‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ BLACKPINK & BTS Are Shaping the Global K-Pop Wave | Billboard News

‘KPop Demon Hunters’ is dominating the Billboard 200, the Hot 100 and the Global 200, and Billboard staffers sat down to share why the movie’s soundtrack has become a global phenomenon, plus BTS showing the soundtrack some love, BLACKPINK’s comeback with “JUMP,” and more. They also dive into statistics of K-pop fans, how the genre has taken over the world and more!

What do you think of ‘KPop Demon Hunters’? Let us know in the comments!

Tetris Kelly:

‘KPop Demon Hunters’ is taking over the charts and fans, including BTS themselves. BLACKPINK’s comeback is massive. We chat with staff after Billboard has surveyed its K-pop readers to find out the info behind the phenomenon. Hey, what’s up, guys? Thanks for hanging out and talking all things K-pop with me. You know where we got to start, and it is ‘KPop Demon Hunters.’ What is going on with this movie, and why has it taken over everybody?

Eric Frankenberg:

Yeah, I mean this movie is on Netflix, and the soundtrack is absolutely everywhere. It was No. 2 last week on the Billboard 200, and four of the songs are in the top 10 this week on the Global 200. To be clear, BTS has never had four songs in the top 10 of the Global 200, BLACKPINK has never done it. This is historic success for K-pop.

Jason Lipshutz:

Yeah, what’s interesting to me is that we’re seeing a little bit of like an ‘Encanto’ effect, right, where you have a movie that is streaming, that is reaching millions of homes, and people are loving and spreading through word of mouth, and then you have all the songs where they start spiking on Spotify and Apple Music, because people want to go straight from the film into the soundtrack and listen to all the songs again. So not only do you have a song like “Golden,” which has hit the top 10 of the Hot 100, but you have so many songs from the soundtrack because people want to discover the entirety of the music, and it’s become this kind of multi-platform phenomenon that has really spread slowly, but also like now that we’re a month into it and a month-plus into it, is just like a total juggernaut.

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