By Shim Sun-ah
SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Yonhap) — The year 2012 was undoubtedly the year of “Gangnam Style.”
Psy became the first Korean singer to top the British Official Singles Chart for the song in October and occupied the No. 2 slot on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart for seven straight weeks. The song also placed first on iTune’s charts from 30 countries, including the United States.
The 34-year-old singer-rapper rocketed to global fame after the video went viral online with his distinctive but catchy horse-riding dance.
Uploaded on YouTube in mid-July, the video became the most-watched YouTube video of all time in November when it surpassed Canadian heartthrob Justin Bieber’s 804 million views for “Baby.” The video now has a record 930 million views, spawning many cover versions and parodies on the Internet.
“Gangnam Style” earned him many international music awards.
He received the Best Video award for the song at the MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA) held in the western German city of Frankfurt in November. A week later, he won the New Media Prize at the American Music Awards (AMA) for the massive cyber success of “Gangnam Style.” He received his Guinness World Records certificate in London the same month as the video got a record-breaking 2.14 million “likes” on YouTube in September.
On the back of the song’s explosive popularity, Psy has signed a contract on international publishing rights with Universal Republic Records, a label owned by Universal Music Group, and a separate management contract with a label run by the Scooter Braun Project, a company founded by Justin Bieber’s manager Scooter Braun.
The contracts helped expand Psy’s international reach. He has since traveled to the U.S., Europe, Hong Kong and Thailand on promotional tours. In another sign of his international reach, Psy was featured on the front cover of the recent issue of U.S. weekly music magazine Billboard.
His appearances at the global music awards and prime-time U.S. TV shows boosted his profile. Early this month, he performed at a charity event attended by U.S. President Barack Obama at the National Building Museum in Washington.
Psy says a follow-up album or a new song will likely hit shelves in March. The new one will be half Korean and half English, according to him.
Analysts described Psy’s runaway success as “amazing,” a “miracle” and a “shocking provocation” to the Western-oriented pop music market.
“I’ve been in this music business for 25 plus years, and I’ve never seen anything like this and I’ve never imagined anything like this would come out of Asia. It’s just unbelievable, but it’s overwhelming,” John Hirai, the head of music at YouTube’s Korea-Japan branch, said during a music forum in Seoul last month.
The video’s pace of notching up views is “pretty amazing,” he said, adding that it took four years for Bieber to top YouTube’s most-viewed video list.
Lim Jin-mo, a Korean pop music critic, says that it is a miracle that an Asian singer rose to the top of the British music chart and came in second in the U.S. with a funny dance.
“It’s a shocking provocation to the Western-dominated pop music market, an event which Koreans should feel proud,” he said.
Another Korean critic known as Kim Jak-ga calls it a “symbolic event” indicating an imminent paradigm shift in the world music industry. “Psy is the first singer to conquer the world music market based on YouTube and social networking services,” Kim said.
“His success is a symbolic event heralding the end of the present paradigm of the music industry that has been in place for more than a hundred years and the age of old media.”
Psy says he thinks the secret to his success, which even he himself has described as “so unreal,” lies in “humor.”
The song is about a bumpkin trying to woo a sexy woman by pretending to be a hot and sophisticated uptown boy. They read: “A girl who looks quiet but plays when she plays/ A girl who covers herself but is more sexy than a girl who bares it all/ I’m a guy A guy who seems calm but plays when he plays/ A guy who goes completely crazy when the right time comes.”
The song, which the rapper wrote for consumption in the local market, has never been officially translated, meaning foreigners enjoy the song even they don’t understand the meaning.
Experts say the dance moves are funny, simple and easy to follow like the Macarena, a ’90s hit song by the Spanish duo Los Del Rio.
The video opens on the countrified man sunbathing at what turns out to be a children’s playground as he says, “Oppan Gangnam Style.” The man appears again wearing goggles and playing in a public bath as if he’s in a luxurious swimming pool. Later, he mimics riding a horse across a crosswalk.
Now a new-face global celebrity, but in South Korea he is already an established star with an 11-year career.
Rising to local stardom with his debut album “Psy From The Psycho World!” in 2001, he has released six albums. But his career was far from smooth sailing.
He temporarily was barred from appearing on TVs and radios after being fined for smoking marijuana. After a protracted legal battle over draft-dodging allegations, he had to serve in the military for another 20 months. South Korea requires all able-bodied men to serve in the armed forces for at least two years.
He seems to have regained his honor with all the success he achieved this year. The South Korean government decorated him last month with a state order of cultural merit for his contribution to increasing the world’s awareness of Korea and its pop music.
For now, we will have to see whether 2012 will just be a golden year in his music career or the start of his yet-to-come life as a big-name global celebrity.
sshim@yna.co.kr
(END)
From english.yonhapnews.co.kr
Source:
http://guinness.blog7up.com/2012/12/20/psy-fever-heats-up-world-in-2012/