Maybe there actually was a song of the summer? At least if you’ve seen the hit movie KPop Demon Hunters. The film’s hottest song, "Golden," has been dominating the Billboard Hot 100 charts since August. And it’s the most popular film to ever hit Netflix. Songwriter Mark Sonnenblick helped create the soundtrack’s major pop anthems. He talks about bringing them to life, his songwriting process, and why music is vital to great storytelling. Plus, he shares his hot take, all about another flashy musical… 

Did you watch Saturday Night Live this past weekend? It’s back for a new season, and there was a lot to take in. Bad Bunny hosted, fresh off the announcement that he’ll headline the Super Bowl in February. His opening monologue, delivered in both English and Spanish, directly addressed all the political discourse that the announcement generated. Doja Cat, one of the more captivating live performers to top the charts in recent years, was the musical guest. And on top of all that, five new cast members made appearances during the premiere, after a summer full of big-name departures from the show. 

I was fascinated by all those plotlines, but the moment I paid the most attention to during the episode was when three special guests showed up, unannounced, during a Bad Bunny sketch. 

Bad Bunny, playing a nerd named Thomas, shouts out his love for KPop Demon Hunters, Netflix’s biggest film ever. “It’s actually not for kids,” Thomas says. “It’s for smart adults. 

And then he summons three women, Ejae, Rei Ami, and Audrey Nuna. They are the voices behind the fictitious K-pop group that anchors KPop Demon Hunters: HUNTR/X. Currently, the HUNTR/X song “Golden” is number one on the Billboard Hot 100, where it’s been for weeks. And just below it, several other songs from the film soundtrack have been bouncing all around the Top 10 since early summer. 

I love this movie. I love these songs. And this week on the show, I got to talk about KPop Demon Hunters with one of the songwriters behind this movie’s hits. His name is Mark Sonnenblick, and he actually comes from the world of Broadway and musical songwriting. 

What I find so interesting about “Golden” and its domination of the pop charts and streaming right now is that there are probably millions of people who are loving this song who don't realize that it is an “I want” song in the Broadway tradition. How hard is it to make a very theatrical “I want” format, an “I want” song work as K-pop?

Part of the reason I love writing for theater and movies is [I] come in and collaborate with the people who are making the project. The sound of the project, the story of the project, and the other writers on the project, [that] will define what the thing is, and my job is very different, movie to movie, show to show, but at the heart of it, I think, is that storytelling that comes from musical theater. 

Rumi, who sings those high notes in “Golden,” she's half demon. And so from the beginning, this central idea: that somebody who their whole life has been told, ‘You're fighting demons. You’ve got to kill demons, they're this force for evil.’ She is hiding that she is half-demon herself… That initial sort of seed of the story was so strong. You're divided between who you are, and you have to hide it from people.

I love how complex Broadway songs can be, more complex than pop. Are you having to give up a little bit of that Broadway, long shadow of Sondheim, complexity in a *musical* song, to make it work for a Netflix movie and to make it work for the pop charts?

I would say it's complex in a different way. I mean, “Golden” is basically four chords free, basically four chords. But their production is so powerful in the way production builds, or like, in what it sounds like the way production builds, I think is incredibly complex and orchestration. There's a meter drop in “Your Idol” going into the final chorus. And we drop the beat there, and I don't think you're conscious of it when you're listening, but you feel the energy of it. You feel the shift. 

How much time would you say, top to bottom, were you working on the music for KPop Demon Hunters once you got involved?

I kind of came in for the last two years.

Were you a Broadway kid? What was the first one that got you?

I was pretty obsessed with the Phantom of the Opera.

So at this point, you've done musicals, you've done movies, you've done K-pop, you've done Broadway. What is your pie-in-the-sky dream songwriting gig?

I really feel like I'm doing it. It's a testament to everybody, just the records that this is breaking and the response — I would never let myself dream that. Otherwise, my dream is to try and just make really cool things with cool people that hopefully are emotionally resonant. And I've been doing that for a while. I've been lucky enough to do that for a while.

So what you're saying is, you're gonna make the sequel. 

I hope so.

You can listen to or watch this week’s episode to hear Mark himself break down the film’s biggest riffs on a grand piano in KCRW’s Annenberg Performance Center. Till next, stay *golden* 

Sam

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