League Of Legends virtual K-pop girl group K/DA return with a new single

Of all the self-indulgent fancies which games companies blow marketing budgets on, my favourite is League Of Legends putting out K-pop from a virtual girl group of real singers pretending to be League wizards. K/DA is their name, and last night they released a new single to herald a new EP. Yes, a whole EP of songs from people kinda pretending to be video game characters. The thing is: K/DA's first song, Pop/Stars was pretty great. See what you make of the latest, The Baddest.

Salright? It doesn't go as hard as Pop/Stars, maybe because that was the 2018 League World Championship anthem, but it's quite nice. Shame it's only a lyric video, not a proper music video. If you want to give it a proper listen, The Baddest is also on Spotify and Apple Music.

The incarnation of K/DA singing The Baddest still has Soyeon and Miyeon from the K-pop group (G)I-DLE, though this time they're joined by Bea Miller and Wolftyla instead of Madison Beer and Jaira Burn. Riot Games say the group have "evolved to embrace a more global pop sound" and their "musical identity" has formed around the fictional League wizards in the group "instead of the vocals of any one individual talent." Riot add that the new EP will have many more collaborators, so it can "welcome a much larger roster of amazingly talented musicians". But they were good. Why did they need to "evolve"? I am SCEPTICAL. The full EP is due "later this year." Always a difficult time for any group, going from one hit single to revealing their full musical breadth.

I know I've seemed dismissive of Pop/Stars at times, but my problem is that it's too good as pop to be an esports tournament anthem. Any such song needs to be daft and a bit embarrassing, e.g. Everton's 1985 FA Cup song, not catchy. The fact that it placed in various pop charts proves it was too good.

No, the best Worlds song is still Warriors by Imagine Dragons. Pip would never forgive me if I didn't take this excuse to include it here.