“Golden,” a song written for KPop Demon Hunters, won the Grammy Awards for best song written for visual media on Feb. 1 in Los Angeles, giving K-pop a long-sought breakthrough with the Recording Academy. The official winners list credits the songwriting team as EJAE, Park Hong Jun, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo and Mark Sonnenblick, with the track performed in the film by the fictional group HUNTR/X (EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami).
The win has drawn loud celebration in South Korea, where fans and industry watchers have treated it as a symbolic crack in what many describe as a “Grammy barrier” for Korean pop, after years of high-profile nominations that stopped short of a trophy. A South Korean music critic, Lim Hee-yun, told the Associated Press that U.S. studios have begun courting K-pop’s social-media reach as they chase younger audiences, pointing to cross-border projects and label partnerships tied to the genre’s growth.
The moment has also stirred a sharper debate than the headline suggests: does “Golden” represent K-pop, or a Hollywood version of it? Another critic, Jinmo Lim, told the AP he felt “there’s a distance between ‘Golden’ and K-pop,” framing the award as recognition of K-pop’s expanding influence rather than a clean genre victory. Lim Hee-yun argued the track leans closer to American pop than a typical idol release, a sound choice that may have widened its reach beyond core fans.
For Netflix, the Grammy adds prestige to a title it has promoted as a global breakout; AP reported the film’s popularity helped turn its characters into common U.S. Halloween costumes and pushed “Golden” and other songs onto international charts. ABC News identified EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami as the singing voices behind the movie’s group, tying the win to a soundtrack strategy that blurred the line between animated fiction and real-world releases.
