The article fails to mention that some of the songs including the lead single have vocal performance by members of Twice, consistently one of the most popular kpop groups in the past decade. So these also come with a built-in audience and not exactly out of nowhere.
It's a bit like Mariah Carey singing the soundtrack to an animated movie in the aughts or something: Yeah, that sells.
It's a little more surprising that in 2025, the BBC couldn't find a knowledgable music editor to fill this piece with relevant detail.
Yeah. Also sounds like Gorillaz (which for those unfamiliar is a cartoon "fictional band" publicly associated with Damon Albarn from Blur, one of the iconic British bands of the nineties. Their mixture of catchy music and cartoon characters sold very well when they launched in the early 2000s, collaborated with other bestselling artists and are still releasing albums, and even touring with a cartoon band projected behind the silhouetted actual band). Would an obscure cartoonist releasing similarly catchy songs without a Blur connection have gained the momentum to manage multiplatinum albums and UK No 1s? Probably not...
You've omitted a couple tiny details in Albarn's success: outstanding compositional talent, and an eagerness to collaborate.
IMO, that eagerness to collaborate was brought into modern music by rappers. It's almost not possible to build a discography of modern rappers, who happily take roles from background singing to minor rap sections in each other's works - not to mention sampling.
It used to be "Bing Crosby, with the Andrews Sisters". Now the "featuring" section is sometimes ten names long, almost never absent, and Damon was right there as the revolution was televised.
His previous success greased the wheels, sure, but Gorillaz was right-idea/right-time.
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, Albarn didn't get to be one of the nineties best known songwriters by accident and the collaborations were critical in reaching audiences that Blur didn't. But that's the point really: Gorillaz was a "made up band" but it was also the project of a high profile talent and notable hip hop artists who wanted to work with him, and they were more important than the cartoon characters with made up back stories. I'm less familiar with K-pop, but I'm assuming there's a similar dynamic here and fans know exactly who they're listening to
I think "fictional band" is mildly clickbait when really it's "movie soundtrack". One of which goes into the charts every few years.
The film is somewhat interesting because although the premise is very anime, the animation style isn't at all. Combined with the massive resources of Sony and Netflix that makes it pretty accessible to a Western audience.
"Fictional band" is pretty apt considering it's a band that appears in a work of fiction. I think it's just that with the rise of AIslop, one might think that it means a completely made up band that's just computer-generated, and not real voice actors performing in character with professional musicians composing, arranging and performing the music.
Yes this is what I thought, that it was AI fake bands basically. This sounds a bit more like Sugar Sugar by The Archies, which is a made up cartoon band with a number one hit.
I did not expect 2025 to be the year K-pop finally hooked me.
Completely see why Demon Hunters has taken the US charts.
I watched it for the animation (same Sony Pictures Animation studio as the Spider-Verse movies). It's breathtaking to watch if you're an animation junkie, but I was unexpectedly blown away by the soundtrack.
Every song's beautifully written and performed. It's catchy in a way that Disney stuff used to be. Yes, it's cheesy boy-vs-girl finding-yourself ultra-produced pop — but it's also just uplifting to watch. And it's full of cheek, personality, and nice production touches (like the triplet can-pull fills on Soda Pop).
The blending of English and Korean is a nice touch too, even more noticeable in the lyric videos that Sony Pictures has put out than the movie itself, which have each blown through 15-30 million views over the weekend, most of that from me.
In many ways I find Korean music to encapsulate the worst parts of capitalism, the way they order the younger and most impressionable (AKA manipulable) fans of k-pop bands to post about those non-stop in their social media accounts to the point the sites suspect them of being spam bots ("stans" as they call them in modern lingo), the way they strongly push for people to call them "idols" and not just "celebrities", "singers" or "boy bands", the way that even genres that used to be dominated by outcasts like metal are now pre-selected with members that have zero ownership of the band and zero input in the creation of the songs melodies such as baby metal, that is all corporate selected and audience researched, in many ways it's the best example of last stage capitalism of the music business.
