Korean rapper Psy’s “Gangnam Style” hit No.1 on iTunes in Australia this week along with seven other countries including the United States. The song was first released in July making it YouTube’s most watched K-pop video in less than two months, viewed over 200 million times as of Sept. 18.
Even the world’s great pop icon Britney Spears had a super time on “The Ellen Degeneres Show” emulating his horse-riding move, and the “Gangnam Style” music video was nominated under the category Best Video at the 2012 MTV Europe Music Awards to be held in Germany. It’s unlikely that this new musical sensation will disappear any time soon.
After watching him perform his signature dance on America’s popular TV show “Today” last week, I have been thinking about a couple reasons why Psy’s “Gangnam Style” has become the new “Macarena.”
First, “Gangnam Style” fever has jumped on the K-pop fever or the “Korean Wave” bandwagon which is the music fad of Korean girl and boy bands sweeping Asia since the mid-2000s and now taking hold in Europe and America. K-pop has been more than hot ― the songs and catchy dances have gained popularity like a computer-busting virus over the past few years and K-pop has become “a mining in Australia” to the Korean economy.
So K-pop fans started to share Psy’s music video on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and people began to notice it inside and outside the K-pop community. By early August the international media began to have interest in this super-hot video that has gone viral, and recently a journalist of the Financial Times wrote, “K-pop conquers U.S., ‘Gangnam style.’”
Secondly, Psy’s horse-riding dance more appeals to the Western and the English culture. People tend to think horse riding requires skill and proficiency, as referred to as equestrian, and mounted police officers’ “equestrian style” is seen as a symbol of authority.
Psy, on the other hand, is riding a horse “comically” in unexpected locations around Gangnam (the most affluent part of Seoul) such as a playground, an outdoor yoga session, an indoor tennis court, a tourist bus and a traditional Korean bathhouse or jimjilbang. Now people can easily follow his easy-yet-highly-wacky steps of dance for being a horse-rider.
Finally, the song is characterized by its strongly addictive beats, a sense of humor and catch lyrics and rhythm, such as its catchy chorus “Oppa Gangnam Style” ― Oppa is Korean, meaning an “older brother,” which girls tend to use to address their boyfriends “in a charming way.” Psy broke the language barrier with to many people outside Korea. Who would ever had thought a Korean rapper would ever sing a Korean song in the heart of New York’s Times Square and get the crowd go wild “bouncing” to the tune of his famous chorus?
Psy’s “Gangnam Style” is now almost everywhere. There was a big “Gangnam Style” flash mob led by the Korean Cultural Office at the heart of Sydney city ― Martin Place ― a few weeks ago, and I could catch some famous moments of Psy’s dance move on SBS PopAsia TV at a McDonald’s in Sydney South.
My verdict has just come in: It’s so simple, so fun, and so addictive, and I can’t wait for more awesome parodies. What’s yours?
By Jenna Jae-Eun Yoon
Jenna Jae-eun Yoon is a producer journalist with Australia’s public broadcaster SBS (www.sbs.com.au) of over 12 years. ― Ed.
(“Fair dinkum” is an Australian slang used to emphasize that something is genuine or true, or to ask whether it is.)
