"GANGNAM STYLE" deserves its own thread

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.

Wasn't "Major Tom (Coming Home)" released in German first, but a hit in English?

After the Fire is a good circuitous cross cultural tale: British band gets hit in America by doing English language cover of Falco song, a couple of years before Falco had his own US hits doing Falco in English.

Falco is kind of a one-and-a-half-hit wonder. I'm surprised he never had another hit after that.

man, gangnam style is all over my fb feed.

here's a gangjeong style vid made by people participating in the struggle against the building of a naval base in gangjeong village on jeju island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3g5j4CrzBw&list=UU2yyX9b_8H7KhD0Y3PrOGBQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYFmxgzPP3Q

Heard a Cantonese karaoke version of this blasting from the backroom of my Korean dry cleaners this afternoon...? All middle-aged++ employees...

girl at 29 seconds in the last video (Jade) is an obv. ilxor/future ilxor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zPP5Bvtr2Dg

p good

has this been mentioned?

BIGBANG & PSY & 2NE1 - I AM FANTASTIC GANGNAM STYLE BABY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU_p_8pXiF4

http://www.billboard.com/news/psy-signs-to-scooter-braun-s-label-will-1007922152.story

"Dress classy, dance cheesy."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bzVKxd6y6dk#at=97

^^That's Britney Spears getting a dance lesson from Psy, btw.

omg I just watched that 2NE1/BIGBANG/PSY mash-up and that is like the pinnacle of human achievement right there

so they played this song (not the mash-up) at the bar i was at Saturday. i demonstrated the horsey dance for the girl I was chatting with. she suddenly had to go find her friends :(

this song is incredible -- it's totally LMFAO-core btw, for a minute there i thought the beat might be a straight rip

omg I just watched that 2NE1/BIGBANG/PSY mash-up and that is like the pinnacle of human achievement right there

It's close, at least.

is this going to catch on with indie-types? has it already? that would interest me for various reasons

It already has, hasn't it? And I think LMFAO did to a degree.

was there a lot of ironic appreciation of "party rock anthem" as well?

pretty much ime. i think the indie reception of "gangnam" otoh has been totally unironic, most people i know who are really into are like stereogum readers.

nothing ironic about that

mostly i'm just trying to suss out how much of this is, like, "lol crazy foreigner!" ... aka would lot of the people into "gangnam style" ironically be decrying the state of pop music if this was an english-language redfoo solo track

I don't really think "crazy foreigner" has much to do with it, it's pretty clear that Psy knows exactly what he's doing. I do think the reception would be different if it were in English but I think that's mostly because this type of music is about dumb vocal mantras, and in this case nobody really knows what that mantra is besides "Heyyy, sexy lady!" Could definitely be wrong here but I think the lyrics being in Korean at least adds a new wrinkle for the type of person who would just dismiss LFMAO off-handedly

think you're giving ppl too much credit

the "knowing" take on this is that it's a social critique -- how pointed is it really? i don't know what that means in context.

i did learn about gangnam via psy, which seems like the most insane place on earth