I understand your feelings overall, but some of it is also rooted in misconceptions.
In the South Korean audience, an idol doesn't rank above a celebrity or singer. There's a clear distinction between actual artists (held in much greater esteem) and idols. You can parse the term idol a bit more like "entertainer". They provide a service, not art, and there's usually no pretense at all that idols have ownership over the product instead of merely some level of contribution to it through their performance. There's no need to claim or pretend authenticity as is e.g. the norm in Western pop, even though all the songs are written and supplied by the (approximately true ...) same half-dozen Scandinavian song houses the world over.
I.e. yes, late stage capitalism perhaps, but it's also really not trying to hide it either. You can still have a discussion about finite "airtime" and the displacement of more auteur-driven music though.
You completely omitted the most disturbing part that is much less common in western music, the manipulation of hordes of fans to unrelentingly post about their bands on social media, where is easy to find them complaining that a website blocked them due suspecting them from being spam bots, this endeavor is almost entirely Korean and not japanese despite similarities in a lot other aspects of their music industries https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vn6iZoMigM
I don't think the Kpop companies really do much to manipulate Kpop fans into being active on social media. At least I cannot think of any dangling carrots or so. The fan behavior may be very real and problematic, but I think it likely grew organically and not at the behest of the companies.
There's plenty of other things to judge Kpop labels poorly on, though, including generally terrible contracts with their talent. It's an industry with many dark sides.
Yes they do manipulate them into being active on social media, among other ways by faking having private messages with them, which of course they will talk about on their circles: "Within the past few years, the industry has pioneered a new way to monetize fans’ emotional needs by creating dedicated mobile apps, such as Bubble and Universe, that simulate private messaging between idols and fans." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/kpop-private-messaging/
K-pop is probably the most commercial genre that ever existed, song written by some specialist in a studio like all the other ones targeting a very specific audience. This time there is no band with dances or whatever being used to promote the songs, that's the only difference.
I would have found it more interesting if the song topping the charts was from a VTuber or something completely computer-generated, not much like this.
I mean, I think the dances used to promote the song are just part of the film, like any other music video that isn't just the band playing the song (my mind immediately fell to The White Stripes: Fell In Love With a Girl but there must be tonnes of examples).
I think that a song by a vtuber is unlikely to top the charts right now because they're still not quite mainstream enough for that. I think the current perception of them is similar to how anime was perceived in the past ("Look at all those weebs simping over their fictional girlfriends"), but it is heading towards mainstream. HoloEN did a lot to popularise it in the western world, and I don't think it's unlikely that a song by a vtuber could gain more widespread popularity in the near future. They have the talent for it, it's just not quite escaped the "streamer" bubble
The government is subsidizing kpop companies somewhat via funding for arts and entertainment (as essentially all governments in a position to invest in soft power do, of course).
I'm not aware of any military backing, though. Kpop stars occasionally perform at army concerts - South Korea is a country with mandatory service for all young men, so as you can imagine these are popular -, and while I assume these are paying gigs it's also infrequent enough that I doubt you can call it backing.
> K-pop is probably the most commercial genre that ever existed
Italo Disco would like to have a word I think ;)
Arte TV aired a really good documentary about the Italo Disco phenomenon recently, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be officially available on the internet yet - but they basically had it all, factory-line produced music with singers and "stage artists" being entirely different people, but among all that trash also sometimes really good stuff.
And they used synthesizers as "shameless" as nobody else, today they would go full AI slop I think.
> but they basically had it all, factory-line produced music with singers and "stage artists" being entirely different people
Wait, wait, I know the history of that genre, it was on a very small scale... compared to modern k-pop I would still consider that normal independent music production :)
Hit factories have been a thing since the 19th century. Before SAW there was the Brill Building in the US, which was a descendant of the hit factories around Tin Pan Alley.
Electronic production and distribution made the job easier in some ways - harder and more competitive in others - but the music factory system is not a new phenomenon.
