"GANGNAM STYLE" deserves its own thread

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

It's not really much of a 'critique'. An interview with PSY surfaced quite early where he says it's just a joke - a guy who says he's high style yet acts like a crazy fool. Not sure what's so insane about Gangnam, though. Your average rich people district.

It's by far the biggest hit of the year in Korea.

oh cool the academic phase

from what i've read, no, it's not even your average rich ppl district! but that may be a consequence of korea being a huge economy on a tiny landmass

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

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, September 11, 2012 9:25 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my feeling on this is that it isn't an "lol crazy foreigner" thing and more like a "lol funny vid" thing because the humor in the vid is like idk pointed towards american sensibilities, like it's funnier than american music vids idk I don't get the sense that people look down on it but then again who knows I'm not white and I live in a korean world for a good amt of time

I finally watched the video / heard the song for the first time after seeing this phrase show up with more frequency over the last couple of weeks. I was confused why everyone was excited about something that I assumed had to do with mechanized anime robot suits.

again the only thing I can really compare this to is Daler Mehndi, which yeah had a lot of "lol India" reactions at first but I think a lot of people legitmately loved the song + video. in the case of Gangnam Style the music itself is not really different than what we're used to here. the whole video is obviously a parody of something.

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.

― een, Tuesday, September 11, 2012 11:16 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the only people that keep trying to put this on at parties are me (internet!), my friend that everyone seems to think is my brother (internet!), and another friend (korean!). usually results in one or three of us doing the horsey dance, and...ppl suddenly having to find their friends.

is this how bronies feel all the time?

btw i'm not chalking up its entire popularity to "lol foreigner"... i think there's tons of people that are genuinely into it. i mean it sounds exactly like an LMFAO, so that's no surprise. they're very popular. i'm just wondering about a certain subgroup of music fans (sorta strawman-ish admittedly, but still)

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/newsfocus/911426-can-psy-hit-gangnam-style-bring-k-pop-to-a-global-music-audience

(includes a bit of "lol foreigner" handwringing)

is this how bronies feel all the time?

hearty irl lol

lol Thermo and gbx

if you don't hear how much better this is than lmfao then there is no hope for you

can't both be really good

i think psy is infinitely more charming and memorable as a performer, but it's no zero sum game