PSY performed 'Gangnam Style' at a free concert in Seoul, Korea. Listen to the incredible sound of 80,000 of his fans singing along to his monster hit song. Vision: www.korea.net
Gangnam Style: K-Pop global smash by the South Korean rapper PSY, praised for catchy rhythm and unusual dance moves. Source: Supplied
IT started as a simple, intriguing message from a friend: "Stop what you're doing right now….it's time for GANGNAM STYLE!"
I flipped my lid from that introduction to South Korean artist Psy and the clip which – in late July – had been viewed 14 million times. It's now been viewed around 465 million times and is the most 'liked' video in YouTube history.
It was time to do some research. The 34-year-old Psy (real name Jai-Sang Park) has a name that came from "The first three letters of psycho." He was a K-pop veteran of six albums and definitely my kind of guy. Having grown up Y, he is part of a genre of entertainers known in South Korea as "gwang-dae", who are attached to royal households and allowed to make fun of those in power.
Another friend chipped in a few days later. "I don't who or what this is but please break me off another slice of Gangnam Style." By that stage it was up to 30 million views and Psy was appearing to take over the internet like a new Meme Overlord. In the morning before work I was cranking the song and doing the absurd, "air jockey" dance after getting out of the shower to dry quicker. It was working.
Experiencing a taste of life in Seoul during a four-day stopover in the South Korean capital in January is one of the reasons Gangnam Style resonates with me. It was a month after the death of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il and the atmosphere was still tense. Would they launch a nuclear attack? The new kid seemed a little unhinged. Seoul tourism wasn't exactly booming and we made our way around temples and bars seeing only a few other westerners each day.
We visited Gangnam, a district that has experienced a huge rise in stocks over the past 30 years, becoming Seoul's richest neighbourhood. Where there is money, there is influence. Not everyone is enamoured of the "new money" that has come into Gangnam.
Psy lampoons a number of very Gangnam scenes in his clip: businessmen who spend hours in the sauna, girls doing pilates on the riverside, stables full of million-dollar dream mares. Psy even dances on the Asem Building as they cut to reveal the Trade Tower in the background.
Typical scenes in Gangnam were women loaded up with spoils from designer stores, men strutting around, talking on their earpieces with an air of self-importance. We too were feeling quite Gangnam after scoring an upgrade to a five-star suite at our hotel.
Gangnam Style: K-Pop global smash by the South Korean rapper PSY, praised for catchy rhythm and unusual dance moves. Source: Supplied
As Psy was born and raised in Gangnam, he gets away with making fun of the locals' obsession with status and its material symbols. He's long been the odd man out in K-Pop and was nicknamed the Bizarre Singer in 2001 after his debut hip hop album PSY…From the PSYcho World.
After Gangnam we headed into the university district of Dongdaemun and met a lovely, lunatic expatriate American, Justin Ferrell, now based in Hongdae (just outside Seoul). We struck up a friendship based on pop culture and a propensity to talk in movie quotes. Two months ago, when Gangnam Style took hold of the world I emailed him asking "our man on the ground" what the feeling was in the uber-posh neighbourhood of Gangnam?
He was swift to reply "There hasn't been this much spontaneous, synchronized musical theatre in the streets of Seoul since the Sound of Music swept the peninsula in the late sixties."
"The Korean Wave is something that influence peddlers have been assiduously grooming for years in the country's many music factories responsible for pushing out a regular stream of slavish, assembly line K-pop bands. It is ironic, therefore, that one of the industry's first big breaks should come at the hands of Psy," Ferrell wrote.
"As you know, the entire song is meant to deride and criticise the wealthy elites of the Gangnam district in Seoul, and their empty, absurd affluence that is a benchmark for success both domestically and abroad. It is safe to say that no little amount of tongue-in-cheek smirking is currently being lost upon a world that now celebrates a singer and his art based on contempt for such mindless adulation. Perhaps now the International community will finally take the 'Nice Korea' seriously."
Psy performs "Gangnam Style" at Korean Formula One Grand Prix. Source: AP
In the months since our travels in Seoul, Gangnam Style has become my own personal zeitgeist - I brought out the moves on the MCG in mid-August as a Hawthorn Football Club mascot.
"You're not a horse, you're a bird! Hawkaaa," the kids yelled.
Just one month later on Grand Final day I found myself on Sunrise, busting out Gangnam Style with Kochie digging it.
Later that day on the hallowed turf I did the Zombie Shuffle, the Melbourne Shuffle, the Tim Cahill (no relation) boxing move, Angus Young's guitar leg walk but mostly, Gangnam Style. Now, the kids got it: "Hawka Hawka, you're doing the Gangnam dance! You're silly, Hawka."
From weekly trivia nights in Prahran to the Korean-owned salon I ducked into for an emergency haircut, I have found myself seizing any opportunity to shout "oppa, Gangnam Style" and pull out the air lasso.
PSY performs his massive K-pop hit "Gangnam Style" live on NBC's "Today" show in New York. Picture: AP/Invision Source: AP
There have been plenty of detractors along the way. The haters just see Psy as another Crazy Frog. A colleague saw me in the chintzy blue dinner suit and sneered "It's a fad."
You either get Gangnam or you don't. I fell in love with it organically, a friend's excitement brought me to it and the serendipitous holiday in Seoul means it has a special place in my heart.
Recently, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed Psy's global hit as a force for world peace.
"There are no languages required in the musical world. That is the power of music, that is the power of the heart. Through this promotion of arts we can better understand the culture and civilisations of other people."
Ban Ki-moon gets it.
The final word goes to my kooky American friend: "I have been moved by this sudden, comical hole in the 'important artist at work' Korean music scene image. The song is catchy, its rhythm thumps and only the corpse of Michael Jackson could hope to lay down sicker dance moves."
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