Kpop record
45 weeks before going recurrent.
It's also the first Kpop song to hit #1 on the Billboard Pop Airplay chart.

Unfortunate, but I’m sure the rest of K-Pop will make up for that from time to time.

- - - - - - - - -

Another digression (but not really! - see below) for further entertainment - and to keep driving at just how big Hallyu in general actually is: KCON is an annual event that began in 2012, right around the time the already fully-formed K-Pop machine and a maturing (haha) social media ecosystem intertwined to kick things up a billion notches. (I posted one of this year’s KCON LA ‘random play dance’ battles in this thread a few weeks ago).

I didn’t really follow the growth of these events over the years as fan shows aren’t really my thing. I assumed they were essentially in league with smaller and mid-size comic conventions or anime expos, only for K-Pop music fans and collectors. That part is true, but from day one they’ve also been pretty substantial showcases for rising and established K-Pop acts to put on multi-group concerts. The first three years, they were held in California (LA, Irvine) with attendance going from 10K to 20K to 40K annually. Year four saw them staged in LA (60K attendees), Newark, Japan, and South Korea. Year five – nine years ago – added Abu Dhabi and Paris. Year six added Sydney and Mexico City. And so on.

This year there seems to be fewer events, but bigger ones in terms of the venue / concert / attendance size. The Japan and Los Angeles events (not sure if there are others still to come) each showcased what I believe are record 30+ acts alongside the usual ‘convention’ vendors, movie and K-drama screenings, artists, food, tourism promotion, etc.

And not unlike the acts I previously mentioned performing at the comparatively measly Toronto Korean Festival here, these KCON showcases (and others like them?) presumably provide lots of goodwill or crossover opportunities for these acts to perform at other events while they’re in town.

https://kconusa.com/
https://kconjapan.com/

Both KCON 2024 and 2025 in Los Angeles set attendance records of 125,000-plus. Apparently the concerts and other events are live-streamed globally to a few million people as well. I’d imagine this year’s event in early August was boosted at least a little by K-POP DEMON HUNTERS, to the degree that a new K-pop girl group formed in 2024, Izna (< wiki), recorded their own version of ‘Golden’ and three members ‘performed’ it as part of their set at the Crypto.com Arena. They’re lip-syncing here (not uncommon) and the choreography is different, but clearly KPDH was bound to turn up in someone’s act :


^ Further to that, Izna is a group literally manufactured late last year on one of Korea’s many idol contest reality-TV shows, with only one EP record (five songs) and two additional singles so far according to their Wiki. I doubt they’re huge sellers just yet, but like virtually all K-pop acts they certainly rack up views, even at the outset. That ‘Golden’ video is at a reasonably impressive 6 million in a month, but the music video for their first single ‘Sign’ is at 65 million views in just five months. Their second, ‘Beep’, is at 48 million after three months. This stuff may be manufactured precisely to formula, but if the formula works, well . . .

Doubling back here for a moment. I went to the nearby McD’s on Monday unaware that these launched in Canada the same day (they’ve been out in the U.S. since Sept. 3). I didn’t partake but I did notice some folks with them opened on their tables and I was surprised how big they were. Based on the ad I posted earlier, I figured they’d be dinky little key chain-sized things, but they’re actually a bit bigger than that.


My next thought was how amusing the DEMON HUNTERS characters would look given this mini-toon treatment. Another lost (or certainly delayed) opportunity. I’m surprised another retail or food chain hasn’t considered the possibilities, even if on a smaller scale. Obviously McD’s using BTS was a sure bet as that group is marketing gold in ways that even KPDH can’t touch, but I think the latter would still do well in toy/figurine form. Apparently folks on social media feel the same way, using AI to imagine various versions of the characters, mostly using the models as depicted in the movie. It’s probably only a matter of time before real-world versions show up, whether Netflix licenses them or not :

Speaking of KPDH and AI, it seems th film is now under fire because one of the writers acknowledged that AI was used during the writing process of "Soda Pop".



Based on that video, it seems the public outcry is exaggerated (big surprise) and AI was just used to spitball ideas rather than to actually write the song. Also, the English translation of the interview is questionable because the translation mentions ChatGTP whereas the program is not mentioned in the Korean interview.

My Target exclusive soundtrack just arrived today. As I said last page, it was on sale last week for $9.99, but none of the brick and mortar stores near me had anything in stock. The photo card was one of the Saja Boys.

What's the difference between the Target CD and the one I got from Amazon? I too got a poster and a photo card. Were there any bonus tracks?

This is what Target's website says:

• Target Exclusive version includes fold-out poster and 1 photo card (1 of 9 versions) .

I'm not sure then if you say you also got the same thing from Amazon.

Yeah, mine was from . And looking at the reviews, it seems the poster and photo card were no fluke. But you certainly got the better price.

Nice (PR-ish) interview with the singing voice performers over Korean food in New York (with metal chopsticks! ). This was posted a few hours ago, but it seems to have been recorded earlier in the month. (They refer to something “at TIFF yesterday” which caught my ear as I hadn’t heard of anything during the festival. I did find clips of a staged karaoke party promo thing held on opening day in some small club for the usual annoying industry people and freebie-hunter ‘entertainment journalists’, plus a puffy segment on the Ankler YT channel that was done here. Not sure why they’d need to promote a three-plus month old movie at TIFF, but I guess it’s as good a location as any to maintain the awareness.)

Golden this week is #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the sixth time
“Golden” is now the third-longest-leading Hot 100 hit by an all-female group:

11 weeks, Destiny’s Child, “Independent Women Part 1,” (2000)
7 weeks, TLC, “Waterfalls,” (1995)

32.1 million official streams (down 5% week-over-week)
30.6 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 16%) (Radio Songs #16)
7,000 sold (down 6%) in the United States Sept. 12-18.

Ninth week at No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart and rebounds 3-2 after two weeks atop Digital Song Sales.

The rest of the Top 10: Soda Pop (#5), Your Idol (#6), and How It’s Done (#10)

Speaking of marketing somebody needs to get on a Push Pops / K Pop collab.

https://www.pushpopcandy.com/products/push-pop/

Push Pops still exist?

Golden this week is #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the seventh time
“Golden” is now tied for the second longest leading Hot 100 hit by an
all-female group with TLC, “Waterfalls,” (1995).

Golden is now the first top 10 Radio Songs ever by an animated act.

33.8 million official streams (up 5% week-over-week)
33.9 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 11%) (Radio Songs #9)
8,000 sold (up 2%) in the United States Sept. 19-25.

10th week at No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart; #2 on Digital Song Sales.

The rest of the Top 10: Soda Pop (#3), Your Idol (#5)

Note that streaming last week was helped by Jourdan Blue singing it on AGT:

Taylor arrives in 4 days.

Golden might be able to squeeze out one more week, as sales week ends on Thursdays...

Who? (Not joking. If it a joke, it flew over my head.)

Taylor Swift? New album drops this Friday.

Just saw that Huntr/x will make live debut October 7th on Jimmy Fallon.

Ah. I didn't even think of her. In all fairness, I don't listen to her music. The only song of hers I technically heard was in the form of a cover performed by Reese Witherspoon in Sing.

You know you want one!

Seal your HUNTR/X and Saja Boys fandom with official light sticks that synchronize to music. Preorder now!

$65 with delivery late November...

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articl...ial-lightstick

Derpy is going to be a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.