A Special Music Recommendation: K/DA
Posted on January 16, 2021 Posted by Athena Scalzi 14 Comments
Hello, everyone! Usually, when I do music recommendations on here, it’s a song or artist I like, and I just say, “Here you go! Enjoy!” and call it a day. Today, however, I’m recommending you such an interesting artist/group that I can’t help but explain them a bit! The group is called K/DA. They’re so unique, and I love their music so much I knew I had to share.
If you haven’t heard of K/DA, I’m glad you’re here because I’m about to enrich your musical life by a million percent. K/DA is a fictional K-pop group made up of characters from the MOBA game, League of Legends. The members of the group, Ahri, Akali, Evelynn, and Kai’Sa, are all playable characters in League of Legends, and have their own classes and unique abilities. They’re all animated, and their songs have animated music videos to go with them.
I discovered them back in 2018, when they released their first song, “Pop/Stars”. Originally, the fictional group was meant to promote the game and sell skins (basically outfits). It drew in a completely different demographic than the one that game pandered to already, and made people who had never previously heard of League of Legends want to play it, or at least made them aware of it.
The first time I saw it, I was hooked. I listened to it every day for months, and I still listen to it constantly. I even annoyed the shit out of my friends because I made them watch it. The animation, the music, the lyrics, the outfits, it’s all just stunning and amazing!
Without further ado, here is “Pop/Stars”, for your viewing and listening enjoyment!
This song was the only thing K/DA came out with for two years, until their new album, All Out. It’s an EP, so it only has a few songs, but they are all SO GOOD.
Only one song aside from “Pop/Stars” has an official music video, that being “More”.
Another absolute banger, and this is their second most popular song. “Pop/Stars” has almost half a billion views on YouTube, while “More” only has 66 million. This might be simply because they are the only two songs with official videos, or maybe it’s because they’re the two best (in my opinion, of course). Though “Villain” is a very close runner-up.
I know I said the other songs didn’t have music videos, but this one is only a concept video, and the other two are “official” ones (though I suppose it does say official concept video…). I love this one so much. The whole aesthetic is so awesome, I mean the vibe is just killer. And the visuals are super cool! Plus the beat is just chefs kiss.
And here is the final song I’m sharing with y’all today! Even though this one is last on the list, that does not mean it’s not good. In fact, it’s amazing. I know I said the first two were my favorites, and then “Villain” was a runner-up to the two favorites, but maybe this one is the other runner-up? I just don’t know! They’re all so good in so many different ways. Though this one doesn’t have a video, so I suppose that’s a downside. Interestingly enough, I had the opportunity to listen to this one in particular while wearing a haptic vest, and that was such a cool experience! I really felt the bass deep inside my bones with that thing on.
K/DA has two other songs on their EP, but I didn’t want to share every single one of their songs in one post, so I just hand picked my favorites of the bunch to give to y’all. I sincerely hope you enjoyed them! They’re such fun, unique songs, with the ability to make their music videos look cool as shit, because they’re animated and don’t have to follow any rules of physics.
Let me know in the comments which one is your favorite song! Or who your favorite band member is (I like Akali)! And have a great day!
-AMS
Hah! The only place that I’d come across K/DA, specifically Pop/Stars, was playing Beat Saber (really, really badly) in VR. Thanks for filling in the back story of where it originated!
Pop/Stars is probably my favorite song to play in Beat Saber. I didn’t know anything else about it until now. Thank for sharing!
Is anyone else picking up Gwen Stefani out of that like this is a pseudonym for her?
I feel old.
As a long time Whatever reader I’d never thought I’d see the day that League of Legends would be mentioned here. I worked at Riot for years and while I never worked on K/DA I did work on League of Legends for a while.
I’m a big fan of K/DA and I’m really happy to see that I’m not the only one!
As well as the official video for Pop/Stars, there’s a “behind the scenes” look at how they put the choreography together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaAkvzLSg0s
I’m a fan of League’s other fictional band, Pentakill, but I never really got into K/DA as much. It’s kind of funny to think that might be a generational thing, because heavy metal is literally music from your dad’s generation.
Let’s just say I won’t be asking you to any concerts. Your dad, considering I’m older than him and he can afford to pay for my drinks… What do you say John?
Obsidian Tide is a great band but they’re from Israel. If someone wanted to pay my expenses (Hi John! Remember me?) I’d love to see them live.
But I would settle for seeing them make a decent living from their music.
Just realized how skeevy it is for me (older than your dad) to invite you to a concert. If your dad can track how long it took from me starting a comment to posting it then he will know how much effort I put into making a joke out of that. You will both know I failed.
I love Pop Stars! I discovered it in Beat Saber, and I can do it on Hard (but not Expert). Glad to see they have some other stuff out there too–gonna have to pick up that EP. Thanks!
“Pop/Stars” is now in my playlist. The other songs didn’t do it for me. But I am quite happy to have a new song in my playlist. Thanks for sharing. :)
As with most things internet, I stumbled upon K/DA via someone posting some fantastic gifs of “Pop/Stars” and I just had to check it out. I’m totally not a LoL player (gaming really isn’t my thing) but daaaang these songs are like high-level earworms! Especially “The Baddest” and “More”!
Another K/DA fan here, although I came to them through (G)I-DLE. As a Korean-American I am obliged to like kpop and/or gumiho. ;)
This is hilarious coincidence! I just discovered K/DA yesterday watching BeatSaber playthroughs on youtube and I’m completely hooked.
“More” is far and away my favorite.
I stumbled on K/DA from the K-pop side. I imagine you’re aware that two of the vocalists are members of (G)-Idle. The group has many good songs “Lion” or “Oh My God” might be the best place to start.
There are two awesome dance covers of K/DA songs done by One Million studios (run by Lia Kim a world class dance and one of the top choreographers in K-pop). The 5 K/DA characters are played by the two (G)-Idle members and the other three by dancer/choreographers in the More video.
The “I’ll show you” video is all One Million dancers, including Lia Kim. On this song K/DA is using two vocalists from Twice rather than the (G)-Idle women but they are not in this video.
One other note since I’m talking about K-pop. Anyone whose interested should be listening to Mamamoo. Three of the best vocalists anywhere and the best rapper in K-pop.