Honestly, I'm not too surprised. "Fictional" bands have existed for a while and gotten a lot of attention, for example Gorillaz, and they've gotten lots of awards. Feel Good Inc. has charted extremely well in the past (apparently it only got to number 14 in the us? though they are English so maybe it didn't translate perfectly). K-Pop is also becoming more widely popular outside of Asian countries (see BTS), so I think it was inevitable. Pop/Stars by K/DA is very similar, being a kpop song by a "fictional" group, and that has had similar success in the past
Fictional bands and artist are pretty common in Japan and also sweeped over to South-Korea at some point I think. But funny enough, the oldest are western bands. Remember "Alvin and the Chipmunks"? From 1958, with new series and movies even released today. Long before the first virtual Idol appeared in Japan in 198x. It seems in the 60s&70s there were a bunch of them in the USA, from Hanna-Barbera and others. Japan started with Macross in 1981 and continued for decades until today. I guess, now South-Korea and probably China are trying to take the crown of anime and virtual artists, they had some very disruptive successes in the last years.
> K-Pop is also becoming more widely popular outside of Asian countries (see BTS),
Its probably more accurate to say k pop has already peaked its been popular massively in the west for almost a decade since at least 2016
Blackpink, newjeans, and BTS are all mega acts that are on their nth albums, the trend for kpop is fully established not really emerging just now.
You do raise an extremely good ontopic point about gorillaz being a prior example of a fictional band. I always hated their mtv cribs episode because their fake animated house always scored no.1 on the best of cribs lists.
Wikipedia has a whole list of "Virtual bands", though I'm unfamiliar with most of them. I think they're seen differently because they are a standalone band, rather than being part of a movie or promotional item.
Something more in line with Huntrix would be Alvin and the Chipmunks, being a group that are part of other things, rather than a group in their own right
There have been fictional bands before like the Archies or Sabrina and the Pussycats. What's old is new again. Why pay some human who will often get a big ego and a drug abuse problem too?
The vocals are typically still provided by human performers (often not named), but they've held "fan events" or given interviews using AI voice generation with models trained on the human speakers I believe.
I'll admit that there have been times I've been listening to those hour-long music videos (but not "music videos" you know) on YouTube, and only thought to check they were AI later. I was very disappointed to find out they were. Really wish there was attribution to the training material. The good news is that it doesn't look like this is AI, so we may just be returning to a time where physical appearance of the artist doesn't matter vs their talent.
The article fails to mention that some of the songs including the lead single have vocal performance by members of Twice, consistently one of the most popular kpop groups in the past decade. So these also come with a built-in audience and not exactly out of nowhere.
It's a bit like Mariah Carey singing the soundtrack to an animated movie in the aughts or something: Yeah, that sells.
It's a little more surprising that in 2025, the BBC couldn't find a knowledgable music editor to fill this piece with relevant detail.
Yeah. Also sounds like Gorillaz (which for those unfamiliar is a cartoon "fictional band" publicly associated with Damon Albarn from Blur, one of the iconic British bands of the nineties. Their mixture of catchy music and cartoon characters sold very well when they launched in the early 2000s, collaborated with other bestselling artists and are still releasing albums, and even touring with a cartoon band projected behind the silhouetted actual band). Would an obscure cartoonist releasing similarly catchy songs without a Blur connection have gained the momentum to manage multiplatinum albums and UK No 1s? Probably not...
You've omitted a couple tiny details in Albarn's success: outstanding compositional talent, and an eagerness to collaborate.
IMO, that eagerness to collaborate was brought into modern music by rappers. It's almost not possible to build a discography of modern rappers, who happily take roles from background singing to minor rap sections in each other's works - not to mention sampling.
It used to be "Bing Crosby, with the Andrews Sisters". Now the "featuring" section is sometimes ten names long, almost never absent, and Damon was right there as the revolution was televised.
His previous success greased the wheels, sure, but Gorillaz was right-idea/right-time.
