‘Gangnam Style’ continues global sweep with U.K. No. 1

The most watched YouTube video of the year, a new Guinness world record holder for the most “liked” video and now the first Korean in history to ever top the British music singles chart; Psy’s quest for world music domination shows no signs of slowing down.

As of Sunday, “Gangnam Style” is officially the number one song on the U.K. Singles Top 100 chart, becoming the first Korean song to achieve the feat. According to an article on the chart’s website, Psy revealed his appreciation to his U.K. fans and said that he is planning to visit very soon.

After its release on July 15, the horse dancing phoneme’s global spread is continuing at a record-breaking pace. With 340,754,356 YouTube views, as of Tuesday afternoon, Psy has the whole world watching, and waiting. 

The official Billboard website has even created a “Psy Watch” page to give fans a daily update on the song’s progress and whether or not “Gangnam Style” will eventually dominate the U.S. charts by reaching the number one spot of the hot singles Billboard charts. Psy has stated that should he reach the top spot, he will perform topless for the world to see. Although the Billboard updates predict that Maroon 5’s “One More Night” will remain at the number one spot through next week, Psy’s numbers still continue to climb.

Even “Gangnam Style” parodies, covers and flash mobs are flooding the web and hitting more than a million views on YouTube. An Oregon State University parody version has received more than 4.7 million views and American pop artist Nelly Furtado’s cover dance at one of her concerts received more than 3.8 million views. A simple YouTube search will turn up thousands of covers and parodies such as eomma gangnam style, Gotham style, Gandalf style, Hongdae style; the list seems endless.

Gangnam Style is the first non-English song to take the number one spot on the British music chart since Yolanda Be Cool and DCUP’s “We Speak No Americano” in 2010. Before then, the last non-English song to top the chart was “La Bamba” by Los Lobos in 1987.

By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)