Over the previous few weeks, I’ve been requested no less than a dozen occasions whether or not I’m going to evaluation the songs from the favored Netflix film Okay-Pop Demon Hunters. The reply continues to be “no,” although with this publish I suppose it’s sort of a semi-“sure.”
I wish to apologize to anybody who obtained an more and more dismissive response from me when asking this query. Don’t take it personally and it wasn’t my intent to be impolite. It’s simply that it’s come up so usually that it’s turn out to be a working gag within the feedback part. Now, there’s a full publish to include all of the discourse!
In any case, as I posted on Twitter/X final week, I’m not a fan of those songs total. What’s superb to me is how many individuals on social media took that as an excellent offense, defending this mission with the identical fervor they’d decide to a flesh-and-blood idol group. I suppose I’m glad the mission has hit such a nerve, even when the music isn’t for me.
The factor is, the songs are… positive. They’re very generic and constructed upon comparatively sturdy Okay-pop tropes. There are just a few huge obstacles I can’t get previous. First, I’m not an enormous animation fan to start with — particularly this newer CGI fashion that merely jogs my memory of characters in an commercial for tub tissue. So, I haven’t watched the film and am probably lacking plenty of vital context. Second, I dislike when huge tent tasks like this clean over any intricacies of an artwork kind (and at its finest, Okay-pop is artwork!) to create probably the most palatable product attainable. Regardless of the preliminary intentions have been behind these songs, that sanitized high quality is what I hear at the start.
Of the favored songs on the soundtrack, I suppose Soda Pop is my favourite. However because the web’s resident lover of brilliant boy group ideas, I’ve heard lots of of songs on this soundscape and Soda Pop doesn’t do something enjoyable or fascinating sufficient to face out. It appears like a survival present competitors observe.
In the meantime, I get that followers are liking Golden as a result of it sounds a bit like IVE’s finest hits, however to me the execution and pretend self-empowerment message really feel extra according to Rachel Platten’s Battle Tune — a observe I’ve a severe distaste for. I simply can’t get previous this. I discover it actively annoying.
Then there’s Your Idol, which is simply too cringe for me to get pleasure from. If an precise idol group had carried out it, I’d have the ability to look previous the lyrics however it simply seems like the obvious Okay-pop pastiche in an eye-rolling approach.
So… yeah. In some methods I needs to be the audience for this entire mission however the music has fallen flat for me and I don’t actually see why it’s turn out to be so standard (past the plain attain of Netflix).