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, Albarn didn't get to be one of the nineties best known songwriters by accident and the collaborations were critical in reaching audiences that Blur didn't. But that's the point really: Gorillaz was a "made up band" but it was also the project of a high profile talent and notable hip hop artists who wanted to work with him, and they were more important than the cartoon characters with made up back stories. I'm less familiar with K-pop, but I'm assuming there's a similar dynamic here and fans know exactly who they're listening to
> vocal performance by members of Twice, consistently one of the most popular kpop groups in the past decade
This is lampshaded in the movie where HUNTR/X is a clear number one, Twice is #2 and then the others are WAAAY behind :)
I think "fictional band" is mildly clickbait when really it's "movie soundtrack". One of which goes into the charts every few years.
The film is somewhat interesting because although the premise is very anime, the animation style isn't at all. Combined with the massive resources of Sony and Netflix that makes it pretty accessible to a Western audience.
"Fictional band" is pretty apt considering it's a band that appears in a work of fiction. I think it's just that with the rise of AIslop, one might think that it means a completely made up band that's just computer-generated, and not real voice actors performing in character with professional musicians composing, arranging and performing the music.
Yes this is what I thought, that it was AI fake bands basically. This sounds a bit more like Sugar Sugar by The Archies, which is a made up cartoon band with a number one hit.
I was thinking Flight of the Conchords, but Wikipedia says the band existed before the radio and TV shows.
I did not expect 2025 to be the year K-pop finally hooked me.
Completely see why Demon Hunters has taken the US charts.
I watched it for the animation (same Sony Pictures Animation studio as the Spider-Verse movies). It's breathtaking to watch if you're an animation junkie, but I was unexpectedly blown away by the soundtrack.
Every song's beautifully written and performed. It's catchy in a way that Disney stuff used to be. Yes, it's cheesy boy-vs-girl finding-yourself ultra-produced pop — but it's also just uplifting to watch. And it's full of cheek, personality, and nice production touches (like the triplet can-pull fills on Soda Pop).
The blending of English and Korean is a nice touch too, even more noticeable in the lyric videos that Sony Pictures has put out than the movie itself, which have each blown through 15-30 million views over the weekend, most of that from me.
Golden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yebNIHKAC4A
How It's Done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGsevnbItdU
Soda Pop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=983bBbJx0Mk
In many ways I find Korean music to encapsulate the worst parts of capitalism, the way they order the younger and most impressionable (AKA manipulable) fans of k-pop bands to post about those non-stop in their social media accounts to the point the sites suspect them of being spam bots ("stans" as they call them in modern lingo), the way they strongly push for people to call them "idols" and not just "celebrities", "singers" or "boy bands", the way that even genres that used to be dominated by outcasts like metal are now pre-selected with members that have zero ownership of the band and zero input in the creation of the songs melodies such as baby metal, that is all corporate selected and audience researched, in many ways it's the best example of last stage capitalism of the music business.
I understand your feelings overall, but some of it is also rooted in misconceptions.
In the South Korean audience, an idol doesn't rank above a celebrity or singer. There's a clear distinction between actual artists (held in much greater esteem) and idols. You can parse the term idol a bit more like "entertainer". They provide a service, not art, and there's usually no pretense at all that idols have ownership over the product instead of merely some level of contribution to it through their performance. There's no need to claim or pretend authenticity as is e.g. the norm in Western pop, even though all the songs are written and supplied by the (approximately true ...) same half-dozen Scandinavian song houses the world over.
I.e. yes, late stage capitalism perhaps, but it's also really not trying to hide it either. You can still have a discussion about finite "airtime" and the displacement of more auteur-driven music though.
(Also, Babymetal are Japanese.)
