Signature theme form MV and memorable lyrics are two essential factors that makes a song circulate widely. In the music video Daddy by Psy, he creates an amusing theme that the son, the father and the grandfather are all having the same face of Psy, and the lyrics also are catchy. The style of this song is lively, music video is pleasant and the choreograph maintains the style of Psy, which always containing a sense of hummer. In general, this music video is creative, which implication a real-life phenomenon, using impressive English flows and all of these create the unique identify for Psy.
For the theme of Daddy, Psy role plays 3 generations of the son, the father and the grandfather with one unified purpose, is to become and maintain physical attractiveness to every female in the music video. By using photoshop, a just born baby has the identical face with Psy, in the three stages of Psy, female is attracted by his appearance, such as all of the little girl, include the teacher, in the kindergarten in Psy as a boy, the female dancer in Psy as young adult and the all the old ladies in Psy’s old ages. This implicates that it is a lifegoal of being physical attractiveness for male in our society, which the theme is clear established.
Furthermore, the lyrics of this song is unforgettable, because he uses the repeated rhetorical question in English. As an English transitional flow, “hey, where’d you get that body from?”, then followed by the refrain of “I got it from my daddy”. The purpose of using English flows is that “artists record in the languages of their overseas market and in some cases relocate to them (Benson 2013, 24)”. Also, using English lyrics in Daddy as the hook of the song which “includes a musical idea, often a short riff, passage or phrase, intended to catch the ear of listener” (Jin and Ryoo 2014, 124). This circulation allows English speaker audience to understand Psy’s music in certain context, also allows then to sing along with it.
The style of using English flows creates an identity for Psy. Like Gangnam style, hangover and daddy, they all share the common of using English phrase in the refrain parts and the same style of video. In his video, there are always exaggerated dance and colorful senses. The similarities are the factors to create the unique style of Psy. However, as. A native Korean singer, recording songs in Korea as a representative of Korean artist, also using English make him identified as an international star who spend years studying in United States.
In conclusion, the themes of Daddy are creative and having realist implications and the mixing lyrics of English in his songs could also makes him commercially success in certain extent. All of the factors contribute to Psy’s uniqueness as Korean singer.
Reference
Jin, Dal Yong and Woongjae Ryoo. “Critical Interpretation of Hybrid K-Pop: The Global-Local Paradigm of English Mixing in Lyrics.” Popular Music and Society 37, no. 2 (2014):113-131.
Benson, Phil. “English and Identify in East Asia Popular Music.” Popular Music 32, no. 1 (2013): 23-33