You know you have a hit on your hands when your song breaks a Guinness World Record for the”most viewed” video ever on YouTube.
Now watched more than 805 million times, “Gangnam Style” has catapulted South Korean rapper PSY to global stardom, thanks to his horse-riding dance moves and silly, pastel-coloured attire.
His soaring popularity has got him signed with the management of Justin Bieber – whose video “Baby” he surpassed as the most-viewed ever – and PSY is quickly on his way to becoming one of South Korea’s most successful artists.
“Gangnam Style” has become K-pop’s biggest-ever international hit, as the industry continues to capture the attention of music aficionados worldwide.
In light of its growing global popularity, YouTube has even launched an exclusive channel dedicated to Korean pop music, marking the first time a national music genre has its own category on the video-sharing giant.
WHAT IS K-POP?
The music genre may be new to some but “K-pop”, the abbreviation for Korean pop music, has been around for years. The lively Korean mix of electro, dance, hip-hop, rock and pop is particularly popular in Asia, even developing a teenage subculture. With highly stylised Western dance moves, airbrushed good looks, and trend-setting fashion, K-pop music has overtaken Japanese music as the most popular genre in Japan.
According to the Korea Creative Content Agency, a body set up by the government to project soft power abroad, South Korea’s biggest overseas market for K-pop is Japan with an 80 percent share.
The K-Pop craze also has spread across Southeast Asia, with local entertainers imitating the Korean music style.
The South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has reported K-pop’s influence on everything from films, games, books, and the fashion industry was worth more than $5.5bn in 2011, with predictions this year of it almost doubling to $11bn.
In 2011, K-pop added an estimated $3.8bn of revenue to the South Korean economy, according to the Korea Creative Content Agency.
Attempts to gain traction in the United States, the world’s largest music market, have been a challenge, however, although a six-hour concert in October 2011 at the mecca of American pop culture, Madison Square Garden, helped ease the genre in.
The spread of K-pop and Korean film and television – also known as the Korean Wave or Hallyu – has come partly as a result of the removal of strict domestic censorship laws in the late 1990s. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), digital piracy devastated the South Korean music scene with CD sales dropping dramatically.
A decade later, social media websites changed all that, boosting global interest as K-pop and hugely popular South Korean soap operas became easily accessible. (Source: aljazeera)
From www.inlandnewstoday.com
Source:
http://guinness.firstorfast.com/2012/12/03/korean-pops-giant-leap-with-gangnam-steps/