You completely omitted the most disturbing part that is much less common in western music, the manipulation of hordes of fans to unrelentingly post about their bands on social media, where is easy to find them complaining that a website blocked them due suspecting them from being spam bots, this endeavor is almost entirely Korean and not japanese despite similarities in a lot other aspects of their music industries https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vn6iZoMigM
I don't think the Kpop companies really do much to manipulate Kpop fans into being active on social media. At least I cannot think of any dangling carrots or so. The fan behavior may be very real and problematic, but I think it likely grew organically and not at the behest of the companies.
There's plenty of other things to judge Kpop labels poorly on, though, including generally terrible contracts with their talent. It's an industry with many dark sides.
Yes they do manipulate them into being active on social media, among other ways by faking having private messages with them, which of course they will talk about on their circles: "Within the past few years, the industry has pioneered a new way to monetize fans’ emotional needs by creating dedicated mobile apps, such as Bubble and Universe, that simulate private messaging between idols and fans." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/kpop-private-messaging/
The K-pop industry was explicitly funded by the Korean government to be capitalistic and improve tourism. This is a strategy that worked well.
It may be good for the tourism industry, it's definitely not good for the mental health of the "stans" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DhJgv3rEzHo
Yea, I picked it as a rainy day movie for the family.
Didn't expect to have the biggest laugh I've had for a movie this year (the popcorn eyes bit) and almost teared up at the end because of the music.
...And now the kids are obsessed with finding more Kpop that sounds like HUNTR/X :D
K-pop is probably the most commercial genre that ever existed, song written by some specialist in a studio like all the other ones targeting a very specific audience. This time there is no band with dances or whatever being used to promote the songs, that's the only difference.
I would have found it more interesting if the song topping the charts was from a VTuber or something completely computer-generated, not much like this.
It’s not that long ago that League of Legends virtual Kpop band KD/A was charting world wide.
I mean, I think the dances used to promote the song are just part of the film, like any other music video that isn't just the band playing the song (my mind immediately fell to The White Stripes: Fell In Love With a Girl but there must be tonnes of examples).
I think that a song by a vtuber is unlikely to top the charts right now because they're still not quite mainstream enough for that. I think the current perception of them is similar to how anime was perceived in the past ("Look at all those weebs simping over their fictional girlfriends"), but it is heading towards mainstream. HoloEN did a lot to popularise it in the western world, and I don't think it's unlikely that a song by a vtuber could gain more widespread popularity in the near future. They have the talent for it, it's just not quite escaped the "streamer" bubble
Actually it's a state / military backed venture.
Yes, the much-vaunted BlackPink gap that has NATO and China rushing to catch up to...
They cannot lose, resistance is futile
Military backed?
The government is subsidizing kpop companies somewhat via funding for arts and entertainment (as essentially all governments in a position to invest in soft power do, of course).
I'm not aware of any military backing, though. Kpop stars occasionally perform at army concerts - South Korea is a country with mandatory service for all young men, so as you can imagine these are popular -, and while I assume these are paying gigs it's also infrequent enough that I doubt you can call it backing.
> K-pop is probably the most commercial genre that ever existed
Italo Disco would like to have a word I think ;)
Arte TV aired a really good documentary about the Italo Disco phenomenon recently, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be officially available on the internet yet - but they basically had it all, factory-line produced music with singers and "stage artists" being entirely different people, but among all that trash also sometimes really good stuff.
And they used synthesizers as "shameless" as nobody else, today they would go full AI slop I think.
> but they basically had it all, factory-line produced music with singers and "stage artists" being entirely different people
Wait, wait, I know the history of that genre, it was on a very small scale... compared to modern k-pop I would still consider that normal independent music production :)
Italo Disco (and generally Italo Pop) was at least big in Germany for a few years (and probably some other European countries).
See also: Stock, Aitken & Waterman, responsible for launching artists like Kylie and Rick Astley.
(separately) Milli Vanilli was unfortunately a disaster for those involved.
Hit factories have been a thing since the 19th century. Before SAW there was the Brill Building in the US, which was a descendant of the hit factories around Tin Pan Alley.
Electronic production and distribution made the job easier in some ways - harder and more competitive in others - but the music factory system is not a new phenomenon.
