Gangnam Style: Horsing Around Pop Culture
Amy: It’d be interesting if it gets nominated for Dance song though…
Rodrigo: The Grammys is a bigger joke than the Oscars and Emmys combined. But… will he benefit Kpop or hurt it?
Amy: Both. Unless Psy does what this new audience wants… which is a funny dance music video with a hook in English, in time they’re all gonna label him a one-hit wonder. But in that exposure, there will be people that will be able to look at Kpop. And eventually, if the Kpop industry matures enough, in a couple of years… they’ll be able to launch their own Ricky Martin type of star to the market.
Rodrigo: Will Kpop acts need someone like Usher to endorse them?
Amy: Instant waves are never a good thing in the long run, because people get tired of waves… I would have preferred a slower development.
Rodrigo: But Ricky Martin got huge because of the World Cup.
Amy: The World Cup and a great song composing. Korea had the Korea/Japan World Cup and they didn’t do anything with it. Though, I do like the song, Let’s Get Together Now, but the Japanese version of it [MV]. xD
Rodrigo: Martin sang in many languages, though. And the Korea/Japan World Cup is something I really want to forget.
Amy: No, he only did the Spanish version [MV]… the Spanglish version which had the “un, deux, trois, alle, alle, alle”. The Korea/Japan song had a Korean version [MV], a Japanese version, and a combined one… all of the versions had English in them.
Rodrigo: Martin looked more marketable, I guess.
Amy: But they did it in a group, it wasn’t catchy, but a regular good feeling pop song.
Considering I must be one of annoying friends that share all the Gangnam in facebook, yes I did like the song. It was catchy and funny, and that’s how I like my music lately (besides the music I already like or anime songs).
I think all the social commentary people talk about, it’s mostly for its title, what with Gangnam being the most wealthy district in South Korea. But the lyrics of the song itself is about this (upper-class) guy who tells all what he wants in a (upper-class) woman, and then describes himself as a match for said woman?
@Mirella, hahaha and that’s in contrast to Rap and Hip Hop saying that they drink the most expensive booze, drive the coolest cars, but want them hos ? xD
@Mirella, The difference between you and the other friend that posts Gangman Style non-stop is that the other person I know is more of an “Asian pride” type of person and would probably like Gangman Style almost by default. You like it because it’s catchy and funny.
Checking Facebook at the moment, now there’s like 6 persons that I know who like the GS song.
I forgot to mention that some of the videos that turned “viral” lately have been Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s PONPONPON [MV] as well as Hyuna’s Bubble Pop [MV], but they never made it past the 50M views or never reached the status of “people that don’t listen to it have watched it”
I remember that “Asereje” got quite a bit of airplay on the Latino outlets here in the US, but it never got as big as I heard it got in Europe. I think I saw something about it on the German news (Deutsche Welle)…
anyways, Gangnam Style is fun and I hope that since it’s intentionally funny, that it doesn’t come across the same mean “make fun of the Asian guy” way as the William Hung business sort of turned out in the USA…
@chrryblssmninja, Aserejé got pretty popular among hispanic countries and Europe, yes. I remember one of my university teachers briefly singing a bit of the song and it was lulzy.
I have no idea how long Gangman Style’s staying power will last in the States, but it’s catchy right now. Even members of my family talked about it briefly (they know it as “El Baile del Caballo”), and they know jackshit about Kpop (in my case, I am aware of Kpop thanks to YAM’s shoving promotion and talks about it).
William Hung… lol, I forgot he existed until Amy and I chatted about GS.
With the 2012 Emmy Awards airing tonight, does anyone thinks that the song will be used somehow and/or the song being danced by anyone? I guess Psy himself could do a cameo and teach it to Jimmy Fallon in the intro segment… or maybe Rex Lee or Ken Jeong imitate Psy.
@Rodrigo, did they? I didn’t watch the show. xD
@amy, Nope. 0 GS references. Opening segment was Jimmy Kimmel (who fucking sucked as a host) inside the women’s bathroom getting punched by a good amount of female Emmy nominees including a naked Lena Dunham.