"GANGNAM STYLE" deserves its own thread

I hear the lfmao vibe too but it's like 5x catchier than anything they've done so there's that

i don't think "catchier than party rock" is a real thing

Nice interview http://10.asiae.co.kr/Articles/new_view.htm?sec=ent0&a_id=2012081310112383260

do starving peasants living in the grip of Kim Jong Un know they are missing out on this?

It might have more potential to be a viral hit outside of K-Pop's traditional markets than anything in recent memory.

definitely. a few days ago i brought this up to play to my 12 yo brother but of course he'd already seen it

i can't put a finger on why but i am hearing Pump Up The Jam in here

It's totally a "Jock Jams" song. He was smart to release it during the Olympics.

(My Jock Jams Kpop mix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaHryLkF5Jw&list=PL260E01B49C1B1BA2&feature=plpp_play_all

)

And here's the sequel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcLNteez3c4

It's a parody, right? I mean, if "Gangnam Style" was supposed to be the opposite of everything Kpop is right now (flashy, closed-off, overly self-serious), this one is exactly all of those things. It even has the raining confetti/fireworks things they do at Kpop concerts to get the audience hyped up.

Played this video (the original) for co-workers in a meeting yesterday. Reception was a mixture of laughs and bafflement (like "why did you show us this?"). Then I went to the 2NE1 show in Newark last night and they played the video on the big screen beforehand and everyone in the arena shouted "Oppa gangnam style!" (and sang the "Hey sexy lady" part) as one, and it was awesome.

i've been shouting "open condom style", myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87XXQmhkPMU

hammer time!

Hearing this everywhere these days, which is awesome. OTOH I was pretty much the only person stanning for "Party Rock Anthem" on last year's EOY singles list, so ...

oh my god just seen this.

dodgers style

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz4H5WI6bvY

definitely reminds me of 2NE1 which is a good thing.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/gangnam-style-dissected-the-subversive-message-within-south-koreas-music-video-sensation/261462/

Dance not too different from "The Bird," no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSh1wcARKpo

Somehow I preferred Daler Mehndi's "the song is about dancing, and I wanted the video to just be me dancing" explanation

a few thoughts:

1) I'm assuming the ppl who don't hear LMFAO in this never heard "Sexy and I Know It"?
2) I keep mentally substituting Ricky Gervais in for PSY as the video goes on
3) i forgot that he yells at a butt
4) this is fucking great

sad that the author of that atlantic piece couldn't talk about this without shitting on the rest of k-pop or without considering "american music" some kind of origin of satire

LA Dodgers video is lol

3) i forgot that he yells at a butt

remembered this sentence in the shower this morning for no apparent reason too

okay the dodgers vid won me over

love it but hope k-pop doesn't get pigeonholed to a layperson as just gangnam style :-[

http://maxgif.com/5zY

late pass but this is awesome

aaaaay sexy lady

Just had a segment on this on NZ news. In the US, is it likely to get much in the way of radio play/chart action, and if so, where?

it may debut on the hot 100 soon due to digital sales. i would be ecstatic if it got any airplay but not really holding my breath for it

I was a little shocked at the Dodgers video, I know this has 55 million views or whatever but the idea that a K-pop hit can go over well for 40k random people in LA, many of whom actually recognize the guy on the big screen, that really blows my mind

it's almost as if a sizable portion of people who live in LA might have reason to follow korean pop culture

which is why K-pop typically goes over well at Dodger Stadium

I heard this on the radio Saturday in Pennsylvania

(ok it was a specialty show where they track "what's hot on the Internet" but still, it was a big mainstream commercial station not some left-of-the-dial ish)

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m960wtjU9a1r06m1wo1_500.gif

gangnam = jiangnan?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangnan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnam-gu

google translate failed me :(

more gangnam style in the news:

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/08/28/gangnam-style-viral-popularity-in-u-s-has-koreans-puzzled-gratified/

http://opencitymag.com/beyond-the-horse-dance-viral-vid-gangnam-style-critiques-koreas-extreme-inequality/

My friend wrote the latter one so I'm biased, but I think these are both much better than that Atlantic article I posted earlier.

^^^^^
both very good

I do think that the first one touches on an interesting point, acts from non-English speaking countries that try to hit it big in America are going to have a hard time if they just try to emulate Western music. Falco and Rammstein were very German, Daler Mehndi was obviously straight Bhangra, then there's a handful of Spanish-language hits that are all bastardized forms of salsa, reggaeton, etc. What else? Maybe Dschingis Khan? Was there ever a foreign-language hit in America that sounded like everything else on the radio?

99 luftballons

though i guess it was the english version that was a hit? idk

o-zone? eiffel 65?

Falco was very Austrian!

99 Luftballons was a hit in the original German in the US.

Of course. But I don't know much of the Austrian music scene. Germany had a lot of acts similar to Falco though.

The point is that all these tunes are things that would have worked in their own country. When they start trying to pandering to Americans, things almost always go downhill.

Generally 'pandering to Americans' means 'singing in English', though, so you won't find too many US-focused records released in Spanish or Korean.

a friend was telling me about some Senegalese records, i think it was Youssou N'Dour, where the original versions have all these insane drum breaks related to traditional music. the drums are the first thing to get dumbed down/stripped out when the records are released internationally, and you pretty much have to go there to get the real versions.

xp a surprising amount of those guys do speak English!

though i guess it was the english version that was a hit? idk

Pretty sure both versions of the Nena song were hits. That's kinda cool.

i wonder if after 2,000,000,000 views he's made $20 from YouTube

There was a New Yorker piece from when it was still under a billion views that estimated that they'd taken in about $1.7 million.

(specifically from youtube, that is)

I worked over 60 hours this week, okay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkMNOlYcpHg

Snoop Lion ft. PSY - Hangover

haha, i like that song because it is the absolute last kind of music i would want to listen to with a hangover

also them miming being hungover makes it kinda look like they're totally irritated at each other, which is a nice change from the usual thing in team-up songs where it's supposed to be all OH SHIT these two PARTY TITANS are hangin together having the most awesome time. Them ending up at an underpopulated karaoke room and then going skipping down to the carnival is legitimately cute too. How the hell is this five minutes long though?

I knooooow, the song's not bad at all (Snoop >>> PSY tho) but it really didn't need to be 5 minutes long... save that for the club remix.

so many thinkpieces to write

Start/end with the thinkpiece about how there are two brands of alcohol in the video and PSY endorses both of them

There's a weird backlash against this song here because it kinda sounds like this local hit from last year. Apart from the chorus, I don't really hear it but whatever, have some Malaysian rap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUBYPlGrCxg

Loving that track way more than the mess that is Hangover. Thanks for the link, Roz!

I just played "Gentlemen" six times in a row. I love this song.

Yeah, I've really come around on it as a charmer in its own right, not just a cash-in follow up. We like / we we we like party every day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF27TNC_4pc

Fun single, especially compared to Daddy (https://youtu.be/FrG4TEcSuRg) which we should never speak of again

It reminds me of this home shopping network jingle from 2010 tho: https://youtu.be/bhWJXIGb8ao

I like this one, though it can't help remind me a lot of Rip Slyme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoAmZ41Z-f4

Meanwhile, the actual 2nd album track (better but not MV material I guess):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYuY2j4nMYE

remember the four or five days when everyone on the internet (except for koreans) thought "gangnam style" was some kind of incisive satire of consumer capitalism?

?...no.

I forgot that he yells at a butt

it's very important to remember that.

https://eatingbender.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/never_forget_wtc1.jpg