I've always hated pop music because something like this was the logical end of it. I'm glad to see it frankly.
Reminds me of "Soggy Bottom Boys" from the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou%3F...
I remember my girlfriend at the time scoffing at "Clooney's singing"... Um, it was dubbed by an already successful bluegrass band, and won a Grammy.
Honestly, I'm not too surprised. "Fictional" bands have existed for a while and gotten a lot of attention, for example Gorillaz, and they've gotten lots of awards. Feel Good Inc. has charted extremely well in the past (apparently it only got to number 14 in the us? though they are English so maybe it didn't translate perfectly). K-Pop is also becoming more widely popular outside of Asian countries (see BTS), so I think it was inevitable. Pop/Stars by K/DA is very similar, being a kpop song by a "fictional" group, and that has had similar success in the past
Fictional bands and artist are pretty common in Japan and also sweeped over to South-Korea at some point I think. But funny enough, the oldest are western bands. Remember "Alvin and the Chipmunks"? From 1958, with new series and movies even released today. Long before the first virtual Idol appeared in Japan in 198x. It seems in the 60s&70s there were a bunch of them in the USA, from Hanna-Barbera and others. Japan started with Macross in 1981 and continued for decades until today. I guess, now South-Korea and probably China are trying to take the crown of anime and virtual artists, they had some very disruptive successes in the last years.
Gorillaz had five top-ten albums in the US, of which two were number one in the UK.
Ah, there we go then =) I could only remember one song off the top of my head to check
> K-Pop is also becoming more widely popular outside of Asian countries (see BTS),
Its probably more accurate to say k pop has already peaked its been popular massively in the west for almost a decade since at least 2016
Blackpink, newjeans, and BTS are all mega acts that are on their nth albums, the trend for kpop is fully established not really emerging just now.
You do raise an extremely good ontopic point about gorillaz being a prior example of a fictional band. I always hated their mtv cribs episode because their fake animated house always scored no.1 on the best of cribs lists.
Wikipedia has a whole list of "Virtual bands", though I'm unfamiliar with most of them. I think they're seen differently because they are a standalone band, rather than being part of a movie or promotional item. Something more in line with Huntrix would be Alvin and the Chipmunks, being a group that are part of other things, rather than a group in their own right
The example that came to mind for me is The Monkees.
There have been fictional bands before like the Archies or Sabrina and the Pussycats. What's old is new again. Why pay some human who will often get a big ego and a drug abuse problem too?
When you can get Murdoc of Gorillaz, preloaded with both? :D
Did you mean Josie and the Pussycats?
Doh....
Probably more relevant to the audience, Korea has experimented with CG pop idol bands and CG advertising influencers a bit in recent years:
https://youtu.be/1wGOHbcQKIc as one of various examples.
The vocals are typically still provided by human performers (often not named), but they've held "fan events" or given interviews using AI voice generation with models trained on the human speakers I believe.
I'll admit that there have been times I've been listening to those hour-long music videos (but not "music videos" you know) on YouTube, and only thought to check they were AI later. I was very disappointed to find out they were. Really wish there was attribution to the training material. The good news is that it doesn't look like this is AI, so we may just be returning to a time where physical appearance of the artist doesn't matter vs their talent.
This is just an animated movie sound track which had a normal production team and voice actors.
This actually reminds me of the Frozen theme song... was very popular at the time. Same thing.
Not the answer to the Ticketmaster surcharges problem I was looking for, but okay.
I listen to music on Youtube, decidedly non-Kpop music. This goddamn thing keeps jumping on the queue after a while. I hate it.
Aren’t all these bands fictional?
If by "all these bands", you mean BTS and Blackpink, they do not exist only in fiction. They are flesh and blood entertainers.
This is Spinal Tap.
… because of stream fraud.
https://bsky.app/profile/mc.frontalot.com/post/3ltctsvilak2b
This article isn’t referring to ai generated music
You think human-created music is immune to stream fraud?