I was absolutely certain about writing on PSY’s “Gangnam Style”, a song which has broken all records in history. On 8th November 2012, Today PSY was honoured with a Guinness World Record for the most liked YouTube video in history. Yes, PSY beat out Justin Bieber’s “Baby” with 4,911,981 likes. http://music.cbc.ca/#/blogs/2012/11/Gangnam-Style-makes-YouTube-history-lets-all-horse-dance. I absolutely agree with the reasons Anthony Chen’s gave in his blog post for the popularity of Gangnam style outside South Korea, even though nobody actually understands what the song means or conveys as it is entirely in Korean except for “the sexy lady” part. The song is the first K-pop track I have ever heard and not surprisingly, its music and video both made me love and it was on repeat for over a week on my ipod (I hardly listen to the same song for over a week so you can tell how much I loved the track). The music style is so catchy and the video captivates you throughout its duration along with its unique “horse riding dance” which is its signature dance move. http://www.cbc.ca/news/petermansbridge/peterGangnam-short.gif
However, there are additional reasons for the success of the song. If the video weren’t as outrageous and hilarious as it is, it would not have gotten the traction it did in Western markets. The success could also merely be luck because when PSY was questioned to explain the popularity of Gangnam style, he said, “I don’t know. People call this song, literally a phenomenon. And we can’t tell or analyze or predict a phenomenon. So if I got one more hit or one more success after this, then I can tell (if there was) something I did this way so I (had) some success. But now I just live today.” Whatever the reasons for the massive hit of his song are, we wish this South Korean pop artist-rapper the best of luck for his future endeavors!
Sources:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/the-k-pop-industry-why-8216gangnam-style-became-a-hit/3045
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/marketing_gangnam_style.html