Last December, Vivaan was in Chennai to spend some time with his aunts, uncles and grandparents. The three-year-old loves putting on at-home concerts. Accompanied by his extended family, he would jam to popular songs like “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire, “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan and finally – ”Golden” by Huntr/x. The track is an original soundtrack from the animated movie KPop Demon Hunters – Netflix’s most popular English-language movie. When asked about how he knows the song, his mother says, “Vivaan picked it at daycare. He has never watched the movie. The song is so popular that he just picked it up by osmosis.”
The track has struck a chord across urban India. Eight-year-old Tanishkaa who lives in Pune, also picked it from school. Her mother Sonakshi Gundevia tells us, “My daughter got into KPop Demon Hunters from listening to its songs in the school bus. One day she came home and just started singing ‘Golden’ which is her favourite.”
Covers by singers, and hook-step reels by dance studios on social media further broadened its appeal in India. At the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka (NITK) – students on campus perform viral songs for YouTube shorts and Instagram reels. One of the most viral reels of their Genesis dance crew, is of three students performing in sync to “Golden”. There have also been flash mobs at Korean conventions, such as at K-wave India (a K-Pop & K-Drama community). “Golden” seems to have also assimilated well with our culture. There is a Bhangra version of the song, a Lucknow school choir performance and more recently an official Hindi version – sung by Ri and Sim of the girl group W.i.S.H.
Since its release in June 2025, “Golden” has only gone “up up up” on the charts. After staging at number one through an 8-week streak on the Billboard Hot 100, the song also snuck onto Indian charts. Currently, “Golden” is in the top 10 on YouTube India’s Top Weekly Videos International list, in Spotify’s Hot Hits India and Top 100 Global on Apple Music India. Not to mention, it is at No. 15 on Billboard’s Global 200 (as of June 2026). It’s safe to say that the movie and its songs have become quite the household name. This fascinating phenomenon led to the movie’s fictional music group Huntr/x becoming the first K-pop act to bag a Grammy. The song also won an Oscar for Best Original Song while the movie took home the Best Animated Feature award.
“Golden” explores an inspirational theme of hitting rock bottom but rising above it. The lyrics are mostly in English with a few Korean phrases. The song, with its universal message, functions well outside the context of the movie: “I’m done hidin’, now I’m shinin’, like I’m born to be. We dreamin’ hard, we came so far, now I believe. We’re goin’ up, up, up. It’s our moment. You know together we’re glowing. Gonna be, gonna be goldеn.”
The song is voiced by the trio of former K-Pop trainee Ejae (who was also a songwriter on the movie), alt-pop rapper Rei Ami and American rapper Audrey Nuna – as members of the movie’s girl group protagonists ‘Huntr/x’. The three voice actors are not part of an existing K-Pop group, but since the movie’s release have walked the red carpet together and even performed it live on stage.
Twelve-year-old Hridhan, from Bangalore, has seen the movie at least eight times and loves to sing along with his parents in the car. His father, Hiemanshu Sharma tells us of bonding moments related to the track: “Last Diwali, while on a drive, we listened to ‘Golden’ and discussed the film.” Apart from this, their residential society organises flea markets that include a kid’s zone, where every now and then “Golden” would come on and the kids would all dance to it.
Tanishkaa too listens to the song while commuting with her parents. It has become a family favourite. “Even my 2-year-old sings it,” shares her mother. Tanishkaa’s parents also threw a KPop Demon Hunters-themed party for her eighth birthday. They made disco mics, played games and danced to other songs from the film.
“Golden” has even infiltrated karaoke bars in India. Lukmaan, who hosts karaoke events at Mumbai’s The Den and Common House, has noticed the track being requested quite often over the last few months. “The song actually started popping up in karaoke bars around last year. Initially, it was mostly teenagers and younger girls requesting the song but over time, plenty of middle-aged adults also gave it a shot,” he adds, telling us how the entire room usually joins in.
Last October, Spotify published that K-Pop streams rose 25% globally compared to the year’s earlier daily average, after the release of KPop Demon Hunters. According to the Korean Herald, India has 185 million streaming users, making it the world’s second-largest market after the US.
K-Pop groups – KARD, Everglow and OneWe – as well as solo artists like Jackson Wang, B.I., Taemin and Eric Nam have all performed in India at various festivals and K-conventions over the last few years. With Hybe India – the parent company of BTS and Katseye – launching in Mumbai and conducting auditions across cities, the popularity of K-Pop seems to have consolidated itself as something much bigger than we could have conceived.
