BABYMONSTER’s ‘Golden’ One-Key Live Dominates 2025 MAMA with Top YouTube Views
Rookie girl group BABYMONSTER delivered one of the most talked-about performances at the 2025 MAMA AWARDS. According to YG Entertainment and multiple Korean news outlets, the group’s special stage ‘What It Sounds Like + Golden’—performed by members Pharita, Ahyeon and Rora as the hunttrix trio from Netflix’s animated film ‘K-pop Demon Hunters’—has surpassed around 6.88 million views on Mnet’s official YouTube channel, ranking No. 1 among all stages this year. Their main-stage performance ‘WE GO UP + DRIP’, featuring all seven members, has also drawn roughly 5.67 million views to rank second, meaning BABYMONSTER effectively swept the top two spots with a combined total of over 12.55 million views.
The centerpiece of the discussion is ‘Golden’, originally part of the ‘K-pop Demon Hunters’ soundtrack and already infamous among music fans as a so-called ‘impossible live’ track. Reports emphasize that the song spans a very high register and packs in demanding runs and explosive peaks, pushing a vocalist’s breath control and technique to their limits. In Korea, it has often been described as a piece that can only be completed if a singer drives their vocal ability to the extreme. By choosing to perform ‘Golden’ in its original key live on the MAMA stage, BABYMONSTER effectively took on a high-risk challenge, signaling that they intended to prove themselves with sheer vocal skill rather than relying on buzz alone.
On the special stage, Pharita, Ahyeon and Rora faithfully recreated hunttrix’s look from the film, from metallic and leather textures in their outfits to detailed styling choices. Outlets such as OSEN wrote that the trio opened the performance with ‘What It Sounds Like’ to build the narrative before peaking with ‘Golden’, essentially translating the demon-hunter storyline of ‘K-pop Demon Hunters’ onto the real-life stage at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Stadium. Taiwanese media COOL-STYLE went so far as to dub it the ‘BABYMONSTER version of the K-pop demon-hunting girl group’, noting that the unit managed to balance character immersion with idol performance in a way that appealed to both movie viewers and K-pop fans.
What truly set the stage on fire was the commitment to a full live in the original key. Multiple reports note that Ahyeon carried ‘Golden’ in its original pitch from start to finish, topping it off with a climactic high-note ad-lib, while Pharita and Rora reinforced the performance with steady harmonies and agile runs. Outlets such as BreakNews and Insight described the stage as proof of BABYMONSTER’s potential as a ‘live powerhouse’, with buzz spreading not only in Korea but across global fandom circles. Social media and online communities quickly filled with reaction videos, fan art and photo edits, many comments marveling that “it’s unbelievable to deliver a song this difficult in one key live” and praising the group’s composure up to the final note. At the same time, some viewers candidly pointed out areas for refinement in pitch and technique, giving the performance a dual narrative of both a high-stakes success and an opportunity for further growth.
Beyond the special unit, all seven members appeared together for the main-stage medley ‘WE GO UP + DRIP’, extending the momentum they have built since debut. This performance has surpassed 5.67 million views on Mnet’s channel, ranking second among all MAMA stages and trading records back and forth with ‘Golden’ as both clips continued to climb. OSEN described BABYMONSTER as the ‘de facto biggest beneficiary of the 2025 MAMA’, noting that the group not only secured the ceremony’s most-viewed stages but also took home popularity-oriented honors such as ‘Worldwide Fans’ Choice’ and the ‘FANS’ CHOICE FEMALE TOP 10’ mentioned on MAMA’s official social media, underscoring the depth of their global fandom despite being a relatively new act.
Taken together, coverage and viewership data suggest that BABYMONSTER’s impact at the 2025 MAMA went far beyond simply ‘making an appearance’. By tackling ‘Golden’ in its original key, embodying hunttrix with fully realized styling and delivering a high-energy group stage with ‘WE GO UP + DRIP’, the group not only claimed the top two spots in YouTube views among all ceremony performances but also sparked a wave of fan-driven content and conversation online. For a girl group still in its early growth phase, this outing serves both as a statement that they deserve center-stage treatment at major award shows and as a springboard for future album promotions and international activities. How BABYMONSTER converts this surge of attention into concrete results and even more polished live stages is now a key storyline for fans and industry observers alike.
## KStarLoud Insight: BABYMONSTER just turned an OST performance into a new benchmark for “vocal-driven” fourth-gen girl groups. While most award-show stages compete on scale—bigger sets, louder fireworks—BABYMONSTER’s MAMA strategy was almost the opposite. By choosing ‘Golden’, a track already notorious among music fans as nearly “un-singable” live, and insisting on performing it in the original key, they effectively turned the entire ceremony into a stress test of their vocal line. From YG’s perspective, this isn’t just about chasing a one-off viral moment; it’s about hardwiring the group’s brand to the idea of live capability. Topping Mnet’s view charts with both the hunttrix special stage and the full-group ‘WE GO UP + DRIP’, while locking in a striking visual identity through the K-pop Demon Hunters concept, gives BABYMONSTER a narrative that says: “we are the group that takes on the hardest songs head-on.” For future albums, tours and festival slots, the fact that audiences have already seen them survive this kind of high-risk performance becomes a powerful memory hook—one that convinces even casual viewers that this isn’t just a heavily marketed rookie act, but a team willing and able to push their skills to the edge in real time.