8 l:!:!aae@technewsiit.com TechNews | Tuesday, SeptemberZS, 2012
‘GANGAM STYLE' sweeps YouTube, pop culture

By Kalyan Manohar Dadala
TECHNEWS WRITER

Watch out people; there’s a Korean
pop video on YouTube spreading like wildfire.
‘Gangnam Style’ by PSY, heard about it? On July
15, this video was posted on YouTube. In just
51 days, it had 100 million views. It zoomed
to the top of the YouTube chart, beating Carly
Rae Iepsen’s Call Me Maybe and Justin Bieber’s
Baby It’s the hot cake of the music industry,
topping the US iTunes Top Song chart , which
it entered in late August , at No. 58. So far, the
official video has 194,665,000 views and still is
ticking.

It’s the aggressively hypnotic techno,
trance beat that seems designed for the hard,
core clubbing; the eminently catchy tune, with
its peppy chorus, which children love. Want
to learn the Gangnam style? Then do this,
hands in front, gallop, shuffle, imaginary lase
so. You are in the club! This song is hip, slick
and slightly challenging. Designed for blasé
audiences with short attention spans, it’s high,
octane pop illustrated in a fresh, flashy video,
bouncing with bubble gum bright color.

Scene changes are as rapid as they
are random in PSY’s romp through conven
tional urban spaces. He’s snoozing in a deck,
chair under a bright pink umbrella. He’s in a
horse stable in Seoul. He’s spoofing cult videos,
walking through an abandoned parking lot in
fake snow. It gets more bizarre; here he’s doze
ing OH in the sauna wrapped in a baby blue and
pink towel, there he’s bouncing around a tour
bus, jiggling with disco balls.

Next comes the march of Korean
celebrities. A solemn danceeofi with come,

dian Yoo Iae Suk, dressed in canaryeyellow,
the ‘elevator dance’ replete with pelvic thrusts,
featuring comedian Noh Hongecheol. Finally,
busting some moves with svelte redhead, Kim
Hyunea, member of the popular KePop girl
group 4Minute.

Short, plump and bespectacled, PSY
is an unlikely star, especially in KePop where
the girls are pretty and the boys prettier. Howe
ever, his ‘everyman’ persona seems to be his
notesoesecret weapon. He’s willing to laugh
at the world and himself, and this sharp sub,
versive humor is what elevates the song from
catchy to memorable.

Britney Spears tweeted a link to
Gangnam Style saying, “I am LOVING this
video. Thinking thatl should possibly learn the
choreography. Anybody wanna teach me?!”
Out came PSY himself to teach the moves
when she appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres
Show.

Born Park IaeeSong, he’s a 34eyeare
old rapper from South Korea. His stage name
comes from his first album Psy From The Psy,
cho World, released in 2001. He studied at the
prestigious Berkeley College of Music in the
United States.

This song is an accomplishment,
considering it is in his native language with
no translations. PSY is the first Korean artist
to go mainstream in the United States. This
was largely possible because of the Internet,
since the song went viral via mobile phones
and computers, on Facebook, Twitter and You,
Tube.

You will probably see more of him;
he has signed a contract with American la,
bel Schoolboy Records after being spotted by
music producer Scooter Braun, best known

 

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for discovering Iustin Bieber.
Braun famously toasted PSY
over glasses of Korean Soju
saying, “To PSY, to Korea, to
breaking down barriers, to the
future.”

 

 

 

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