Over the previous few weeks, I’ve been requested at the very least a dozen occasions whether or not I’m going to evaluation the songs from the favored Netflix film Ok-Pop Demon Hunters. The reply continues to be “no,” although with this submit I assume it’s sort of a semi-“sure.”
I need 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 typically that it’s turn out to be a working gag within the feedback part. Now, there’s a full submit to include all of the discourse!
Anyhow, as I posted on Twitter/X final week, I’m not a fan of those songs general. What’s wonderful to me is how many individuals on social media took that as an ideal offense, defending this undertaking with the identical fervor they’d decide to a flesh-and-blood idol group. I assume I’m glad the undertaking has hit such a nerve, even when the music isn’t for me.
The factor is, the songs are… wonderful. They’re very generic and constructed upon comparatively sturdy Ok-pop tropes. There are just a few massive obstacles I can’t get previous. First, I’m not an enormous animation fan to start with — particularly this newer CGI type that merely jogs my memory of characters in an commercial for tub tissue. So, I haven’t watched the film and am seemingly lacking lots of necessary context. Second, I dislike when massive tent tasks like this easy over any intricacies of an artwork kind (and at its greatest, Ok-pop is artwork!) to create essentially the most palatable product potential. Regardless of the preliminary intentions had been behind these songs, that sanitized high quality is what I hear initially.
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 attention-grabbing sufficient to face out. It feels 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 greatest hits, however to me the execution and pretend self-empowerment message really feel extra in step with Rachel Platten’s Struggle 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 take pleasure in. If an precise idol group had carried out it, I’d have the ability to look previous the lyrics nevertheless it simply seems like the obvious Ok-pop pastiche in an eye-rolling method.
So… yeah. In some methods I ought to be the audience for this entire undertaking however the music has fallen flat for me and I don’t actually see why it’s turn out to be so common (past the apparent attain of Netflix).
